uwws: nacho duato!—opens april 22

Compañía Nacional de Danza

PROGRAM NOTES
(nearly verbatim…left out which dancers are dancing which roles on which nights…and moved 1 section up to the top. Thanks to UW World Series for providing this information in advance and allowing us to share it.)

Arenal – Nacho Duato/ María del Mar Bonet
Kol Nidre – Nacho Duato/ John Zorn, Arvo Pärt & John Tavener

Cobalto – Nacho Duato / P. Alcalde & S. Caballero
Compañía Nacional de Danza

Arenal
Choreography: Nacho Duato
Music: María del Mar Bonet (Tonada de Segar, Carta a L’Exili, Tonada de Collir Olives, Dansa de la Primavera, Cançó de Bressol, Des de Mallorca a L’Alguer, Den Itan Nisi, Tonada de Segar.
Sets: Walter Nobbe
Costumes: Nacho Duato
Lighting Design: Edward Effron
World premiere by the Nederlands Dans Theater at the Muziektheatre, Amsterdam on January 26, 1988
Premiere by the Compañía Nacional de Danza 2 at Teatro El Bosque in Móstoles, Spain, on February 7, 2004
Costumes made by: Company Wardrobe and Babette Van Der Verg
Scenery made by: Carmina Burana
Telón de Fondo: Campbell

Arenal was choreographed by Nacho Duato, inspired by the songs of María del Mar Bonet. In this ballet, the choreographer’s purpose is to show the uninhibited cheerfulness of the Mediterranean personality contrasting with the everyday struggle of life.

Duato makes this contrast very obvious. On one hand, there is the dancing of a group of men and women motivated by the pure joy of music. Its jubilation is reflected in the clear movements of the dancers ‑- pas de deux, pas de trois, pas de quatre – set to Greek songs translated into Catalonian, and Majorcan songs by María del Mar Bonet.

On the other hand, one female dancer stands apart, dancing alone to four songs which are performed a capella. These songs seem to arise from an agonizing outcry of the heart. The dancer’s movements are nearer to the ground than those of the others. This is to express the influence of the land. Colour, choreography, movement, everything is undeniably Mediterranean.

Nacho Duato had worked with María del Mar Bonet in another ballet, Jardí Tancat. “Her music constitutes an important source of inspiration for my work,” says the choreographer. “Later, while I was listening to her record Gavines I Dragons, the idea of Arenal immediately occurred to me. At once, I began to consider the possibility of María del Mar Bonet joining us to give a live performance of her songs.” Duato sees Arenal as an extension of his first work, Jardí Tancat. “It is more vital, more lively, more faithful to the inner rhythm of the songs themselves, without abandoning the worlds of people and of work”.

Kol Nidre
North American Premiere
Choreography: Nacho Duato
Music: John Tavener, Arvo Pärt and John Zorn
Scenography and Costumes: Nacho Duato
Lighting Design: Joop Caboort
Premiered by Compañía Nacional de Danza 2 at Teatro de Madrid, on 22nd January 2009
Premiered by Compañía Nacional de Danza at Gran Teatro Falla, Cádiz, on 30th October 2009
Kol Nidre is the name of the declaration recited in the synagogue, prior to commencement of the evening service of Yom Kippur. Its name is taken from the initial letters of the declaration, and the service is a time to reflect and forgive.

These are the building blocks taken by Duato in his new creation for Compañía Nacional de Danza 2. Kol Nidre is an introspective, spiritual work that reflects on the situation of the youngest during armed conflict: those known as “war children.”

Cobalto
North American Premiere
Choreography: Nacho Duato
Music: Pedro Alcalde / Sergio Caballero (organ player: Juan de la Rubia; Blancafort organ at the Church of Collbató)
Sets: Nacho Duato
Costumes: Lydia Delgado
Lighting Design: Brad Fields
World premiere by Compañía Nacional de Danza at Teatro de la Zarzuela, on 20th March 2009.
Costumes made by: Company Wardrobe
Scenery made by: Company
Props by: Mambo Decorados

Cobalto is a reflection on erotism. Duato approaches the subject from an oneiric point of view, submerging himself in the world of erotic dreams. The piece is created for ten dancers. Duato grants the music primordial importance in his creations and, in Cobalto, he again returns to his usual composers, Pedro Alcalde and Sergio Caballero. Cobalto is a piece composed for a single instrument, the organ. The music was recorded at the church of Collbató on a Blancafort organ, by the organist Juan de la Rubia.

