Dancing across the black and white keys

The logic of the music
Etudes means exercises, and this is what Etudes is. Exercises that shape up more and more and become faster and faster. From the first movements of the ballet school, the simple warm-ups of the foot joints to small, fast step combinations; from slow, high leg lifts, giant leaps and large pirouettes on tiptoe, to the lifting of graceful women by strong men and their large jumps like flying elegant elephants. The dance is like the dance of black and white keys across a piano keyboard.

Everything, each measure and each step, is perceived and performed in precise keeping with the logic of the music.

Ambitious director
In 1932, a young Harald Lander was charged with the responsibility of the Royal Danish Ballet. He was an excellent dancer and, in addition, a musician. He was, for instance, a competent saxophone player. And he had ambitions. Both for himself and the Ballet.

Inspired by Russian directors and the American show tradition he brought the Ballet forward, and in 1948 the Royal Danish Ballet reached the heights of its culmination in the era. The Bournonville tradition was intact, and at the same time a group of young dancers was blossoming. They mastered everything: the old, classical, graceful ballet as well as the Russian ballet with all its virile virtuosity. And they believed in the justification of ballet - as an art form in its own right.

Ready to dance
Ballet is aesthetic beauty and musicality. This is already obvious from the first scene of Etudes in which the ballerinas are lined up, one next to the other. Ready. To dance. To let the music unfold - through their well-trained bodies.

Lone Nyhuus is a former dancer and choreographer. As a freelance journalist she works for the DR P2 radio programme Teatermagasinet (The Theatre Magazine).