≈ 2 hours · With intermission
Last updated: March 28, 2024
A note from the Executive Producer, NAC Dance
Good evening,
The Nederlands Dans Theater 1 (NDT 1) is a contemporary ballet powerhouse, whose exceptional dancers throw their versatility and deeply unique styles behind powerful works by celebrated choreographers. William Forsythe, Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar and Imre & Marne van Opstal will take you on a journey where shattered worlds collide, come into dialogue and cut loose. After a long-anticipated wait, we can, at last, see these choreographic geniuses in action on our stage.
I am also deeply proud to note that NDT is currently led by Canada’s own Emily Molnar. Emily took over as artistic director of the NDT (1 and 2) in 2020, after a brilliant 10-year-plus stint heading Ballet BC. We welcome her back with wide open arms to her home at the National Arts Centre.
Here's to an extraordinary evening, celebrating dance and the global impact of a Canadian‑grown leader in the dance world!
A note from the Artistic Director, Nederlands Dans Theater
Welcome to an evening with NDT 1! We are thrilled to be back at the NAC with a program featuring a vibrant range of ideas and expressions in dance by internationally acclaimed artists William Forsythe, Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar, and Imre van Opstal & Marne van Opstal in collaboration with renowned Dutch designers DRIFT and Lonneke Gordijn.
What happens when multiple, seemingly unrelated events collide? How do they overlap as one breathable entity that consistently morphs into new ways of being? Imre van Opstal & Marne van Opstal explore the idea of synchronicity in their newest work for NDT 1. The Point Being was created in close collaboration with renowned Dutch designer Lonneke Gordijn and DRIFT. In this multidisciplinary creation, choreography, scenography and music generate both friction and harmony.
We are delighted to share our recent creation, Jakie, by Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar. This exhilarating work is accompanied by a soundscape composed by longtime collaborator Ori Lichtik. With Jakie, this dynamic duo finds renewed force, a place where the sensual and unexpected meet in fascinating contrast highlighting the hypnotic virtuosity of the dancers of NDT 1. The work pronounces the continued artistic experimentation of Eyal and Behar’s originality.
One Flat Thing, reproduced is a purposeful chapter in William Forsythe's ongoing research into the distension of contrapuntal structure. The work is set up as a linked “machinery” that is created through the interaction of three systems of organization: numerous individual movement themes, a dense system of distributed cueing, and complex alignments of forms and/or movement flow. It is a pleasure for us to share this significant work with the NAC audience.
Thank you for being here. We hope you enjoy the program!
Program
The Point Being by Imre van Opstal & Marne van Opstal (37 minutes)
Intermission +/ 20 min
One Flat Thing, reproduced by William Forsythe (17 minutes)
Intermission +/ 20 min
Jakie by Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar (30 minutes)
Nederlands Dans Theater
Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) is one of the world's leading contemporary dance companies, led by Artistic Director Emily Molnar since season 2020-2021. The group is based in The Hague, but performs for an international audience of 150.000 visitors in Europe, America, Asia and Australia. Since its founding in 1959 by Benjamin Harkarvy, Aart Verstegen and Carel Birnie in collaboration with eighteen dancers from the Dutch National Ballet (then known as Nederlands Ballet), NDT has paved its own way in the modern dance field. Choreographers such as Glen Tetley and Hans van Manen have prominently left an avant-garde mark on the artistic face of the company. Their non-conformist, progressive productions put NDT on the national and international map.
Since then, the company has built a rich repertoire, consisting of more than 620 ballets by master choreographers Jiří Kylián and Hans van Manen, Sol León & Paul Lightfoot, Crystal Pite and Marco Goecke, Johan Inger, Medhi Walerski, Ohad Naharin, Alexander Ekman, Gabriela Carrizo, Franck Chartier, Hofesh Shechter, Edward Clug and Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar and many others.
It is NDT’s purpose to connect people and to inspire them, to enrich people’s lives, give them new experiences, let them open up to new ideas and perspectives. NDT creates and presents relevant and innovative contemporary dance and is committed to high quality and collaboration in all different ways. NDT connects to large and diverse audiences and communities in the Hague, the Netherlands and all over the world. NDT is a role model in the world of contemporary dance by promoting diversity and inclusion in and through all that we do. Therefore, NDT gives room to many different voices and artists.
NDT 1
The first company, NDT 1, consists of 27 phenomenal dancers from all over the world, aged 23 to 40 years old. The dancers are world famous for their theatricality, stunning technique and unparalleled expression. Each season, the first company performs four Dutch programs in addition to numerous large tours through either Asia, the United States, South America or Australia. From their home base in The Hague, both companies (NDT 1 and NDT 2) work continuously to make a significant contribution to the future of contemporary dance, both in the Netherlands and far beyond.