Duato also has the lighting designer Brad Fields on his artistic team. He is the lighting director for the American Ballet Theatre and has been a faithful collaborator with Duato for all his premieres for many years. One striking first for this work is the costume design created by Lydia Delgado, a fashion designer.

“It is like a colour (blue) and energy, but it belongs to the negative side and in its supreme purity it is, as one would say, a precious nothingness. Its effect is a mixture of excitation and serenity.” — Goethe.

In color theory, blue is holy and pornographic, prudish and obscene. It is used in the English expression “the blues,” understood as sad, but it is also like “verde,” (“green” in Spanish), meaning erotic or obscene. Cobalt blue is the maximum example of that bipolarity. Beautiful, arrogant and celestial, it conceals its mineral origin (known as “flower of cobalt”), a mixture of cobalt arsenide and nickel that form a crystal on contact with the air. Toxic and poisonous due to its arsenic — the elf-blue that tormented miners — it was christened with the German name by which we know it: kobelt. Cobalt blue is, of all the colors, the color of unconscious history.


ABOUT THE COMPANY & ARTISTS
Compañía Nacional de Danza was founded in 1979 under the name of Ballet Nacional de España Clásico, and its first director was Víctor Ullate.

In 1983, the direction of the Ballets Nacionales Español Clásico was given to María de Avila who put Ray Barra (a former North American dancer and choreographer living in Spain) in charge of a number of choreographies. De Avila later offered him the post of assistant director, which he held until 1990. In December 1987, Maya Plisetskaya was appointed the company’s artistic director.

The appointment of renowned dancer and choreographer Nacho Duato as artistic director of Compañía Nacional de Danza in June 1990 has meant an innovative change in the company’s direction. It is Duato’s firm intention to transform the Compañía into a ballet with a personality of its own, one which adopts a more contemporary style, without neglecting the classical precepts. To achieve this, Duato includes new choreographic work in the Company’s repertoire created specially for it, alongside established works whose quality has already been proven and recognized. Nacho Duato also contributes his own internationally renowned, prize-winning choreography to the Company’s repertoire.

Nacho Duato

Born in Valencia, Spain. Nacho Duato began his professional ballet training at the age of 18 at the Rambert School in London. He furthered his dance studies at Maurice Béjart’s Mudra School in Brussels and completed his dance education at The Alvin Ailey American Dance Center in New York City.

Duato signed his first professional contract with the Cullberg Ballet in Stockholm in 1980 and a year later Jirí Kylián brought him to the Nederlands Dans Theater in Holland, where he was quickly assimilated into the company and its repertoire. In recognition of his achievement as a dancer, Duato received the Golden Dance Award in Schouwburgen, Netherlands in 1987.

Duato’s natural talent as a dancer led him to begin exploring choreography, and his first attempt at it in 1983 turned into a major success: Jardí Tancat, set to Catalanan music by fellow Spaniard Mª del Mar Bonet won him the first prize at the International Choreographic Workshop in Cologne. In 1988, Nacho Duato was named Resident Choreographer for Nederlands Dans Theater alongside Hans van Manen and Jirí Kylián.

Nacho Duato has been the artistic director of Compañía Nacional de Danza since June of 1990, when he has invited to take the position by the Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música of the Spanish Ministry of Culture.

His ballets are now found in the repertoire of a host of international companies including Cullberg Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, Deutsche Oper Ballet, Australian Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Ballet Gulbenkian, Finnish Opera Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Royal Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. His choreography White Darkness has been a part of the repertoire of the Ballet of the Opera of Paris since November 2006.

In 1995, he received the title of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, presented annually by the French Embassy in Spain. The Spanish Government awarded him the Golden Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts in 1998. He won the Benois de la Danse at the Stuttgart Opera presented by the International Dance Association for Multiplicity. Forms of Silence and Emptiness in April of 2000. In 2003, Duato became the winner of Spain’s National Dance Award, in the Creative category.

