One of the finest dance companies in the world comes to London this week, as Nederlands Dans Theater I returns to Sadler's Wells from 18th-22nd June. The single Mixed Bill consists of Jiri Kylián’s "Bella Figura", British choreographer Paul Lightfoot’s "Speak for Yourself" and Johan Inger’s "Walking Mad".

Here is the link to the NDT information page on the Sadler's Wells website.

And here are links to the topics we have on NDT from around the world:

NDT2 in the UK 2002

NDT 2000-01

<small>[ 08-11-2002, 05:20: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

I will give you a proper review tomorrow, but just to encourage you to buy tickets ow, I will post a few words. Tonight was sold out and anyone who is anyone in the dance professional world was there. <P>The dancing was stunning - very strong lyrical dancers. Kylian's work, "Bella Figura", opened the evening and I was quite mesmerised. You see classicism and modernism fused to produce harmonic choreography. The dancers diffuse the line of the dance, contract, relax and stretch but always come back to the classical line and centre - taut and compact. I thought that was probably the highlight of the evening and it would be downhill all the way. How do you follow Kylian?<P>Well, Paul Lightfoot's "Speak for Yourself" was more than a contender. Company dancer, Johan Inger, provided the last piece set to Ravel's "Bolero". You would have thought everything possible had been done to this piece of music. Reserve judgement until you see this work.<P>Five out of five stars. And tickets will be hard to procure.

I agree entirely with Emma. This outstanding company has brought a strong programme that delights throughout the evening. Particularly good to see was that Paul Lightfoot and Johan Inger were in no sense upstaged by the strong opening Kylian work.<P>I will check tomorrow, but I believe that there are seats left for the remaining evenings. If you enjoy dance, for God's sake go!

I've just checked on ticket availability:<P>Wednesday - filling up quickly<BR>Thursday - good availability<BR>Friday and Saturday - plenty of seats <P>Having thought about it overnight this really is an unmissable show for anyone interested in 21st Century dance and it's such fun! I will probably go again later in the week.

<B>Questions and dancers</B><BR>by Judith Flanders in The Evening Standard<P><BR>Dance, at its very simplest, is about keeping one's balance while moving through space. At its most complicated, it is about decisions: does the stress go here, or there? Should this beat be hurried to give the next more amplitude? If a turn is held a split second longer, will this have repercussions for my partner? Each decision has to be taken every second, every performance, every night. <P>Jirí Kylián, a master craftsman, has based his 1995 piece, Bella Figura, on these choices. Bella figura is an Italian phrase meaning not only putting on a brave face, but dressing elegantly, being well turned out - how to present one's private self in public. <P>When the audience arrives, the dancers are already on stage, trying out moves. When, Kylián asks us, does a performance begin? When the dancers arrive? Or when the lights go down? When they leave the stage, where do they go? What is performance, and what is reality, and by separating the two, are we saying that performance is not reality?<P><A HREF="http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/dynamic/hottx/theatre/dance_review.html?in_review_id=610452" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A><P><p>[This message has been edited by Emma Pegler (edited June 19, 2002).]

<B>Special offer for tonight only</B><P>SAVE £5 when you book tickets over £20 for the Wednesday performance. (Offer available at the managements discretion, not available retrospectively, with other offers and does not apply to superseats). <P>To book: Call the ticket office on 020 7863 8000 and quote <B>londondance.com offer</B>. Offer not available online.<P><BR>

I am surprised that there is so much availablity at the weekend seeing as the week day tickets have sold very well. I will be going again on Saturday.

<B>Rain stops play</B><P>Radio4's 'Front Row' ran a feature today on rain on stage, looking at NDT at Sadler's Wells, 'Singin in the Rain' and 'Bombay Dreams'.<P>Here are some of the main points:<P>- Paul Lightfoot, choreographer of NDT's 'Speak for Yourself', [which features gloriously lit cascades of water falling form the ceiling] spoke about the process of creating the work. Initially he didn't speak to the technical people, but got the dancers in a room and asked them what they thought. Then they tried out some effects in a room using a hose and then they started talking to the technical people. <P>- A member of the Sadler's technical staff talked about the problems that the production presented. There is a special floor which acts as a seal against the water and Sadler's provides a clean water supply and the electricity. Each production is licensed by Islington Council so the Inspectors come to check each week. Dancer insurance is the concern of NDT. <P>- Lightfoot described how the NDT technical team provide all the other equipment - a huge pump and a heater to make the water an acceptable temperature for the dancers, 50 degrees. For the nozzles he spent time talking to people from the Greenhouse world (there's a lot of them in Holland).<P>- For the Yorkshire Playhouse's 'Singing in the Rain' nozzles were crucial as they wanted the drops to bounce off the special stage.<P>- For 'Bombay Dreams' there is a classic scene from the world of Bollywood. Scenes in the rain are frequent as the effect on the clothes overcomes some of the censorship restrictions.<P><BR>

I must admit it amazed me that water was allowed on stage in that way. It looked truly amazing but I wondered how the dancers didn't slip. Was anything offered in that respect Stuart? And is the special floor provided or already exists at Sadler's Wells.

