Give it a whirl
Thanks to Bal Moderne, everyone, including you, dear reader -- regardless of your age and fitness level -- can get a kick out of dancing short works by today’s top choreographers
"Kung fu, recover; crab step, surf, squeeze, recover," choreographer Randi Van Vlieghe intones softly. He’s leading Oonagh Duckworth through a test run of the new dance he has just made for the big bal moderne that will take place later this month in Bruges. Oonagh is the director of Bal Moderne, the small, non-profit outfit that organises these events, where people of all ages and from all walks of life mingle and have fun while learning short dances created by some of the best contemporary choreographers in the business. The atmosphere is as relaxed as at any knees-up, but the artistic challenges and rewards are higher.
While she and Randi are dancing, Oonagh is evaluating the choreography for feasibility: will non-dancers be able to get the hang of it in a 45-minute training session? Are the movements too expansive to be executed simultaneously by hundreds of people in the designated performance space?
Together they work out a few adjustments and run through it again. The dance takes two and a half minutes to perform; this test session will last two hours. After it’s over, the choreography will be fine-tuned before being presented to the dance professionals and volunteers who will help the public catch on to it during Bruges Concertgebouw’s 10th anniversary celebrations.
Bal Moderne will celebrate its own 20th anniversary in 2013. Originated in Paris in 1993, the concept and the organisation grew out of a desire to give non-dancers the chance to experience physically the joy of being a contemporary dancer-- if only for the duration of a four-minute piece. Too popular for its own good in Paris, where it became trendy overnight and quickly flamed out, Bal Moderne made its Brussels debut at Kunstenfestivaldesarts in 1996. Soon after, under Duckworth's direction, it relocated to Belgium.
Since the year 2000, many of this country's major public celebrations*have been accompanied by bals modernes. They’ve become part of the national fabric, and they come in all sizes and varieties. In its classic indoor format, a bal includes three choreographies taught by professional dancers onstage with the help of volunteer assistants on the dance floor. Forty-five minutes is devoted to each dance, followed by a 15-minute break. “We're careful to give people a good balance of solo and partner dancing,” Duckworth says. The music is important too. At a bal moderne, you may find yourself dancing to an excerpt from Swan Lake , then to pieces set to tunes by Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones, Prince or Stromae. At the end, there's a DJ party. The evening rarely winds down before two in the morning.
For those who turn in early, Bal Moderne organises free daytime bals in public parks during the summer, and they design bals for special occasions and specific populations. “We've done bals exclusively for Islamic women,” Duckworth says, “where the DJ and the technicians have been women. We've done a bal for people in wheelchairs and bals for schoolchildren. A couple of years ago we did a Bollywood bal at Bozar because that was their theme.''
Bal Moderne has a repertory of about 50 dances made expressly for them by some 40 choreographers, including the biggest names in Belgium's booming dance world: Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Wim Vandekeybus, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Michele Anne De Mey, and the list goes on. Others are by young dancers from De Keersmaeker’s renowned dance school P.A.R.T.S, with which Bal Moderne has long enjoyed close ties.
''We used to give the choreographers rules like 'Not too much touching' and 'You can't make people to go to the floor',” Duckworth says. “But the dances were becoming a bit boring because they were being made to fit the guidelines. Then Anne Teresa [De Keersmaeker] made a dance where she had people hugging. Luckily,I didn't dare say to her 'This is never going to work', because people went crazy for it. Since then, if choreographers come way out of the box of the guidelines, so much the better, as long as they're prepared to work on the piece to make it danceable by the public. It's that that makes the bal special and takes it beyond other projects. It’s the artist's signature that has to be there, otherwise it's just 'Ok, let's make a dance that everybody can dance'.
''Sometimes I've had to convince choreographers to participate because they felt it might be degrading for their works to be danced by just anybody. But once they see three hundred people doing their dances, they suddenly become totally convinced --not just by the thrill of seeing their choreography giving so much pleasure to so many people, but also because they realise that these people now have an understanding of their work and might become part of their audience.
''So it works two ways,'' Duckworth continues. ''Bal Moderne debunks the public’s preconceptions about contemporary dance being elitist or difficult or boring, and it helps choreographers realise that it's important to touch a wide audience.''
''Loads of people who feel too old or untrendy to go to discos come to Bal Moderne. Young and trendy people come as well, so it's a really nice mixture,” Duckworth says. “The main purpose is to have fun. I've seen bcbg madamekes dancing with young hip-hoppers, both having a fantastic time. It’s okay to get the steps wrong or be creative with them. Nobody is watching and judging. It's not like being on the disco floor, where you're showing off your moves. At the same time, you aren't just Club Medding. The choreographers are real artists, and you can sense the creative spirit behind the dance.”
How can people with two left feet be persuaded to take to the dance floor? "We guarantee that they’ll be able to do the dance at the end of forty-five minutes or they’ll get their money back,” Duckworth says with a laugh. "Our most reluctant customers are youngish straight men. They usually get dragged along by their girlfriends, but often they’re the ones who end up being completely won over by it, because they realise they can let go.”
Bal Moderne is catching on internationally. At the invitation of theatres and festivals, they organise bals all over Europe and as far afield as China, Australia and Brazil. “Sometimes we tour with our repertoire, and sometimes we develop projects with local choreographers, helping them to make their own bal moderne,” Duckworth says.
While contemporary dance is universally appealing, local customs and personal preferences die hard. “In Dresden and Vienna, people came to the bal in evening gowns. In Bxls they come in jeans and T-shirts,” Duckworth notes. The choice is yours. But by all means, dance!
Bals not to miss
February 10, March 9, April 27
La Tentation
28 Rue de Laeken, Brussels, tel 02.223.22.75
To win a pair of free tickets, be the first to send an email to balmoderne@gmail.com
February 19
Choreographies by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Wim Vandekeybus, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Bruges native Randi De Vlieghe are featured in this bal celebrating 10th anniversary of the Bruges Concertgebouw. Children are welcome.
Concertgebouw, 34 't Zand, Bruges, tel 07.22.33.02, www.concertgebouw.be
-- Bal moderne is looking for assistants. To volunteer, contact balmoderne@gmail.com
* During Brussels' turn as European Cultural Capital in the year 2000, bals modernes were held in the city's 19 communes; 30,000 people participated in 'La Belgique Danse', a vast bal moderne held simultaneously in 12 Belgian cities for the nation's 175th anniversary in '05; in 2010, the Belgian EU Presidency's inaugural events included a bal moderne.
