Those of you with an interest in the Spanish dance scene may be aware of the current turmoil concerning the National Dance Company, one of the few publicly funded dance companies in Spain. Many believed that its director, Nacho Duato, should leave the company after an extremely long reign over it, a reign which has really affected the entire dance scene in Spain, right down to what is taught at proffesional schools.
He has chosen to leave, as has been publicly announced for over a year (announcements that have raised their expected fair ammounts of rumours as to what he was going to do, and who was to take over the company, which the government insisted should become a classical one). Today, however, just woken and having my first coffee, I read the culture section of the local newspaper and think that I may not have left the bed after all.
Nacho Duato will be directing the Mikhailovsky Ballet, starting January 2011, under a five year contract that could be extended indefinetely.
I thought the use of italics was necessary because about a month ago, Duato told Dance Europe that he would not stay and watch the National Dance Company fail as a classical company. He and his dancers were contemporary artists, and you couldn't expect Cunningham trained dancers to switch into The Sleeping Beauty in a matter of days. Or ever. For as Duato said, to dance Swan Lake, you need to have been doing The Sleeping Beauty since you were three.
Yet if I'm not mistaken the Mikhailovsky Ballet is currently in London, where they have taken Giselle and Swan Lake. And neither of the productions make any effort to hide their tutus or to take Odile to some futuristic, underground lake. They're as classical as they come (even more so for being Russian).
And the company is going to be directed by the man who, after the National Dance Company was given to him, took the piss of ballet in a piece where tutus and pointe shoes were thrown about the stage? Or is the Mikhailovsky Ballet going to abandon these things itself and use Duato's formula for 'contemporazing' (a.k.a omitting) the classical repertoire?
I suppose I would not have been so shocked at the news if Duato's interview a few weeks ago had not been so vehement in its attacks to classical dance in Spain, with which he denied the existence classical talent, doubted the value of Spanish conservatoires and called Angel Corella's ballet 'a fast food' type company which was sure to fail. It was a very harsh interview, as other artists such as Corella and Tamara Rojo have noted, and his words must have offended many.
Which makes this turn of events all the more baffling.
Duato's repertoire, and his managing of the company, however, are both incredible, and I love his work. When he does leave, it would be a shame if it went with him. As always, politics play the last hand where dance (and everything else) is concerned, so if Duato is taking this very confusing choice, I have faith that things must have led up to it. I suppose it's a matter of waiting to see what he'll do with the St. Petesburg company if we want to find out whether his anti-classicism is more than a political façade.