Pedro Alcalde
Composer (COBALTO)
Born in Barcelona, Alcalde studied piano, flute, violin and composition in his native city, as well as graduating with a degree in philosophy from the University of Barcelona. He studied orchestra conducting at Columbia University, New York, where he earned his M.A. He then studied with Professor Karl Österreicher at the Hochschule für Musik, Vienna, and worked as second conductor at Vienna Opera. In 1984, he won the international conductors’ competition held in Bad-Wiessee (Germany). That same year, he conducted The Soldier’s Tale by Stravinsky at the Horace Mann Auditorium in New York. He was assistant conductor at the Vienna Philharmonic in 1990, and at the Berlin Philharmonica with Claudio Abbado from 1991 to 1996.

He has conducted numerous European orchestras, such as those of Madrid, Barcelona, Bolonia, Ferrara, Roma, Nueva York, Berlin, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Osaka, etc. In 1996, he began a series of experimental recordings for the SFB of Berlin with Beethoven’s last sonatas and the last works of György Kurtág. Pedro Alcalde has interpreted works by notable contemporary composers such as Sotelo, Goyette, Kurtág, Rihm or Nono, conducting the premiere of their compositions on occasions. He has directed the ballet Self by Alberto Iglesias, with choreography by Nacho Duato, in addition to the music for the John Malkovich film The Dancer Upstairs.

Since 1998, he regularly collaborates with the choreographer Nacho Duato and the National Dance Company (CND), with whom he has worked on diverse projects such as that of Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev, the Symphony of Psalms by Stravinsky or the Wesendonk Lieder by Wagner. He composed the following ballets with Sergio Caballero: Herrumbre (2004), Seventeen (2005), Alas (2006), Hevel (2007) and Cobalto (2009).

Sergio Caballero
Composer(COBALTO)
Sergio Caballero was born in Barcelona. In 1985 he founded the Los Rinos group with Marcel.lí Antúnez and Pau Nubiola, staging happenings, performance art and theatre with wild, provocative humour and implausible stories as the common denominator.

Caballero is a multi-faceted musician and artist, and in 1987 he founded the musical group Jumo with Enric Les Palau, as well as composing pieces for dance and theatre. In 1989 he staged an exhibition entitled Sergio Caballero Famous Throughout the Whole World, a humoristic and sceptical reflection on authorship of art.

Since 1994 he has been the co-director of the Sónar International Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art.


Lydia Delgado
Costume designer (COBALTO)
She was born in Barcelona. Her first contacts with the world of art go back to her youthful years as a ballerina at the Gran Teatro de Opera del Liceu. She entered the fashion world after a chance meeting with the designer Antonio Miró, with whom she collaborated for some time at his creative workshop before beginning her own career. In 1989, the designer opened her own atelier at calle Minerva in the city centre, an intimate setting with its own personality and reminiscences of haute couture. A short time later, she inaugurated her shop in Barcelona, coinciding with her 1991 fashion show presentation on the Pasarela Gaudí.

Her first collections are couture creations elaborated with patience and emotion, in which one may see a continual search for artistic expression.

In 1997, Lydia Delgado launched her pret a porter line on the market as a more affordable proposal, although without renouncing her commitment to careful, perfectionist work. Her garments suggest daring combinations that are not lacking in irony, that seek to provoke a different way of looking at oneself and reality.

In 2000, Lydia presented her collection for brides, a striking, avant garde proposal, at the Royal Palace of Pedralbes.

A year later, Pronovias entered into a licensing agreement with Lydia Delgado for worldwide distribution of the Lydia Delgado Brides collections.

In 2004, Lydia Delgado inaugurated her shop in Madrid, in the central Salamanca neighbourhood.

Lydia Delgado is now a consecrated figure on the national fashion scene. Her exclusive world has an distinguishable identity of its own, the result of personal perseverance to conserve her original values over the years: passion for quality, artistic creativity, visual strength, a weakness for details and elegance without ostentation. Prizes and recognitions include Marie Claire fashion prize 2007, Antonio Gaudi Gold Medal 2003, European Citizen Prize 2003, T de Telva for the best Spanish designer 2000, Entrepreneurial Woman prize (FIDEM) 1999, Silver T de Telva 1998

Brad Fields
Lighting Designer(COBALTO)
Born in North Carolina, USA, Brad Fields has worked for the past 20 years in over 20 countries lighting all areas of the performing arts. For Compañía Nacional de Danza, he has designed the lighting for Nacho Duato’s Gilded Goldbergs, Alas, Castrati, Sueños de Éter, Arcangelo, Ofrenda de Sombras, Multiplicidad. Formas de Silencio y Vacío, Without Words, and Remanso.

