It will be interesting to find out what company and which Bournonville ballet...



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If I were given to speculation, I'd bet on NBoC as the "North American" company.

That would be quite an opportunity - NBoC is large enough and blessed with enough talent to do Bournonville well, at least by non Danish standards.

I'm still most intrigued by the possibilities for Bournonville ballets that Kobborg would be familiar with and that would be feasible for a company not steeped in the style. If I remember correctly Kobborg joined the RDB School at 16 and left the company by 22, so he hasn't had nearly the Bournonville experience of many Danish dancers, and I'm not sure how many of the non-regular (Napoli, La Sylphide etc.) ballets the company would have done during that time period - or done more than a few times for a Bournonville Festival. I assume (or would hope) that Kobborg would stick to staging what he is familiar with unless he has outside help...

I'd be fascinated to see what another company could do with "Napoli", or possibly the second act of "Konservatoriet", though that's pretty unforgiving in terms of exposing any weaknesses in the dancers' grasp of the Bournonville style. But, actually "La Ventana" would be a great ballet for another company to try - it's not too long, doesn't require overly elaborate sets and doesn't require too much mime - which is probably one of the hardest things for non-Bournonville companies to deal with outside of the style. "Abdallah" was revived outside of Denmark, so it's a good candidate, though it takes very elaborate sets and a large cast to pull it off.

I can't see "Far From Denmark" ever being done outside Denmark (too dated, too non-PC in it's dated portrayals of non-Danish cultures), and I think both "A Folktale" and "King's Guard in Amager" are too steeped in Danish folklore and history to be appealing to a wider audiences. Not sure about "Kermessen i Bruges" - hard to tell sometimes what will translate well to wider audiences...

If anyone sees an official mention - i.e. a press release or an article in a reliable newspaper - about Kobborg's plans, please post!

Kate