The Point Being
By Imre van Opstal & Marne van Opstal in collaboration with DRIFT
What happens when multiple, seemingly unrelated events collide? How do they overlap as one breathable entity that consistently morphs into new ways of being? In The Point Being, choreographers Imre van Opstal & Marne van Opstal explore the idea of synchronicity: the seemingly fleeting moment in which everything seems to make sense. With a multidisciplinary approach, in which choreography, scenography and music generate both friction and harmony.
The work is created in collaboration with Dutch designer Lonneke Gordijn and DRIFT, accompanied with a music score by Amos Ben-Tal (@Offprojects) and light design by Tom Visser. With the close cooperation of the NDT 1 dancers as the cornerstone, Imre and Marne hope to give inspiration to abstract space and the visualization of synchronicity. How do we make the invisible, visible? We invite you into this visual connection where we try to stop time for a moment in a world that continuously seems to escape the moment.
NDT 1 dancer Kele Roberson about The Point Being:
“Synchronicity – this was the initial prompt Imre and Marne introduced on our first day in the studio. We were tasked to, in accordance with this definition, research and create meaningful coincidences or contradictions, in the body and with one another – fleeting unions that come and go, from few to many.
This was physically contextualized over the course of the process in many ways. What became especially vital over these weeks was the realisation of synchronicity as a conduit for diversity – of an opportunity to bring together, the feeding into a common goal or shared environment.
To further this concept, the collaboration with the Amsterdam-based DRIFT – proved to also be synchronous in its own right. Their contributions have been crucial, both in igniting our imaginations and expanding the possibilities of our creative world.
Hopefully, as dancers and audiences alike, we are left to reflect upon each ecosystem we find ourselves in and every perfect happenstance we encounter. Perhaps we even take a moment to acknowledge that our importance to one another is not only apparent, but poignant – not simply causal, but cosmic.”
NDT 1 dancer Nicole Ishimaru about The Point Being:
“Hearing how in depth the conversations between DRIFT, Imre, and Marne were prior to the start of the process, an exciting momentum was created to see how we, as dancers could aid in the discovery of synchronicity in a live performance. In the midst of a strong marriage of many moving parts – the set, music, movement – a singular voice and collective identity emerged from the mist. The beauty of this creation was in the day to day – tasked with different states of being and finding complexity within simplicity, ‘The point being’ became a resonant question we were looking to understand and the strength of connection became our most valuable tool. When it is something you find in relationship to your environment, there’s a euphoric essence that permeates your entire being – that exact moment of presence, where we feel one another shifting through time, simultaneously. In this discovery, we find ourselves on the brink of what it really means to encapsulate these moments.”
One Flat Thing, reproduced
By William Forsythe
One Flat Thing, reproduced begins with a roar. Twenty tables, like jagged rafts of ice, fly forward and become the surface, the underground and the sky inhabited by a ferocious flight of dancers. A pack of bodies raging with alacrity, whipping razor-like in perilous weaves, in a hurtling intelligence. The music of Thom Willems begins quietly and then blows up into a gale, hurling the dancers toward the end, their bodies howling in a voracious, detailed storm.
Jakie
By Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar
For the past decade, Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar have formed an essential voice to NDT’s repertoire. Through work marked by a forceful sensuality and vulnerability, the duo has been fascinating audiences with a world of their own making, one that defies preconceived notions of movement and the expression of the body. “To me, dance is tribal and primitive, it’s about joy”, says Eyal. “When I have an idea, it feels like it has always been there, and yet as if it has never been there. Each work is a continuation of the previous one and offers a unique opportunity to go deeper and deeper.”
Eyal & Behar have been running their company L-E-V since 2013, and created several world premieres for NDT, such as Salt Womb (2016) that was awarded a Zwaan for ‘Best Dance Production’ in 2016.
NDT 1 dancer Genevieve O’Keeffe about Jakie:
”From our very first day working in the studio with Sharon and Ori, parts of Jakie were already visible, as if the piece already had a form and a feeling, just not yet bodies to carry it. Each idea we explored had a clear identity and sense or belonging to this world we were revealing. Although I might not have known the choreography, I could understand the state my body needed to be in and the imaginative sensitivity I should search for.
I have always enjoyed pieces where my colleagues feel near, when I am part of a whole and carried by our shared energy.
