DANISH BALLET : TEACHER PASSES ON TECHNIQUE

When Danish choreographer August Bournonville died in 1879, he didn’t expect his works or his reputation to long outlive him. But the style of dancing he created for the Royal Danish Ballet--which he directed for nearly 50 years--remains the mainstay of that company, and today nearly every major ballet company dances at least some of his works.

Tage Wente, a member of the Danish company for almost 45 years, however, would like to make the Bournonville style of dancing better known to young American dancers. Wente, 57, is currently on a three-city teaching tour, which ends at UC Irvine. Beginning Monday, Wente will lead a two-week seminar in the Bournonville technique on the UC Irvine campus.

“It is a style full of joy and charm and happiness,” Wente said in a phone interview from Akron, Ohio, midpoint of his tour. “But it is a very demanding style.”

Variously described as light, buoyant, graceful and gracious, the Bournonville technique is characterized by springy jumps, intricately beaten footwork and an elegant carriage of the upper body. It plays down crowd-pleasing, flamboyant virtuosity or soul-dramatizing angst .

Virtually everything about the technique differs from the more familiar vocabulary of Russian classicism established by Marius Petipa, according to Wente, who operates five Bournonville schools in Denmark.

“There is a special way of doing everything in the body, in the arms, the smile, the face,” Wente said. “They are all quite different from what you see in Russian ballet.

“The arms are a little more rounded, the hands must be soft. And the plie, which is very important, is different, too.

“Everything has to be very nice and charming, and it must look harmonious and easy to do--even though it is very difficult.”

It takes great strength and control to make the movements harmonious, Wente said.

Bournonville’s technique grew out of his own virtuosity as a dancer and as a mime, according to Wente.

A contemporary of Hans Christian Andersen, Bournonville began his studies with the great Auguste Vestris, the first widely regarded male dancer in Europe. He took this early 19th-Century French Romantic style and advanced it through creating more than 50 ballets and divertissements such as “La Sylphide,” “Napoli” and the “Flower Festival in Genzano” for the ballet company.

The company, isolated in Copenhagen, preserved approximately 10 of Bournonville’s ballets, and remained untouched both by the decline in standards evident everywhere in ballet outside Russia and by the later avant-garde influences of the Diaghilev Ballet Russe. Thus, a purer Bournonville style than was otherwise familiar was seen when the company rejoined the mainstream of the dance world by touring in the early 1950s.

According to Wente, the genius and the essence of the style are in the extended combinations--or enchainements--of steps:

“Bournonville loved to link a lot of steps together. He was a true choreographer and couldn’t stop inventing enchainements when he made his long variations.

“They present a very demanding challenge for the dancers.”

These enchainements became the core of the ballet school’s technique established by one of Bournonville’s successors, Hans Beck.

It was Beck who turned the training into a weekly routine, called the Bournonville School, and designated a certain discipline for every day: The Monday School, the Tuesday School and so on through Saturday.

“Each day has about 35 different kinds of enchainements, which take about one hour to get through,” Wente said. It is these enchainments which will form part of the daily six-hour classes at UC Irvine. About 40 dancers from around the county, ages 12 to 15, have registered for the classes.

One critical aspect of Bournonville style which Wente feels he won’t have time to get into, however, is mime.

Each of Bournonville’s surviving full-length ballets contain prominent mime roles, which have been described as being closer to silent film acting in their intricacy than to the conventionalized sign language seen in Russian ballets such as “Swan Lake.”

These roles are usually cast with older company members--Wente himself has taken such roles--and this helps to ensure a comprehensive view of human society since dozens of dancing children are also often part of the ballets.

“In this way, in the things that we do when we are young, we are prepared to go on as we get older,” Wente said. “This helps keep the style a living tradition and the performances the way they’re supposed to be.”

“There have been different kinds of performances of the ballets by people outside the (Royal Danish) ballet. But at this moment, we try to keep them the same way.”

As for the short time he will be spending at UCI, Wente said:

“It’s true that the style has to grow with the body. But at least two weeks are better than one. And in that time what I can do is give the students the kind of impression of what (the style) is all about.

“I hope these classes can continue year after year, so that the students get more out of it. Maybe in the future we can stage a work.”