Balancine - The Four Temperaments - Dutch National Ballet 1962 

Michael, an other thing; in those days you became adult at 21, and you had to go into the army for 2 years ! You could only get outby article 5, which implied you were mentally unfit to enter the army, it stayed on your record, could make difficulties if you wanted a job. Even in Holland the fifties were difficult, if you were gay you had to hide it. Only in the theatre it was accepted and no ptoblem !

Michael Dumais, you are right, but you have to take into account in those days there were no academies in Holland. We all started late, I myself took my first proffesional class at 18. Fourteen months later I was in the corps de ballet.Because I was very talented I became principal after 3 years, when I started I had no idea I would dance the big parts that I did !( Death in Green table, the Mandarin in Miraculous Manderin, the van Dantzig choreographies op to 1972, Tudors Dark Elegies, All in all 135 different choreographies. Most of us learnt the Fach at private balletschools! At least we were lucky, I had a normal childhood, while nowadays you have to start at eight at the academie..

Christian Wijnoogst great memories. I thoroughly enjoyed this. That signature come bring around six minutes was very well done. I don’t often see that developed arched back in today’s dancers

Russell Wright, thanks ! The dancer dancing around 6 minutes is Conrad van de Wetering, he belonged to the first generation of dancers. Before the second Worldwar Ballet was practicaly nonexcisting in Holland you see. I have fond memories of Conrad, he died a few months ago. Actually, maybe technically we boys were not so strong as todays dancers , but we were very versatile. Conrad in those days was the only one of us who could do a triple tour en láir, when I joined the company I had trouble with that, so for many months Conrad used to teach me on Saturday morning every kind of tour possible! To tell you the truth, like I told you Conrad could do triple tour en láir, unfortunately that worked only in rehearsels! In Graduation Ball he danced the tambour, in this solo he incorperated as many triple tours possible. Unfortunatly he started allready with a disadvantage; the costuum is horrible, with a little drum in front of your stomach and two drumsticks in your hands. What Always went right in rehearsel came to a complete faillure in performance; full of bravoure he used to start with the triples, to suffer utter defeat every time he tried ! It really was a sorry sight, sometimes he landed with a great bump flat on his ass, he never gave up however ! The whole happening was most entertaining for us as you can imagine, thinking back on it I feel only admiration for his percevierance, with a little gigle hidden away !

Christian Wijnoogst Kenneth Vonschlegell Christian Wijnoogst when people dismiss modern technology I don’t understand. Without it I wouldn’t have heard your wonderful anecdotes nor would I have been able to see this beautiful video. I’m a dance teacher in the USA. The California San Francisco bay area. I will be showing this clip to my students and mention your stories as well as the persistence of Mr. Conrad van de Wetering. I love the elusiveness of theater and dance that it kind of disappears if you weren’t there. Also even with modern technology dancers are giving her do so I can honor someone forgotten it’s always my great joy to share with my students. Thank you so much for the information!

Hi Russell, I danced with my company 14 years, and spent 30 years of my life teaching classical ballet to amateur students. I consider those 30 years much more important than my stagecareer, if you manage to impart to amateur dancers the beauty of our profession can be very rewarding I find. We teachers are servants to our art, and should Always do so with great humility. I will tell you one more story; 4 years after I joined the company the direction decided I should dance Flegmatic. The cast was more or less the same as on this video, Reuven Voorembergh who is dancing Flegmatic owned the role. He Always had good write upps, so I quess it came as a chock to him that after all those years I was given his part also. I have to mention that I had a perfect body with classical proportions legs up to my nose and I could learn a ballet in one rehearsal. So, we started rehearsing, Reuven teaching me the steps. In the middle of Flegmatic there is a little solo with some pirouettes, somehow I could not get what he was doing, so after the rehearsal was finished I decided to change that bit and make my own choreografy. It did it in the style and I found it a great improvement ! Reuven was scandalized, he thought I had commited sacrilageSo from then on we had two versions of Flegmatic. A while later Taras came to sup; ervise the Balanchine repertoire, the first thing Reuven did was telling him the sacrilage I had commited. Taras staid cool, the only thing he said was ; interesting, let me see it. After I finished he thoughtfully schratched his nose, looked kind of pleased, and said; not bad, I like it ! So from then on I got official permission to do it my way, and I performed like this all over Europa ! When years later I left the company it happened in a bad way, but I had my revenge; they had to ask Francia Russell come over from Paris to put the Original choreografy in place !