He is the lighting director for American Ballet Theatre where he has designed the lighting for numerous ballets including Coppelia, La Fille Mal Gardée, and Within You Without You: A tribute to George Harrison . Other credits include Natalia Makarova’s La Bayadére for the Australian Ballet and Bella Lewitzky’s Meta 4 for the Lewitzky Dance Company.

He has designed for Ballet Argentina, Boston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Royal Ballet, Lyon Opera Ballet, Houston Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theatre, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Los Angeles Chamber Ballet , North Carolina Black Repertory Company and North Carolina Dance Theater.

María del Mar Bonet
Voice (Arenal)
Born in the island of Majorca where she learned traditional Balearic songs as a small child Maria del Mar Bonet arrives to Barcelona around 1967 and began to sing with Els Setze Jutges, and important group of catalonian composers-singers, and made her first stage appearances and first record with four traditional songs from Menorca.

The following year, the Franco regime’s censors forbade her to sing one of her most popular songs “Què volen aquesta gent”. She began her first performances abroad in the early seventies in France, Denmark, England and has visited the following countries during the course during the course of her cerreer: Switzerland, Venezuela, Mexico, Portugal, Poland, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Greece, Tunisia, Holland , Belgium, the fromer URSS, and Japan.

In 1971, one of her records with the songs “ L’aguila negra” ( The Black eagle) and “ No voldria res més ara”, won the spanish golden disk award.

A few years later, Maria del Mar Bonet began a series of concerts in the Plaça del rei in Barcelona ( Festival) which have been continued every summer until the present and have become an excellent opportunity for her to meet up again with her Barcelona public.

In 1981 she recorded “ Jardí Tancat” in Paris with arrangements by Jacques Denjean in cooperation with Alan Stivell. In 1984 the french government awarded her the Charles Cross Academy Prize for the best forign record edited in France. That same year she was awarded the Cross of Sant Jordi, the highets distinction of Catalunya.

In 1985, as a result of her interest and research into North African music, she recorded “ Anells d’aigua” with the Ensemble of Music Traditionelle di Tunis, and went on tour around France and Spain.

A years later she toured Spain with the internationally famous Brazillian musician Milton Nascimiento offering an international blend of mediterranean music and southamerican rhtyms. The tour will be extended to Brazil the year after.

In the field of research into new arthistic forms, Maria del Mar Bonet presented “Arenal” in 1988, with the international spanish choreographer and dancer Nacho Duato, combining song and dance in this case, and obtaining an excellent public response in every country in which they performed. Nacho Duato has done other choreographies with music of Maria del Mar Bonet as “Jardí tancat” (1st prize for choreography at Köln, Germany), and “Cor perdut”.

During 1992 Maria del Mar Bonet sang the welcome song at the International Perelada Music Festival, acontemporary musical work composed and performed by the guitarrist Feliu Gasull, the Theatre Lliure Chamber orchestra and the Ars Nova from Budapest. She received the National prize 1992 awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya ( Catalan Government) for popularinzing catalan flok music and presented her new show “ The Greece of Theodorakis” in Plaça del rei in Barcelona, after she recorded “El.las”

Early in 1994 Maria del Mar Bonet presents with Zülfu Livanelli her show “ Merhaba” about Livanelli’s work with great succeess in the Grec Festival of Barcelona.

In 1995 she presents “ Salmaia” a selection of themes fform diferent mediterranean countries ( Turkey, Sicilia, Greece, Napoli..) with the colaboration of “Ensemble de Musique Traditionelle de Tunis” under the conduction of Féthi Zghonda. One of most important cultural events, the “Edinburg International Festival” invite Maria del Mar Bonet to perform this new show on two days performances with a huge success; “one of Europe-possibly the world’s-major voices” ( Jan Fairley from “ The Scotsman, Edinburgh, 28th august’95)

In 1996, invited by the International Conference “Habitat” organized by the UNESCO, Maria del Mar Bonet performs, with a enormeus success, in Istanbul. In summer ’96 she perform as a first time in Canada, in Montreal, in Québec, at two of the most prestigious Festivals in America.

