Since Saturday 13 February, the Junior Company has been performing at theatres throughout the Netherlands in Ballet Bubbles, their fourth touring programme. The Junior Company is a cooperative venture between Dutch National Ballet and the National Ballet Academy, to give gifted students of the school the opportunity to develop further within a professional working environment. Currently, seven students and former students of the National Ballet Academy are part of the Junior Company.
The Junior Company was founded in 2013, with the aim of bridging the gap between dance training and professional ballet practice. Dancers from the company work on Dutch National Ballet productions, and the ensemble presents its own productions, which go on tour in the Netherlands and abroad. Every year, dancers from the Junior Company move up to the main company and to other leading dance companies around the world.
Ballet Bubbles introduces audiences to a wide variety of ballet styles. The programme ranges from the pas de six from the nineteenth-century La Vivandière (presented for the first time in the Netherlands) to new works created especially for the occasion by Ernst Meisner and the talented 18-year-old British choreographer Charlotte Edmonds.
Jean-Yves Esquerre, artistic director of the National Ballet Academy, staged the Pas de Six from La Vivandière that was passed on to him from the great master Pierre Lacotte and his assistant Anne Hutchinson-Guest, who reconstructed the nineteenth-century ballet in 1978 for the American Joffrey Ballet. ‘It’s special in the fact that it’s probably the first piece ever choreographed by a woman’, says Esquerre. Although she was not mentioned alongside her husband and chief choreographer Arthur Saint-León, it was Fanny Cerrito who created this pas de six, in which Kathi and Hans – the protagonists of the ballet – celebrate their coming marriage with four of Kathi’s friends. The choreography shows the pure, refined French ballet style, with lots of light, elegant jumps, quick footwork and a beautiful, typically French use of the upper body’.
Ballet Bubbles will be presented in many different theatres until 28 May. For info and reservations, see: www.operaballet.nl/juniorcompany