To work with Sharon and her team for the first time has been a privilege and a joy. Her clarity of vision, excitement and humility have brought us a work which has pushed me to forget any limits I thought existed and surrender to the overwhelming.”
NDT 1 dancer Scott Fowler about Jakie:
“Without a doubt, the making of Jakie has been one of the most wonderfully wild and lively creation processes I have ever been a part of. Never have I been in a collaboration that has felt so chaotic and cohesive at once, with such an unrelenting progression, leaving no space for excessive doubt or inhibition. Sharon creates not by careful thought or predetermined planning, but by unrestrained impulses she feels in the moment. The movement is embodied through her recorded improvisations. The music is Ori Lichtik’s infectious beats and samples, generated from a part DJ-setup part research lab hybrid he works at in the corner of the studio. And the piece itself is made from these two things existing at once, while Sharon is at the front of the studio, mic in hand, dancing with us as she shouts commands over the incessant drive of the music. This means that as dancers we were moving together, listening and following direction at the same time. As demanding as these moments are, it is what I find so beautiful about the process. As someone who can easily get caught up in analysis and overthinking, I was forced to work in a different way, having to make choices through impulse or instinct at a moments notice. The result is an experience that feels more alive and even genuine, which I hope the audience will sense as they watch.”
Casting
March 28, 2024
The Point Being
Imre van Opstal & Marne van Opstal
Anna Bekirova, Conner Bormann, Thalia Crymble,
Scott Fowler, Barry Gans, Nicole Ishimaru,
Kele Roberson, Yukino Takaura, Luca Andrea Tessarini
One Flat Thing Reproduced
William Forsythe
Fay van Baar, Emmitt Cawley, Scott Fowler,
Surimu Fukushi, Barry Gans, Aram Hasler, Nicole Ishimaru,
Paxton Ricketts, Yukino Takaura, Luca Tessarini, Theophilus Vesely,
Nicole Ward, Rui-Ting Yu, Zenon Zubyk
Jakie
Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar
Fay van Baar, Anna Bekirova, Conner Bormann,
Pamela Campos, Thalia Crymble, Scott Fowler,
Aram Hasler, Chuck Jones, Genevieve O’Keeffe,
Charlie Skuy, Yukino Takaura, Theophilus Vesely, Nicole Ward
Casting
March 27, 2024
The Point Being
Imre van Opstal & Marne van Opstal
Anna Bekirova, Conner Bormann, Thalia Crymble,
Scott Fowler, Barry Gans, Nicole Ishimaru,
Kele Roberson, Yukino Takaura, Luca Andrea Tessarini
One Flat Thing Reproduced
William Forsythe
Alexander Andison, Anna Bekirova, Jon Bond,
Pamela Campos, Thalia Crymble, Scott Fowler,
Surimu Fukushi, Aram Hasler, Chuck Jones, Madoka Kariya,
Genevieve O’Keeffe, Charlie Skuy, Sophie Whittome, Zenon Zubyk
Jakie
Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar
Fay van Baar, Anna Bekirova, Conner Bormann,
Pamela Campos, Thalia Crymble, Scott Fowler,
Aram Hasler, Chuck Jones, Genevieve O’Keeffe,
Charlie Skuy, Yukino Takaura, Theophilus Vesely, Nicole Ward
Artists
Since August 2020, Emily Molnar has been the Artistic Director of Nederlands Dans Theater, where her vision is to move the company into a new era of creativity. Molnar has worked and toured extensively throughout the world as an internationally respected and critically acclaimed dance artist, choreographer, mentor, arts advocate, and leader. After graduating from Canada’s National Ballet School in 1990, she pursued a performance career as a member of the National Ballet of Canada, Ballet BC and a soloist with Ballett Frankfurt under director William Forsythe. From 2009-2020, Molnar was the Artistic Director of Ballet BC, where her vision for innovation and collaboration resulted in the creation of over forty-five new works and steered the company to international recognition. For five years, Molnar served as the Artistic Director of Dance at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Her contributions have been recognized with numerous awards and distinctions. In 2016, Molnar was named a Member of the Order of Canada, one of Canada’s highest civilian honours, for her contribution to dance.
Born in 1949, William Forsythe has been active in the field of choreography for over 50 years and is recognized as one of the world’s foremost choreographers. His three decades of work with his ensembles in Frankfurt is celebrated for reorienting the practice of ballet from its identification to classical repertoires into a dynamic 21st century art form.