In 1997 Maria del Mar Bonet celebrates 30 years of music work. For this reason, she plays in a significant concert in The Palau Sant jordi, at Barcelona with 14.000 people. In this concert, broadcast live by television, she sings with international guests like Lluis Llach, Joan Manel Serrat, ( Catalonia) Nena Venetsanou (Greece), Catherine Allard ( Belgium dancer), Féthi Zghonda ( Tunisia)…As a result of this concert, Maria del Mar Bonet presents a double album recorded alive and calle, as the concert was, “ El cor del temps”. In september, invited by the UNESCO, she performs on Thessalonic, European Cultural Capital 1997.

1998 is the year of the concerts abroad and colaborations in the music works of other well known spanish artist as Amancio Prada, Loquillo, Jordi Sabatés and Rosa Vergés.. With special enphasize in her colaboration for the record homage to Jackson Browne “Sing my songs” performing “ Song for Adam”. Abroad performances to point up:

Celtic Conection Festival in Glasglow ( Scotland), Cantiga do Maio in Lisboa ( Portugal), Festival Donnes in Musica, Fiuggi ( Italy), and other cities as Lausanne, Stocholm and Sicilia.

During july Maria del Mar Bonet presents for the first time in Barcelona a famous italian singer Lucilla Galeazzi playing together in Plaça del rei with success.

In september she travels to South America presenting “El Cor del temps” ( published by Acqua Records from Argentina) with concerts in Buenos Aires, Rios de la Plata, Parana and Santiago de Chile to the Salvador Allende homenage concert.

In the beginning of 1999 Maria del Mar Bonet records her new album “ Cavall de foc” with 12 traditional and mediterranean songs. With this album receives the premium SGAE 2000 for the song “ Com un mirall” . A few months later she receives the Premium from catalan government to the best arthistic carreer.

During summer 2000 she will sing at Festival Midem Cannes 2000, inside the “ mediterranean night”. She also make a spanish tour with Jackson Browne. On 29th july sings in Munich with Zülfu Livanelli and Maria Farantouri in the tribute concert to Mikis Theodorakis, with 14.000 people.

As a a result of this meeting, Maria Farantouri & Maria del Mar Bonet during 2001 make a tour around Spain at the best theatres of our country: Salamanca, Pamplona, Córdoba, Auditorio Barcelona…

While this happens Maria del Mar expands her international presence at Boston, Philadelphia,(USA) Rudolstadt (Germany), Lisboa and Coimbra ( Portugal), Tunis, and Rumania.

In july 2001 Maria del Mar Bonet records alive at festival Grec in Barcelona, during her five concerts , ( to celebrate her 25 years singing at this Festival, ) , her last CD called Raixa.

Raixa tour has started in Spain and will visit during 2002-2003 different countries as Istanbul, Athens ( Womad Festival, 16th june) , France ( Bezier), Italy (Torino), London ( Mediterranean Festival, 21th june ), USA ( december) , Canada and Quebec, Holland and Bellgium (february 2003), Japan ( june 2003)..

Raixa has been nominated by 6th edition of Premios de la Música as Best album on Folk Music, Best Album in Catalan and Best arrenger in Les Veus de Raixa.

Raixa tour has started in Spain and will visit during 2002-2003 different countries as Istanbul, Athens ( Womad Festival, 16th june) , France ( Bezier), Italy (Torino), London ( Mediterranean Festival, 21th june ), USA ( december) , Canada and Quebec, Holland and Bellgium (february 2003), Japan ( june 2003).

Artistic Director: Nacho Duato
Principal Dancers:
Tamako Akiyama, Luisa María Arias,
Ana Tereza Gonzaga, África Guzmán,
Ana María López, Yolanda Martín,
Clyde Archer, Gentian Doda, Jean Phillipe Dury, Thomas Klein, Francisco Lorenzo, Isaac Montllor, Lucio Vidal,

Corps de Ballet:
Stephanie Dalphond, Kayoko Everhart, Macarena González, Liuva Horta,
Marina Jiménez, Inês Pereira, Soojee Watman, Peter Agardi, Michael Carther, Randy Castillo, Joaquín Crespo, Stein Fluijt, Joel Toledo, Francesco Vecchione, Daan Vervoort, Javier Monzón