Dutch National Ballet Academy - Ernst Meisner

Filmed during class, rehearsals and this year's performance of Dansers van Morgen, this short documentary on the Dutch National Ballet Academy includes an interview with artistic director Ernst Meisner who talks about the structure of the academy, some of the ballets in the end-of-year performance and how the school has been able to accept nine displaced Ukrainian ballet students. Three of the academy's graduates share their audition experiences and job successes.
Dutch National Ballet Academy
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR - ERNST MEISNER
ARTISTIC ADVISER - TED BRANDSEN
DANSERS VAN MORGEN
End of Year Performance
Excerpts from
The Sleeping Beauty, Garland Dance
CHOREOGRAPHY - ERNST MEISNER
Artifact Suite
CHOREOGRAPHY - WILLIAM FORSYTHE
Harmless Banter
CHOREOGRAPHY - MAYA SMALLWOOD
Raymonda - Mazurka
CHOREOGRAPHY - MARIUS PETIPA / STAGING - RACHEL BEAUJEAN
If Only I Knew The Right Way
CHOREOGRAPHY - ZOË GRETEN
Poulenc Suite
CHOREOGRAPHY - ERNST MEISNER
Graduates’ Contracts for the 2022-23 Season
Lauren Alving - Junior Ballet Antwerp
Gil Ben Ayon - Slovenian National Ballet
Christiana de Blank - Royal Swedish Ballet
Lily Carbone - 2nd Year Junior Company, Dutch National Ballet
Poppi Eccleston - 1st Year Junior Company, Dutch National Ballet
Matteo Fogli - Ballet National de Marseille
Yuma Funai - Junior Company, Compagnie Chorégrafique François Maudit
Zoë Greten - Nederlands Dans Theatre II, apprentice
Grace Humphris - Introdans, apprentice
Nicola Jones - 2nd Year Junior Company, Dutch National Ballet
Himari Kamigaito - Ballet do Douro, Portugal
Kirill Monereo de la Sota - Royal Swedish Ballet
Rui Nagahori - Baltic Opera, Gdansk
Arisa Namba - Ballet of the State Opera Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Natsuna Oya - Hungarian National Ballet
Robin Park - 1st Year Junior Company, Dutch National Ballet
Gabriel Rajah - 2nd Year Junior Company, Dutch National Ballet
Carolina Ribaldone - 1st Year, Junior Company, Dutch National Ballet
João Santana Domingos - Royal Swedish Ballet
Wisse Scheele - Slovakian National Ballet
Calista Shepheard - Les Grands Ballets Canadiens
Clara Strassel - Washington Ballet trainee
Soshi Suzuki - 1st Year Junior Company, Dutch National Ballet
Mingus de Swaan - Joffrey Ballet Studio Company
Konosuke Takeoka - Béjart Ballet Lausanne
Sarah Trinder - Slovakian National Ballet
Olmo Verbeeck - Finnish National Ballet
Lea Visser - Introdans
Louisella Vogt - 2nd Year Junior Company, Dutch National Balle
t
Sven de Wilde - 2nd Year Junior Company, Dutch National Ballet
Ayano Yokoi - K-Ballet, Japan
Classes, rehearsals and performance filmed at
DUTCH NATIONAL OPERA AND BALLET
AMSTERDAM
FILMED AND EDITED BY
Emma Kauldhar
A DANCE EUROPE FILM
© 2022

[@elizzy8754]

I'd love to see the full Poulenc Suite. Great energy and dancing.

[@breamatt]

Amazing ❤️

[@c.stephanieberry8695]

When I saw one girl doing six pirouettes I thought OK the pirouette drought is over. I haven’t seen anyone do six pirouettes. I’m talking of a woman. I didn’t see any of these Dutchmen doing six either you did an amazing thing God bless you

[@bilberkaur]

💟

[@x_gamer9685]

Le sserafim Kazhuha brought me here

[@normamimosa5991]

Re: Your Garden Dance: Tights in a performance are part of costuming. In a corps, they are part of creating the symmetry so important in ballet. The notion of matching tights to skin tones is misguided - ridiculous. Clashing tights break the symmetry and unfairly - negatively, or positively leaving the others out - draws full attention to dancers wearing the mismatched tights (or no tights). By all means match tights to skin tones or anything else in the studio, or even in solo parts.
In an African ballet company performing Swan Lake, how do you think it would look with a corps, all wearing darker tights, with one white dancer in pink tights or no tights. Perhaps that picture will illustrate the absurdity of this new idea. In your Forsythe piece, great symmetry and look with all the dancers in black, cut-off tights. How would it go down if a light skinned dancer insisted on wearing white tights.
This is a costuming issue, not a race issue. As far as skin color goes (I believe we all belong to one race, the human race), the trials, tribulations and commitment to be accepted into great companies, such as the Dutch National Ballet, are the same for all dancers. Black dancers are equally as good as white dancers; and in my many years of being in the ballet world, I have been in class with, and watched many extraordinarily good black dancers - watching them at the Dutch National Ballet too. They don't need to be separated out by wearing different costumes than the rest of the dancers.
Having said that, congratulations on being able to all move to one building when that new building is completed. Most of all, thank you for all you do for ballet, so often featuring your amazing dancers, choreographic works, teachers and classes. We are privileged beyond words, to be able to peek into your incredible company, when we can't be at performances in person.