Raised and principally trained in New York, he arrived on the European dance scene in his early 20s as a dancer and eventually as Resident Choreographer of Stuttgart Ballet. In 1984, he began a 20-year tenure as Director of Ballett Frankfurt, and, with an initial focus on the organizational underpinnings of academic ballet, has, since 1991, extended his choreographic discourse into the field of visual arts. While his work for the stage resides in the repertories of ensembles worldwide, his installations are featured internationally in both museums and private collections. In 2004, he established his own company, The Forsythe Company.
Forsythe has won several awards including a Bessie, Laurence Olivier Award, the German Distinguished Service Cross, the Wexner Prize, as well as the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale and Der Faust, both for lifetime achievement. In 1999, William Forsythe was named Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Government of France. He has been chosen as Choreographer of the Year several times by the international critics’ survey.
William Forsythe has also been awarded an honorary fellowship from the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in London and holds an honorary doctorate from the Juilliard School in New York.
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Gai Behar (Tel-Aviv, 1977) has been of wide influence of Tel Aviv’s live music, art and nightlife scenes from 1999 to 2005. He produced live music, underground artistic events and techno raves.
Between 1999-2005 Behar also curated and produced the events Man Without a Shirt in Tel Aviv. The event was co-curated by Uri Katzenstein, and among other included works by Ohad Naharin and Sharon Eyal. Gai produced the second round of Ohad Naharin’s Playback.
In October 2012, Eyal and Behar premiered Untitled Black in collaboration with the GöteborgsOperans Danskompani in Gothenburg, Sweden. In May 2013, they created the ethereal piece Sara for NDT 2. The same year, they launched their dance company L-E-V.
Since L-E-V was founded, the company had more than 180 performances some in the most exclusive venues around the world such as: The Joyce Theatre – NYC; Jacob’s Pillow – Becket, Massachusetts; Sadler’s Wells – London, UK ; The Montpellier Danse Festival – France; Julidans – Amsterdam.
Alongside their work with L-E-V, Eyal and Behar had also been commissioned to create for external companies: the Nederland Dance Theatre’s Sara (2013); Bedroom Folk (2015); Salt Womb (2016), Half-Life for the Royal Swedish Ballet and more.
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Sharon Eyal was born in Jerusalem. She danced with the Batsheva Dance Company between 1990- 2008 and started choreographing within the framework of the company’s Batsheva Dancers Create project.
Eyal served as Associate Artistic Director for Batsheva between 2003-2004, and as a House Choreographer for the company between 2005-2012. During her time with the company, she created 16 new creations.
In 2005 Eyal started to collaborate with Gai Behar on her creations, as well as the L-E-V company and different projects.
From 2009 Eyal created over 30 new creations for dance companies around the world such as Bedroom Folk, salt Womb, Feelings and Sara for the Nederland Dance Theatre; Half-Life for the Royal Swedish Ballet; Untitled Black and Autodance for GoteborgsOperans Danskompan, Sweden; Killer Pig and Corps de Walk for Carte Blanche Dance of Norway; Too Beaucoup for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago; Plafona for Tanzcompagnie Oldenburg, Germany; Soul Chain for Staatstheater Mainz, Germany and more.
Eyal collaborated with major names out of the traditional dance world such as:
Dior - Spring Summer 2019 Fashion show
The National and Mike Milles album/movie - participating in 2 music videos for the songs ‘Hairpin Turns’ and ‘Hey Rosey’ from the album ‘I Am Easy To Find’ as well as a live performance for their international tour’s opening concert at the L’Olympia in Paris
In 2013 Eyal launched L-E-V.
L-E-V’s repertoire consists of 6 creations. Their latest piece Love Chapter 2, premiered at the Montpellier Dance Festival in July 2017, and this year L-E-V is working on a new creation to be premiered in September 2019 at the Ruhr Triennale Festival in Germany.
L-E-V's creations are co-produced with some of the leading dance venues around the globe such as Sadler’s Wells- London and Julidans- Amsterdam. The co-producers list consists of many other great venues: Montpellier Danse Festival, GROS Culture Percentage - Dance Festival STEPS, Theater Freiburg, The Banff Centre in Canada, Carolina Performing Arts - North Carolina, USA and TorinoDanza.
In the past 10 years since L-E-V was founded, the company had more than 200 performances some in the most exclusive venues around the world such as The Joyce Theatre – NYC; Jacob's Pillow - Becket, Massachusetts; Sadler's Wells - London, UK ; The Montpellier Danse Festival – France; Edinburgh International Festival; Julidans – Amsterdam.
