 | REPERTOIRE Bits and Pieces |
Coreography: Hans van Manen
Music: David Byrne, Brian Eno, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Sets and customes: Kesso Dekker
Light design: Jan Hofstra
Worldpremier by the Het Nationale Ballet at the Stadtschouwburg of Amsterdam, 2 on june 2th, 1984. Worldpremier by the Compañía Nacional de Danza at the Teatro de La Zarzuela in Madrid, on decembre 13th, 1991.
Bits & Pieces takes some characteristics from previous works by Hans van Manen, Five Short Stories and In and Out, and joins together in a completely new experience, a work that the own choreographer defines as "an absolutely serious comedy".
Bits & Pieces is composed of seven pieces. Four of them tell some funny short stories.
The anecdotal elements of this choreography are amusing, funny, human and honest. The only important requirements are some chairs and twelve dancers.
In the first two pieces called "Thank you Mr. Muybridge" Hans van Manen pays a choreographic tribute to the Californian Edward Muybridge, the pioneer of the mass-produced pictures. Hans van Manen stages twelve dances whose movements are suspended in technique as Muybridge's cameras do, recording a living creature in movement. It is a homage to a choreographer who has obtained new incentives for this art in the photographic environment.
Something particular in this piece is that the choreographer portrays "the choreographer" doing his job. This character plays a tamer who treats his dancers as creatures without their own free will, as if they were machines. He moves with vulgarity, acquiring in a certain way the charm of a gorilla.
Jochen Schmidt
from his book Der Zeitgenosse als Klassiker: Hans van Manen