From memory the floor was brought by NDT.

Review in The FT which I suspect is not going to do much for ticket sales.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>It was a pretty tiresome evening on Tuesday with Nederlands Dans Theater 1 returned to Sadler's Wells for the week. For some years I have thought the company were better named Nederlands Angst Theater, so fractious and self-absorbed seems the choreography, so glum and psychotic the dance-manner, so damned hermetic the subject-matter of its flood of monotonous dancing. The dancers are gut-wrenchingly devoted, and I would believe it if told that morning class begins with a session of navel- gazing, blame-laying, and ill-suppressed hysteria, before the physical exercises begin.<P><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1024484355498&p=1016625900929" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A><P>But The Times is more encouraging.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>THE Nederlands Dans Theater 1 is in London for the first time since its double Olivier Award-winning triumph of 1999. The company’s triple-bill is an ample display of sleek, superbly articulate bodies. But even exceptional dancers cannot convert the material they are given into great art. <BR>The dances share a high-budget theatricality, complete with production gimmicks and safe musical choices. The title of former artistic director Jirí Kylián’s Bella Figura roughly translates from the Italian as “putting on a brave face”. Musically the piece melds Pergolesi, Vivaldi and contemporary composer Lukas Foss. <P><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,685-332093,00.html" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A><P>And an OK review in The Guardian.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>It is Kylian (still the company's resident choreographer) who sets the tone, occupying the programme's opening slot with his 1995 work Bella Figura. This impressive showcase is crammed with confidently surprising and expertly lovely moves. The dancers skid over the stage as lightly as dragonflies, torque their bodies into strident curves, bring a burnished beauty to their stretches, and crumple into exquisitely calculated distortions. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4444357,00.html" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A><p>[This message has been edited by Joanne (edited June 20, 2002).]

Curious - I am just trying to recall what HAS gone down well with the critics this year so far? Certainly the people around me at the theatre on Tuesday were enthusiastic. A former NYCB dancer from Balanchine's era was extremely positive about the company dancers and the material they had to work with. She flet that Kylianmust have hand-tailored the choreography for "Bella Figura" on the current dancers like a designer fitting a dress on a woman. She thought the choreography demonstrated extreme classicism developed into contemporary moves while retaining the essence of classicism. Clement Crisp was ok on ENB's "Swan Lake" and very negative on NDT- ???

It came as no surprise that Clement Crisp did not enjoy the evening. I am seriously considering taking the FT to the European Court of Human Rights because of the repeated psychological torture of their dance critic. <P>I was more surprised by the reactions of Donald Hutera and Judith Mackrell. Like you Emma, the dance professionals I spoke to enjoyed the evening a lot. One leading critic I spoke to afterward was also positive, so I will await the review.<p>[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited June 20, 2002).]

<B>An evening of long legs, big breasts, and no communication</B><BR>Ismene Brown reviews Netherlands Dance Theatre 1 at Sadler's Wells for The Daily Telegraph<BR> <P>The future of modern ballet held out by Netherlands Dance Theatre - possibly quite against its wishes - is strangely reminiscent of the old cult TV series The Prisoner, in which an imperfectly good human being - or activity here, since we're talking about dance - is incarcerated in a sleek, artificial citadel of uniform aesthetic show and absolute impersonality. Against this image much modern ballet is now judged, from Sydney to London.<P>This company was groomed by Jìrí Kylián over 25 years with something more interesting originally added to ballet than mere physical "modernity" - in one or two of his works, you see a folksiness inside the balletic fluency, a glint of superstitiousness, a tendency to fray into tears at powerful music, which was strong and sincere. This all may have come from his Czech background, but, as far as I can judge from the recent work shown in Britain, it has been swept away in the slick, superficial glamour of international catwalk aesthetics as epitomised in Bella Figura, 1995, which heads their triple bill at Sadler's Wells.<P><A HREF="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2002/06/20/btisme20.xml&sSheet=/arts/2002/06/20/ixartright.html" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A>

I must have seen a different show - i should have turned left into the auditorium and clearly I turned right and ended up in another theatre.