Eyal received several awards:
The "Faust" theater award in Germany (2018)
The Professional Association of Dance & Theater Critiques at the Chaillot National Theater in Paris (2018)
The prestigious FEDORA - VAN CLEEF & ARPELS Prize for Ballet 2017 (2017)
The Best Dance Performance - James Sewell Ballet's 'Killer Pig' (2017)
The 12th Belgrade Dance Festival’s Jovan Ćirilov Award (2017)
The Landau Prize for the Performing Arts in the dance category (2009).
Eyal was named - Chosen Artist, by the Israeli Cultural Excellence Foundation (2008)
The Ministry of Culture Award for Young Dance Creators (2004),
Imre van Opstal and Marne van Opstal – both former NDT dancers – are Dutch choreographers and renowned performing artists, as siblings they form a creative duo. After having enjoyed successful and prominent careers at the prestigious NDT 1 & NDT 2 and/or Batsheva Dance Company, they went on to pursue their own creativity. The collaborative nature of their work often speaks to the human condition, limits and possibilities of the body and mind. Their work is known to be multi-layered and surrealistic, with a strong and outspoken dance language known for its eclecticism, theatricality and partnering elements.
They debuted with their creation LiNK for the talent development programme Up & Coming Choreographers in 2014. For Up & Coming Choreographers 2015 they made the work John Doe. Season 2016-2017 marked their choreographic debut for the regular programme of NDT 2 with The Grey (2017). They created their highly praised first work for NDT 1, Take Root (2019), in season 2018-2019, which was awarded with a nomination for a Dutch ‘Zwaan’ for ‘best dance production’.
In 2020, both decided to fully focus on choreography. For NDT 1, they then created Baby don’t hurt me around the themes of identity, sexuality, gender and love in 2021, was met with critical acclaim.
After which they continued to create ‘Eye Candy’ with Rambert Dance Company and ‘The little man’ for Nationaltheater Mannheim, ‘I’m afraid to forget your smile’ for the Hessian State Ballet, ‘Heart Drive’ for Ballet BC, ‘Mommy, Look!’ for Ballett Theater Basel and ‘To Kingdom Come’ for GoteborgOperans Danskompani.
Credits
The Point Being
Choreography
Imre van Opstal, Marne van Opstal
Music
New composition by Amos Ben-Tal
@offprojects
Lighting
Tom Visser
Set Design
DRIFT
Costumes
Imre van Opstal, Marne van Opstal in collaboration with the costume atelier
Ndt Rehearsal Director
Tamako Akiyama
World Premiere
September 21, 2023, Amare The Hague
One Flat Thing, reproduced
Choreography, Stage and Lighting Designs
William Forsythe
Music
Thom Willems
Costume Design
Stephen Galloway
World Premiere
February 2, 2000, Ballet Frankfurt, Bockenheimer Depot, Frankfurt, Germany
Jakie
Choreography
Sharon Eyal & Gai Beha
Assistants to the Choreographer
Clyde E. Archer, Guido Dutilh, Leo Lerus
Music
New composition by Ori Lichtik, including music by Ryuichi Sakamoto, performed by Alva Noto: The Revenant Main Theme, © New Regency Music Inc., Milan Records, Sony Music Publishing. Einstürzende Neubauten: GS1. Written by Blixa Bargeld. NU Unruh, Alexander Hacke, Jochen Arbeit, Rudolph Moser. Published by Freibank Musikverlage/CTM Publishing. Courtesy of POTOMAK.
Lighting
Alon Cohen
Set Design
Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar
Costumes
Sharon Eyal in collaboration with NDT’s Costume Department
NDT Rehearsal Director
Francesca Caroti
World Premiere
May 11, 2023, Amare The Hague
Production Team, Southam Hall
Head Carpenter
James Reynolds
Head Electrician
Shane Learmonth
Assistant Electrician
Fred Malpass
Property Master
Timothy Shannon
Head Sound Engineer
Dan Holmes
Assistant Sound Engineer
Thomas Stubinski
Head Flyman
Ross Brayne
Electronic Services
Head
Michael St. Onge
Assistant
Michael Blanchard
Warehouse
Head
Kevin Kenny
Projectionist
Head
David Milliard
NAC Dance Team
Executive Producer
Caroline Ohrt
Senior Producer
Tina Legari
Special Projects Coordinator and Assistant to the Executive Producer
Mireille Nicholas
Company Manager
Sophie Anka
Education Associate and Teaching Artist
Siôned Watkins
Technical Director
Brian Britton
Communications Strategist
Alexandra Campeau
Marketing Strategist
Marie-Chantale Labbé-Jacques
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees