#dancing beethoven

ダンシング・ベートーヴェン Beethoven par Bejart Dancing Beethoven

Dancing Beethoven is a documentary about the preparation and hardworking process of ballet dancers and musicians for a unique spectacle in Tokyo that Maurice Béjart choreographed with the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven. Béjart Ballet Lausanne dances with Tokyo Ballet and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Isreal. A marvellous combination of dancers’ movement and expression of different feelings along the four movements of the symphony with absolute elegance and strength.

Maurice Béjart originally choreographed with the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven 50 years ago and Gil Roman who danced in the original production with Béjart is leading Tokyo Ballet and Béjart Baller Lausanne with choreography and sets out to reimagine the monumental work for a new generation. Arantxa Aguirre documents the history of the piece, the dedication of the current dancers, and the complexity of a daunting multicultural collaboration between Béjart Ballet Lausanne, the Tokyo Ballet, and the Israel Symphony Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta. The result is an exhilarating blend of music and dance. 

Maurice Béjart’s compelling staging of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has been enchanting audiences worldwide since its inception and its idea of universal brotherhood remains highly topical. “All men will be brothers” is the powerful message communicated by the unforgettable music and choreography. “It is the ‘manifestation’, in the deepest sense of the world.”

Dancing Beethoven is a very relatable documentary to performers of all kinds: musicians, dancers, directors and etc. It shows the hard work and effort that each dancers and choreographers put in the performance and rehearsals. Even with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Israel’s rehearsal. CONTROL was a big part on their side of the performance. No sound of instrument should stand out, all of the sound must blend with each other. Same instance with the choir of how they release their vocals during the performance, it should also be controlled. The coordination of the music and the dancers is extraordinary because dancing with live music is not easy. The dancers must time their movements with the music as well as the music who has to be perfect in the performance because every movement of the ballet relies heavily on the music that is played. 

Malya Roman the one interviewing in the film asked Zubin Mehta “Since Beethoven was nearly deaf when he composed this, is this production sort of how Beethoven could’ve listened to the music he composed? By watching the dancer’s movements?” Zubin Mehta answered “That’s a great question, because yes it could be.”

Other than this film showing the work of performers and musicians, it also shows the story of how the performance came to be and the history of every movement and every note of the music. It shows the vision of Maurice Béjart on how the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven came life as a dance production. Every formation in the dance had a meaning, even the movements had meaning behind them. It takes so much artistic talent to choreograph based from music and have a whole production’s theme come from the music itself, because you have to dig deeper that what we just see in the surface, Furthermore, this version of the production displayed different cultures, and not just with the dancers but also with the musicians: French, Israeli, Japanese and there were also Colombians, Indians and etc. This production showed diversity in its cast and its performance. 

Documentaries are beautiful in a way that it shows real life problems and raw emotions of people. This film was able to show exactly what they needed the story behind the success of their production, the behind the scenes of how the director directs his/her performers same goes with the conductor who conducts the music. This documentary can make dancers and musicians relate to what they’ve gone though just for a performance. Same goes with former dancers and former musicians. They show and tell you their thought process and how it comes alive. Through the performance it’s like they were trying to say “Listen with your eyes.” Because the true star in this performance is the music, even though Béjart had a different interpretation, it was his own version of how he saw Beethoven’s music. It makes you think about everything in the performance and that’s how everyone should truly look and reflect a performance. It takes an artist and an intellectual to form this kinds of art it is just beautiful and extraordinary. 

Sources:

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt6194934

https://www.filmlinc.org/films/dancing-beethoven/

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