FFWD Weekly
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| DANCE PREVIEW Mikko Nissinen, Ali Pourfarrokh's successor at Alberta Ballet, is no stranger to the hard work he asks of his dancers. Born in Helsinki, the new artistic director for AB was only 15 when he first danced professionally with the Finnish National Ballet. He then spent 10 years in Europe dancing at such ballets as the Kirov, Dutch National, and Basel, before moving to America and the San Francisco Ballet. But Nissinen's attention is now focused on management and programming. His keen interest in ballet history promises more of a neo-classical identity for the company, but he also hopes to cultivate contemporary Canadian choreographic talent. "In the past, the ballet has been a regional company with lots of contemporary repertoire," he says. "The board hired me to take the company to the next level, to increase international visibility and the quality of the productions and dancing. That's the direction for me. I'm going to do a few more neo-classical works yet some contemporary pieces." There's a practical reason for his eclectic approach. "It's always a hard sell to do a triple-bill unless you're in New York.... I want to showcase variety, so I have to create different stimuli by contrasting styles. "Today's people aren't as taken by the things that people were taken by in the '50s. We see more. There's television. There's MTV, at I don't know how many images per second. The speed of dancing has also changed." Alberta Ballet's Autumn Concert Programme is a case in point. Profound changes will take time, but Nissinen says that there's already a different style and a new energy level. For a start, the pace has picked up, especially in the decision to revive Mark Godden's "Minor Threat," a hit in Alberta Ballet's New York City debut last year. An edgy piece set to Mozart, it's an abstract study about the relationship between men and women that will push everyone's boundaries. "This piece is very dynamic and extremely demanding physically," says Nissinen. "There's an element of throwing yourself, but with control. It's very precise. It's very fast. It pushes the physicality to the edge, using ballet vocabulary but in a contemporary way." Part of the challenge is maintaining technique and consistency at such high speed. Nissinen says the dancers were surprised by his demands for greater and greater speed in a piece they already thought was fast. But in pushing them, he says, he offers them the best life insurance a dancer can have. "They're extremely talented. I hope they see the talent within themselves.... But I also have to train them a little harder." The Canadian premiere of Jean-Paul Comelin's "Les Nuits D'été" also makes its way into the autumn programme. A lyrical study of the stages of a woman's life, the piece occurs in five seasons and is accompanied onstage by mezzo-soprano Nan Hughes. Nissinen describes it as "an extremely sophisticated, very romantic and emotional piece set to Berlioz's song cycle." Canadian-born choreographer Julia Adams contributes another premiere, "Chameleon." True to her reputation for wit in dance, Adams offers up a dramatic and funny voyage in which a woman assimilates the world around her, taking on its colors and patterns, before finally becoming herself. Nissinen's own contribution to the show is a re-staging of Marius Petipa's "Don Quixote Pas de Deux" that recaptures the original essence of the piece and adds a dose of Spanish flair to the programme. "Rather than reinventing the wheel, I took a dustbuster to the piece. We took away some unnecessary growth and started to clarify things." The Autumn Concert Programme played to critical praise in Edmonton last weekend. Now Nissinen waits to see the response in Alberta Ballet's home town. |