On the 12th of November Dresden SemperOper Ballett has presented the first premier of its first season, “Wiedergeburt und Auferstehung” (“Rebirth and Renaissance”). Alongside the masterworks, ‘Theme and Variations’ by George Balanchine and ‘Enemy in the Figure’ by William Forsythe, the audience witnessed a world premiere of the new work of the House Choreographer David Dawson, “Das Verschwundene | The Disappeared” created to music by Arvo Part.

An amazing team has been working in Dresden to make all this happen: David Howard gave classes, Patricia Neary came to set “Theme and Variations”, William Forsythe and his assistants, Ana Catalina Roman, Alan Barnes and Ayman Harper, worked on “Enemy in the Figure”. But, of course, everyone’s attention was drawn to David Dawson, who has presented his first creation in the walls of the magnificent Semperoper in Dresden.

It was a fantastic evening! Amazing how flawlessly Yumiko Takeshima and Jiri Bubenícek performed one of the most complicated Balanchine’s classics, “Theme and Variation”. The company managed to get the syncopating dynamic of Forsythe’s “Enemy in the Figure” in such short time. “The Disappeared” was breathtaking. Dawson’s dancers (Yumiko Takeshima, Natalia Sologub, Bridget Breiner, Raphael Coumes-Marquet, Jiri Bubenícek, Victor Mateos-Arellano, Julia Carnicer, Britt Juleen, and Andrea Parkyn) were so sensitive and fragile. The evening had an incredible success and found its acclaim both among critics and ordinary spectators. Now Dresden public has more to look forward to.

“Bravo” Dresden SemperOper Ballett!

Welcome to CriticalDance, Ulrike, and many thanks for your comments on this enjoyable evening. We have too few reports from Germany, so I hope we hear a lot from you over the coming months. And please tell your ballet and dance friends to look in and perhaps post as you have done.

I would love to have seen this programme, as the thrilling "Enemy in the Figure" is one of my favourites from Forsythe and Dawson is one of the big new names in European dance making. He has a work for ENB scheduled for next year. And I'm enjoying Balanchine more and more these days.

Thanks again and do let us know about other peformances that you see.

Thank you for your warm welcome, Stuart. I will try to post every time I find out more news about the life of this company.

Dresden SemperOper Ballett is very young. It has appeared only on August 1, 2006. Its new Artistic Director, Mr. Aaron S. Watkin has brought to Dresden an amazing team of professionals. Among them Mr. David Dawson, who has taken the position of a House Choreographer since this season, and 33 new dancers representing different countries and various schools of dance. Each of them nourishes the new company with talent and creativity, energy and inspiration. I think this is just the beginning of a big start and I am very happy that I can witness it. They have already done four programmes in only three months! I have seen all of them and should admit that Dresden audience is very lucky to have got a company of such a high level.

I do not know if you can read German, but for those members of Critical Dance who may understand German, here is some critics from the German dance website, 'tanznetz.de':

http://www.tanznetz.de/kritiken.phtml?p ... 2&tid=8731

Hi Ulrike and thanks for posting about this great evening of dance you experiemented

I know that there are some Spanish dancers in this Company, some of these great dancers that my country is able to produce but unable to keep as there are no companies for them to dance here.

So thanks Dresden for this great Company you have! I hope one day I'm able to see them.

Hi Ulrike,

I'm glad you enjoyed the show. Dawson is an interesting choreographer, though I liked his Chopin ballet better than his non-music ballets.

A lot of dancers you mention are really old hands at the repertoire you listed: Yumiko Takeshima and Raphael Courtes-Marquet used to dance in the Amsterdam company where Dawson previously worked. So did Victor Mateos-Arellano and Britt Juleen.