Junior Ballet Antwerp is a house with many rooms. Highly trained dancers can come here for a very first professional experience that has an undeniable artistic added value. A whole team of internationally renowned guest choreographers is ready again to take the JBA artists on an unforgettable journey of exploration through emotions, passion and technical perfection. This celebration year too, the audience will be treated to surprising productions, both in style and content: playful ballets with an edge and choreographies with greater artistic depth.
Communication between generations
Former principal of the Royal Ballet of Flanders Alain Honorez set up the 'junior company'. He started five years ago with vision and confidence in the future. Classical ballet remains the foundation, further neoclassical dance and contemporary dance in an ambitious trajectory. The first year the course was charted. The second and partly third year made corona turn this artistic adventure into a roller coaster. Artists with years of experience and a rich imagination do not easily let the wind be taken out of their sails. Giving up is not part of their DNA. Alternatives were sought. With additional training in photography, he created beautiful short films outdoors with one or two dancers. Conceptual with emphasis on dance. Each one an artistic gem. After corona, normal work could resume. Last year the audience saw three spectacular productions: the full-length classical ballet Cinderella, Signatures and subsequently Miniaturen II with various contemporary choreographies.
Artistic director Alain Honorez lifts a corner of the veil on this celebration year.
-How many new dancers made their appearance?
Most of the group is new. There are dancers from all over the world again: Japan, South Korea, South Africa, Canada, Italy, England and Croatia. We hold an audition every year. The number of dancers who respond to it remains stable, around four hundred. They provide us with video material. It is the customary way of working these days. They show something classical, something contemporary and sometimes a presentation of themselves on top of that. From this a first selection is made of dancers we think may be eligible to raise their level. Ultimately, around one hundred and fifty candidates remain. They are then invited to an audition in Antwerp. Some succeed, others don't because they live too far away, or they have already found something else. Those talented, newly graduated people really do respond to everything the market has to offer. Eventually we get around forty candidates through the door. From these, a maximum of twenty young dancers are retained. Just because we offer them to come and train at JBA doesn't mean they take it up. JBA is not an official institution, but a private institute with a paid program. For some young people, the financial aspect is not feasible. Or they shy away from gaining an additional two years of experience. However, learning and excelling in an art form takes a lot of time. You have to be patient to achieve a number of things. Youth often don't have that patience anymore. Through far-reaching digitalization, their wishes are fulfilled at the drop of a hat. They order something today and own it tomorrow. Young people are also constantly stimulated by social media. It works addictively. They no longer use their imagination. Everyone follows. One big herd. The television programmes are not much better. The public is being infantilized! Society is clearly in overdrive. This, in my opinion, has a great impact on the arts. It is disastrous. Learning a craft takes time. How many crafts are still left?
-Fortunately, there are also young people with drive, with a dream. Last year can be described as a bumper year with Cinderella, Signatures and Miniaturen II. Expectations are running high!
Last year we were finally able, so to speak, to run at full capacity from September to June. It culminated in an incredible artistic success. A lot has also become clear. Especially in terms of: what do we do and what can we achieve with the limited means we ultimately have. Enormous steps were taken last year. We were really able to show what we have in-house. Investments were made in the future. Not only the dancers but also what our team has to offer. Our vision too. Mapping out the trajectory that the dancers go through. Continuing to support classical ballet. It is an art form that must not disappear. We take that very much to heart. Yet we are not solely focused on long-established traditions but see dance as a living art form that reflects our time.
-Is it then easier for them to get engaged somewhere?
It is and remains gigantically difficult. Also because budgets are being cut everywhere. Companies are getting smaller. Places are even more coveted than two years, five years, ten years ago! It is really difficult. But what our program guarantees one hundred percent: after two years they are completely transformed.
-In what sense?
We strive for their individual growth both as a dancer, as an artist, but also as a human being.
-When they come knocking here, they are adolescents, still children really!
Yes, they are seventeen, eighteen years old and have just left school, a bit overprotected. They were in a framework and had to follow the rules. Gradually we let them loose a bit and teach them to stand on their own two feet. Both in the studio and the technical aspect. But also as a person. They have to learn everything: living alone, doing their shopping, planning their budget that they have been given. What can they afford and what not. That is a delicate moment in a person's life.
-Also standing up for themselves artistically?
Exactly, everything we offer in the workshops with different choreographers and styles and performance after performance. Taking steps and growing… The daily perfection that is defined by passion, discipline, perseverance and hard work. JBA is a preview of the real life of a professional dancer.
-In recent years JBA has been able to attract renowned choreographers. Which choreographers have you invited this time?
We are trying to continue the trend of course. We look at this season as a more intimate version. Completely tailored to the number of dancers we have at our disposal. The bulk this year consists of women and only one man. With them we are going to do fantastic things. For that I approached the Italian choreographer Mauro de Candia. A very young dance maker but with an enormous vision in terms of theatricality. He gives dance a somewhat more modern interpretation, but the classical foundation remains central. We eagerly seized on the fact that James Ensor is being celebrated in 2024. Mauro de Candia will create a performance around his person. Knowing that he can think outside the box: there are the colours, the humour. The idea is to create a three-dimensional spectacle around a two-dimensional given, Ensor's paintings. The performance will simply be called 'James'. With his attention to expressivity it will certainly be something exceptional. Getting the necessary money together is always the hardest part. We immediately contacted the city of Oostende for a project subsidy, but we did not receive it. In the meantime, a project subsidy has been submitted to the Flemish Community. We expect an answer only in December or even January. It is frustrating how we hear from all sides how qualitative our performances are and how the dynamics of the young JBA artists touch the audience. How everything is shipshape and in order but the hard reality is: it keeps fighting!
-The arts sector is being strangled a bit!
I don't know if you can generalise it. There are organisations that can work well subsidised and deliver very good and beautiful work. But there are also some that cut corners! The committees behind it - who decides where the money goes? It is anything but evident and transparent. It sometimes makes me sad. As a country you are quite rich if you can show art in all its branches.
The second nice aspect of this year: we are celebrating our very first anniversary: five years of JBA. We also don't have the financial means this year to pull out all the stops with two grand productions. I thought, we have been doing this for five years now. Can we, as a second production, bring a sample, a résumé of the past four years? Little pieces from all our performances, packed into a nice overview. Show what we have already accomplished. All choreographers were contacted to see if they could agree that we would pick a three-minute passage from their twenty-minute choreography. Not one of the eleven choreographers objected to that. That retrospective will be performed before the interval. After that we bring a completely new choreography by Le Wang. It will be a spectacular festival programme. The Koninklijke Balletschool will participate. The performances will take place in the palace in June 2024.
-Coming back to the production 'Cinderella'. Does this gem remain on the repertoire?
It was a very expensive production with more than 120 costumes, accompanied live by a large symphonic orchestra. You don't break even easily with a dozen performances at the Handelsbeurs! We must attach great importance to that gem. The costumes are ready, we have the projections, the choreography, the music. How can we bring that out in the coming years? Still the same context, but something more intimate. So that JBA gets more name recognition, also outside Antwerp. That is why performances in the various Culturele Centra are important. Getting a foot in the door there is difficult, however. They play it safe and go for well-known names. A little more courage from that side would certainly help too.
-It will be working with one boy and the rest girls, not easy!
It is a general phenomenon. The dance coach and career counselor we had visiting last week, Matz Skoog, recently worked with the 'trainee program' linked to the English National Ballet School and they are also struggling with the same problem. At the Koninklijke Balletschool in Antwerp, they are at a better percentage with regard to the intake of boys today, I thought. Certainly this year, many young children are starting an education. In the sixth year there are four boys and in the fifth three. An equal number is certainly not in order.
-So the focus will initially be on 'James'?
Indeed. With three performances at the Opera of Antwerp on 24 & 25 February. After that we'll take it on tour. We'll stop in Knokke and Alsemberg among others and there will be an autumn tour at venues to be determined later. Contact was established with muZEE in Oostende. The production 'James' lends itself wonderfully to being decoupled from the theater. It will be a total spectacle of seventy minutes, very theatrical, dynamic, colorful. We also entered into a collaboration with the KMSKA: in March we will perform in the Ensor hall and we had the opportunity to film the trailer for 'James' in the Ensor hall. This is how we're trying various alternatives to get closer to the audience. To lower the threshold. We need word-of-mouth advertising.
-You're also coming up with even more novelties!
Indeed. What is especially special about this season, apart from the two new productions, is that on Friday evenings we're opening the studio for advanced and professional dancers to come and dance with us. 'Mens sana in corpore sano'. Winter and summer dance days will follow and we're organizing a unique fundraising dinner on 29 November in the beautiful setting of Botanic Sanctuary in Antwerp. Furthermore, we were invited to the 'Junior Ballet Festival' in Geneva where we will proudly represent Belgium in March.
-You remain the ambassador of classical ballet.
What is most important is that we come up with initiatives to keep the classical foundation in Belgium at top level. If we are to continue that tradition, hard work must be done. Everything new that is now being created exists only by the grace of classical ballet. Because that tradition is the foundation of everything.
reservations via inge@juniorballetantwerp.be