Dance Scene and Trends in Germany

In the year of its 50th anniversary Stuttgart Ballet has been elected “Company of the Year 2011” by the European dance critics in the traditional survey of the journal “tanz”.

The jury members decided in favour of the versatile and internationally renowned Stuttgart company “ because it … continues to present itself as a world-class company” (Klaus Kieser) and “with productions such as Marco Goecke’s Orlando it stays young” (Andrea Kachelrieß). “Despite occasional signs of fatigue” said the critic Hartmut Regitz, the troupe showed itself to be “as young and creative as in John Cranko’s days”.

“Stuttgart Ballet Miracle” with John Cranko

The “Stuttgart Ballet Miracle” began in 1961 with the South-African-British choreographer John Cranko (1927 – 1973). He created a neo-classical company of world class. It included the petite Brazilian Marcia Haydée, the elegant German Birgit Keil, the striking American Richard Cragun and the lively Dane Egon Madsen. Without these dancers he would hardly have been able to create his three narrative ballets which are still being performed throughout the world - Romeo and Juliet, Onegin and The Taming of the Shrew - in their dramaturgical clarity and technical quality with their breathtakingly beautiful pas-de-deux. Cranko launched the regular programmes of the “Noverre Society” with premiere performances of new pieces by dancers from the company’s own ranks. Among those he encouraged to produce their first choreographies were the later renowned ballet directors John Neumeier (Hamburg Ballet), Jiři Kylián (Nederlands Dans Theater) and William Forsythe (Frankfurt Ballet / Forsythe Company). To facilitate the recruitment of up-and-coming talent he founded the first German boarding school for young ballet dancers. This heyday ended abruptly; Cranko died on the return flight from a highly acclaimed guest performance in New York, he was only 46 years old.

After a brief intermezzo under the then resident choreographer Glen Tetley, Marcia Haydée took over the artistic directorship in 1976. She led the company for twenty years, rejuvenated it, extended its repertoire and invited guests with styles quite different from that of Cranko’s, for example Hans van Manen and Maurice Béjart. With a keen eye she discovered and promoted choreographic talents such as Uwe Scholz, ballet director in Zürich and Leipzig until his early death in 2004, or Daniela Kurz, ballet director in Nuremberg from 1998-2008. Haydée was succeeded by another former Cranko dancer, the Canadian Reid Anderson. Thus everything remained in the “family”.

Family firm and global player

50 years after Cranko’s arrival in Stuttgart, the “family firm” with its ensemble of 66 dancers from 23 countries, the “Noverre Society” for the promotion of up-and-coming choreographic talent and the John-Cranko-School has become a veritable global player. Director Reid Anderson regularly conducts rehearsals of Cranko’s ballets in various countries throughout the world. In this he is assisted by the German-Greek choreologist Georgette Tsinguirides, also one of the very first Cranko dancers. In 2012 the company will travel to Japan and Korea.

About a dozen former dancers went on to become ballet directors in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and Chile. In Hamburg John Neumeier created his own ballet empire. Birgit Keil has enjoyed great success as the energetic director of Mannheim’s Academy of Dance and Ballet at the Staatstheater Karlsruhe in Baden. Christian Spuck and Marco Goecke, the current resident choreographers in Stuttgart, are both pursuing international careers.

In 2012 the 42-year-old Spuck will take over from Heinz Spoerli as artistic director of the Zürich Ballet. He is the second Stuttgarter to hold this post after Uwe Scholz. Like Cranko and Neumeier he tells multi-facetted stories by means of dance and choreographs enchanting pas de deux, for example in Leonce und Lena, Poppea // Poppea and the duet Don Q. for Egon Madsen and Eric Gauthier. On 10. Februar 2012, his ballet Das Fräulein von S. , based on the novella by E.T.A. Hoffmann, will be premiered. Four months later Stuttgart Ballet will bid him farewell with a gala performance.

Marco Goecke, born in Wuppertal in 1972, is one of the “incomer” artists. Trained in Munich and The Hague, he then danced in Berlin and Hagen. Following his first choreographies in Hagen, Holland and Stuttgart at the invitation of the Noverre Society, when he had just turned 30 he was nominated almost simultaneously as resident choreographer of the Scapino Ballet in Rotterdam and of the Stuttgart Ballet. Goecke’s latest sensational success in Stuttgart is Orlando, based on Virginia Woolf’s novel. It was even possible for an “enfant terrible” to thrive within the ranks of the Stuttgart ballerinos whose formative influence was clearly the neo-classicism of the 20th century – the Canadian Eric Gauthier. In 2001 this dancer founded a band. In 2007 he established Stuttgart’s first regular ensemble for contemporary dance in the Theaterhaus. There he recently presented a dance performance with 3D video passages. The “Gauthier Dance Mobil” gives guest performances with pieces by top contemporary choreographers in hospitals, homes for the elderly and in youth centres.

The third generation

With dancers such as the 19-year-old Daniel Camargo and the 25-year-old Demis Volpi, the most recent choreographic discovery, Stuttgart Ballet is entering the third generation. When the 62-year-old Reid Anderson leaves, then the Cranko era will finally come to an end. One can only hope that the successors will have the courage to keep the doors of this time-honoured house in the Schlosspark open – or at least ajar - for a broader spectrum of contemporary dance.