Peter Quanz Weblog

Summer-Autumn 2005

This entry was recived as text in Mid-September 2005 and is going live in the January 2006 issue of Ballet.co Magazine

It’s early August, and I’m enjoying the summer from my home in Canada. While my parents spend the day in the garden, I’ve found the perfect time to update my Web log.

The last time I wrote, I was midway through the choreography of Charlies Kreuzfahrt, a full evening story ballet that was the result of three years of work. The premiere was wonderful, and I was supported by friends from Canada, New York, London and all over Germany. It felt like a large family party. That enthusiasm spilled over into the reviews, and I was very happy with everything. My only disappointment was that Tadeusz Biernacki, the composer for the score, was unable to attend the performance because of commitments in Winnipeg.

My parents flew to Germany to see the premiere, and from there we wanted to go to Prague for a few days. Two friends agreed to take our large suitcases until we returned to Germany, but unfortunately my parents’ passports were forgotten inside a pocket of a coat packed away in those departed suitcases. Leaving Germany was ruled out, so we decided to visit Görlitz, a small city that straddles the border between Germany and Poland. Two of my classmates from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School dance at the theatre. In addition to visiting friends, we explored the city, an undiscovered tourist destination with Renaissance and Baroque architecture. We had a tense moment in the train station when the police took me aside to check my passport. My parents just abandoned me in hope that they would not face the same interrogation. Five months later, they are home in Canada, safe and sound.

Once we met up with our friends in Dresden and retrieved the passports, I flew off to New York for negotiations with ABT. At this point fleshing out my ideas for  the Royal Ballet’s Inspired by Ashton programme became my first priority. A friend suggested that I listen to Schubert’s Fantasie in F Minor, a score that he had always thought danceable. He also pointed me toward German Romantic literature as a source for a story. This was still only about two weeks after the premiere of Charlies Kreuzfahrt, where the story was portrayed in a fairly straightforward manner. I felt I needed to tell this new story in a different way. In the end it became an experiment in the portrayal of narrative that fell between realism and abstraction. This was my aim, but it needs more space to grow.

I cast 10 dancers in my ballet. They were technically proficient and so comfortable with the ballet language. Gary Avis was helpful in developing the focus of the ballet while Iohna Loots, Hikaru Kobayashi, Ernst Meisner and Richard Ramsey were very quick to interpret and realize my ideas for the corps de ballet movement.

One of the biggest pleasures of my time in London was working with Paul Stobart, a rehearsal pianist with the Royal Ballet. He would talk about how Ashton worked in the studio, sing his musicality and gently guide me through the Schubert score. We spent hours talking about the phrasing, about collaborating on a new Pas de Deux that he would compose and about life in the company. My experience with the Royal Ballet is filled with many very special human tales.

Anna Trevien was the choreologist and ballet mistress for my ballet, and it  was a luxury to be supported in this manner. Steps change as they get translated from choreographer to dancer, and often from dancer to dancer. Anna’s record of my ballet, while informal, became a valuable tool in rehearsal. I had never worked with a notator before. Actually, I have had little experience with a ballet master or mistress, and I had to learn when to sit back and watch what was happening with my piece. We really had a fun time making the ballet.

Unfortunately, the premiere of Fantasy did not take place on the opening night of the programme. Marianela Nuñez injured her knee in the general rehearsal that afternoon and  was unable to go on in the evening. There was not enough time to teach the ballet to Christina Elida Salerno before the evening, so the ballet premiered the next night. Christina finished learning the steps as the curtain rose that night and Monica Mason to announce the cancellation of my performance. We made a small cut in her variation, something that Anna, the choreologist, executed with ease. This meant that one musical repeat in the score was also cut. I have several recordings of the Schubert Fantasie, and they all treat the repeats differently. Shortly before the intended start time of my ballet, Christina had seen all the steps and walked through the partner work, but not all in sequence or in a run through. She watched the rehearsal tape at home and came back the next morning with her interpretation already showing signs of development. An emergency call was scheduled for Christina to put everything into place, as well as for Leanne Cope to take over Christina’s role. After a short rest, it was curtain time and the big press night. I was extremely proud of  Christina, who danced very well and deepened her interpretation with each performance.  Leanne impressed me with how she developed her own individual interpretation. I look forward to watching her grow as a young dance actress. She has a fabulous technique, wonderful work ethic and yet she is alive and becomes a character on stage.

My sister graduated from film school the day before my intended Royal Ballet premiere, and so my parents remained in Canada to applaud her success. However, my father was able to fly over to London to watch a few studio rehearsals before returning for the graduation. We also saw the Queen’s Birthday parade, which was very exciting!

