Financially Supported by HCA2005

The Royal Danish Theatre
Project Managing: The Royal Danish Theatre.
"The Little Mermaid". The Andersen bicentenary will be celebrated with a new full-scale Hans Christian Andersen ballet. The world renowned American-born choreographer and Artistic Director of the Hamburg Ballet, John Neumeier has been commissioned to create an entirely new and modern grand spectacle for the Danish company. The score will be composed by Lera Auerbach. The ballet will be performed at the Copenhagen Opera House, Main Stage, and is Danish Royal Theatre's principal contribution to the Andersen bicentenary. World premiere: 15 April 2005.

Choreography: John Neumeier
Music: Lera Auerbach
Set and costume design: John Neumeier
Direction: John Neumeier
Conductor: Graham Bond 
www.kgl-teater.dk

The Royal Danish Theatre
During the school autumn break in 2005, the Old Stage at the Royal Danish Theatre will host a major children's ballet production based on one of Hans Christian Andersen's fairytales. As always, the production will feature pupils of the Royal Danish Theatre Ballet School. Pär Isberg is the choreographer. Performed at the Old Stage, 15 - 19 October 2005.
www.kgl-teater.dk

Theater Bonn / Johan Kresnik (Germany)
The title is a paraphrase of Hans Christian Andersen's own biography, "The Fairy Tale of my Life". But was his life really a fairytale? What about the nightmares that haunted the storyteller? What about the anxiety which almost had the better of him?
Johann Kresnik is one of the leading choreographers in Germany. Among his celebrated dance performances, which all portray great personalities, Kresnik now turns to the dark side of Hans Christian Andersen's life. The style he adopts is 'choreographic theatre', which interprets Andersen and his recurrent attacks of phobia as abstract figments of mind.
Johan Kresnik was born in Austria in 1939. He started to choreograph in the late 1960s following an extensive dance career. Up though the 1990s, he was the Artistic Director of the Academy of Dance at the prestigious Volksbühne in Berlin. He has formerly created choreographic portraits of as different artists as Frida Kahlo, Leni Riefenstahl, Goya, and Picasso and of Rote Arme Fraktion member Ulrike Meinhof. His Francis Bacon performance was staged during the Aarhus Festival in 1994.
Kresnik and his company have been the resident company at the theatre in Bonn since 2003 where the Andersen performance will premiere in November 2005 and will later be staged at the Concert Hall Aarhus in the spring of 2006.
http://theaterbonn.bgp.de

Arc Dance (UK)
"Hans Christian Andersen - The anatomy of a storyteller". The dance performance is created by the Anglo-Danish choreographer Kim Brandstrup. A set design of huge video projections will thrust the audience to and fro between the outer and inner worlds of Andersen. Kim Brandstrup has throughout his career worked along alternate narrative strategies with his dance performances. This dance performance will investigate the narrative mechanisms of the traditional folktale and demonstrate how Hans Christian Andersen reshaped the genres to create an ambiguous universe that embraces irony, caricature and naivety as well his unique sense of resignation, suffering and self-sacrifice.

The performance will be staged in a visual landscape of artificial, animated models constantly undergoing transformation both textually and rhythmically. The cinematically inspired sets will be designed by the brothers Quay and will feature a cast of 11 dancers, trained in classical ballet as well as modern dance. Ian Dearden?s newly composed score is inspired by Schubert. The performance premiered in Devon in March 2004 and has toured the UK with sold-out performances at, among other places, the Lindbury Theatre and the Royal Opera House: 3 - 6 November 2004. An international tour is being planned.
In Denmark: Guest performance at the Royal Danish Theatre, 23 - 28 September.
www.arcdance.com

Troubleyn / Jan Fabre (Belgium)
"History of Tears". The Belgian choreographer/visual artist/theatre director Jan Fabre will create the second part of his major dance trilogy devoted to man and the human body. "History of Tears" is about the bodily fluids - our amazing and irrational tears of happiness and pain, our sweat as well as the tears of God falling from heaven. Drawing inspiration from the many tears represented in Andersen?s world, including "The Little Mermaid", Fabre poses questions such as: "What right do lovers have to weep?" and "When were the tears of human sensitivity transformed into female sentimentality?" Jan Fabre was born in Antwerp in 1958 and was one of the major stars of the performing arts during the 1990s. Although he chooses not to define himself as a choreographer, his performances nonetheless focus on the body as an expressive media. His performances draw on a wide range of artistic genres, including dance, spoken drama, and visual art. The results are choreographed and highly visual and dynamic performances.
The performance will be staged at the distinguished Cour d'Honneur at the Papal Palace in Avignon co-produced by DeSingle of Antwerp. The performance will be staged at the Concert Hall Aarhus during the Aarhus Festival in 2005.
www.troubleyn.be

The Australian Ballet (Australia)
Project Manager: David McAllister, Artistic Director of the Australian Ballet.
"Wild Swans". A ballet by choreographer Meryl Tankard and composer Elena Kats-Chernin based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale The Wild Swans and rendered in a personal and innovative artistic style that combines the classical tradition with expressive contemporary dance. The result is graphically visual and entertaining ballet. The performance is co-produced by the Australian Ballet and the Sydney Opera House where it has already been a box-office hit. The ballet will be performed as family entertainment at the Royal Danish Theatre during the autumn school break 2005, 18 - 22 October.
www.australianballet.com.au


Logo Cooperations

Space Factory (Japan)
Contact person: Hanayagi Yukashi
"Let's Play with Andersen". The Japanese theatre group Space Factory will perform an interactive theatre-dance performance based on Hans Christian Andersen?s fairytales "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Little Mermaid". Space Factory, which was established in 1992, seeks to rediscover Japanese tradition and spirit while incorporating western influence. "Let's Play with Andersen" will be a combination of the three previous performances by the group ("Trilogy of Andersen's Stories").  
Performed in Japan on 17 July 2005 at Bank ART 1929 Yokohama (Yokohama City, Kanagawa).
www.land-net.co.jp/~sfactory