Danish Royal Ballet at the Manoel Theatre
On Easter Sunday 8 April, the Manoel Theatre will be hosting one of its artistic highlights for this season, when the Royal Danish Ballet, the resident corps de ballet of the Royal Danish Theatre, will be giving a unique performance which will include highlights from classical and contemporary ballet.

The Danish Royal Ballet is one of Europe’s best ballet companies and this performance will indeed be an opportunity not to be missed.

ROYAL FLASH

On the eve of the Royal Danish Ballet performance at the Manoel Theatre, Emma Mattei goes behind the doors of one of the world's most acclaimed ballet schools.

by Emma Mattei

I'm running late and I'm lost, Peter Bo Bendixen, artistic director of soloists and principals at the Royal Danish Ballet, is a busy man and I am keeping him waiting. I had requested to go behind the scenes, to see the dancers in the studio, with sweat on their brow, to stand in the secret world of dance and listen to the sound of feet shuffling and notes tinkling, in the hope of gaining some insight into the lives of professional ballet dancers.

I arrive at the stage entrance to the Royal Theatre on Tordenskjoldsgade and Mr Bendixen guides me swiftly backstage through corridors and up stairways into a light-filled foyer outside an enormous studio where the morning dance session is underway. Various languages fill the air, Danish, of course, English, French and perhaps a melody of Polish. I had entered a special world, where from morning to night, men and women are consumed with dedication and hard work, striving for perfection.

Shining brightly

Dance: Royal Danish Ballet, Manoel Theatre

by Jo Ann Vassallo

Balanchine's Apollo was the opening ballet piece performed at the Manoel Theatre on the night of Easter Sunday. When I saw Nikolai Hubbe wearing his white outfit and holding a mandolin gracefully close to his sculpted body little did I know that he was to be the best male dancer I was going to see that night. Mind you, they were all good. Mr Hubbe's technique, however, was definitely tops. Were it not for the beads of sweat shining against the theatre's dim light and running down his bare torso I would have surely thought that he was making no effort performing with such strength.