Hans van Manen’s Corps takes its inspiration from Alban Berg’s elegiac Violin Concerto and reflects the ‘longing for’ and ‘taking leave of’ expressed in the music. The nervous restlessness and often aggressive pattern of the movements capture the impotent rage invoked by the death of a loved one. The corps de ballet plays a leading role, interacting with twelve male dancers and three female dancers. This performance by the Dutch National Ballet was recorded in studio and Gidon Kremer is the soloist with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Colin Davis.
Piano Variations
Three ballets by Hans van Manen reflect his choreographic preoccupation with relationships between the sexes. Piano Variations II, to Prokofiev’s Sarcasms Op. 17, shows a couple locked in a cycle of acceptance and rejection. In Piano Variation III, to Satie’s Trois Gnossiennes, a man and a woman succumb to a growing attraction. Piano Variation IV, to Etudes by Debussy, shows a man resisting twelve women, before yielding. This studio recording includes an interview with van Manen.