Events-CICB
Highgate/London, England, April 10th to 15th 2012, Easter Course
Highgate/London, England, April 10th to 15th 2012, will be the scene of a Bournonville-Cecchetti Encounter, in association with the Société Auguste Vestris, and will consist of a dancers/student teachers’ course, presentations and a weekend seminar with lecture demonstrations and film showings. The Bournonville and Cecchetti methods rely upon on a rotation of Days-of-the Week. They are, with the Vaganova School, the only methods that have come down to us, the modern French School, a product of Gustave Ricaux, having never yet been documented. Unlike the Vaganova School, these are methods rather than a system. Bournonville and Cecchetti’s approach is problem-solving: each Day of the Week looks at a specific difficulty, or in the case of Cecchetti, at a specific principle, returning to it over and again whether to the left, the right, moving upstage and downstage or in reverse, until the dancer has solved the problem for himself.
For August Bournonville and Enrico Cecchetti, classical dancing was neither a sport, nor a branch of gymnastics. First and foremost, it is a movement in the mind, that manifests itself through the pairing of music and gesture, rather than words. They accepted that Form is Function, and that true beauty will emerge only from a proper use of the human frame, and most especially, the spinal column which is an extension of the brain. The splendid plastique and high theatricality that we admire even in their classwork, is possible only because both respected the limitations of that frame. One of the seminar’s major aims is to help each student become aware of the principles that will be studied, so that he or she can later apply them to other work elsewhere. The other focus will be on theatricality.
The Highgate seminar is fortunate in that Flemming Ryberg of the Royal Danish Ballet and Richard Glasstone from London, who are perhaps the two leading specialists in the world in the Bournonville and Cecchetti methods respectively, will be teaching. Dame Marina Keet of the Spanish Dance Society has said that she is happy to do a presentation and ask one of her senior teachers, Conchita del Campo, to teach as well as our theme this year will be Spain. Escuela Bolera is included because of its links to Bournonville and Cecchetti, both of whom loved the school and style.They will be joined by a third Cecchetti specialist, Julie Cronshaw. In addition to daily technique classes in the two Schools, and two mime classes, students will study and perform publicly on April 13th/14th, passages from Bournonville’s La Ventana and Far from Denmark. These are influenced by the Escuela Bolera which held the greatest fascination for Bournonville – and for Flemming Ryberg whose ancestors were Spanish! Following each day’s classes, the students who so wish will be invited to attend a one-hour talk led by the participants.
For further information please contact julieannecronshaw.orangehome.co.uk.
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