Learning to work in emergency situations and having to make important decisions quickly is very important to anyone in a leadership position. Many experiences are essential in the development of a choreographer, and I consider my time in London a valuable preparation for my new ballet for ABT. In all, the Royal Ballet was very supportive of my ideas and I was able to learn a great deal about my craft from the collaboration

The delayed premiere in London had further repercussions: I was scheduled to start another ballet for the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada immediately after the London premiere. While rehearsing Christina for her debut in Fantasy, I had Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet Company Manager, rebook my flight to Calgary, prolong my accommodation arrangements in my lovely Cranley Gardens flat and let the director of the dance program in Banff know that I would be a few days late. Before I finally left for Canada, I was able to see the remaining three performances of Fantasy — but I missed one and a half days of rehearsal in Banff.

Once in Banff, two hours by car from Calgary, surrounded by mountains, and a world away from the hustle and bustle of London, I had two and a half weeks to create a new twenty-minute ballet before stage rehearsals began. The Festival Ballet Company is a group of young dancers from across Canada and the USA who are either Corps de Ballet dancers or graduates from the various ballet schools. The six-week rehearsal and performance period the other choreographers had was hardly enough to fashion the group into a cohesive unit. So I was nervous because I couldn’t arrive until the beginning of the third rehearsal week, and only then did I meet the dancers for the first time.

I had planned to use seven couples in my ballet, set to the Concerto for Flute in G Minor QV 5:196 by Johann Joachim Quantz (the court composer for Frederick the Great in Prussia and a very, very distant ancestor), but when I arrived and saw the company as well as the casting for the other ballets, I noticed that there were several tall ladies who were hardly being used. I immediately switched my casting around to use eight corps women, four corps men and a principal couple. Therefore I was able to work with many dancers who had a lighter schedule than others, and thus had more rehearsal hours for creation. In addition, the tall ladies were excited to dance in my ballet, and the rehearsals became  the definition of energy.

Banff is a small city set high in the Rocky Mountains. It is part of a National Park, and wildlife roam through the city. Each day as I prepared myself for rehearsals, I would work in a small foyer where a temporary dance floor had been set up. Large glass windows presented a spectacular view of the mountains, and an elk decided to raise her calf under my gaze. It was conducive to my creativity to enjoy the views (I won’t even try to explain how that elk figured into the process – I’ll let the work speak for itself), the fabulous meal service and the feeling of existing only to make ballets. I am very much in favour of working in a retreat setting, and the calm of that environment is apparent in the works that I have made in those environments.

I was so proud of the dancers and the work they did. I had tried to use the classical technique in a way that captured the freshness of the Baroque music. It was formal, but spun in unexpected directions with the ever-changing patterns of a kaleidoscope. The young performers did themselves proud. I found out after the performances that some of the  women had taken a copy of the CD into the studio over a weekend and rehearsed themselves. I was very touched that they would have that kind of spirit.

I have been extremely lucky to have the support of my family. My home is a suitcase, and they have always invested heavily into my development. They drove for four days to see the performances, and I think they liked the ballet. Once I was finally on vacation, we travelled home, stopping off in various places to enjoy very beautiful scenery – from the mountains of Banff to the dinosaur bone beds in the Badlands and to the flat prairies of Saskatchewan. Stopping off in Moose Jaw, we toured underground tunnels where the Chinese workers who built our national railroad (basically as slave labour) lived and worked to buy freedom in Canada. Later we spent a few days in Winnipeg, which allowed me to reconnect with friends at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. Then during the last 24-hour drive home to Baden, Ontario,  I tested possible scores for ballets on my captive audience. I had not been home in ten months. Now I’m taking the chance to relax a little, but apparently people have been complaining that I’m always on the phone (doing business, of course).

But it has not been all rest and relaxation. I have many small administrative things to attend to, and am firming up my plans for my next ballet at American Ballet Theatre. I have been in touch with both the set designer, Robert Perdziola, and the costume designer, Holly Hynes (who designed Christopher Wheeldon’s Polyphonia). One major task has been estimating the rehearsal time required for each section in the ballet so my rehearsals can be coordinated with the other ballets that ABT is presenting this fall.

I’m using Saint-Saëns’ 5th Piano Concerto in F Major as the score for my as yet untitled ballet. With a cast of 22 dancers in glorious tutus, this ballet will be a vibrant celebration of classicism. I’m honoured that I’ll be working with dancers who have been legends to me as I studied, and I’m very excited about this collaboration with ABT. Thank goodness I had the opportunity to work with the Royal Ballet with the invaluable support of Monica Mason to help prepare me for the pressure of making the only world premiere in ABT’s 2005 schedule.

This has been a very busy year. I have learned some lessons that I could only  learn through experience. Now I’m looking forward to continuing the process. Next stop: New York City.

Posted by Bruce at January 30, 2006 01:04 PM