Education
EDUCATION
RESOURCE
rnzb.org.nz
facebook.com/nzballet
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L ARLESIENNE
NATIONAL TOURING
PARTNER
SUPPORTING EDUCATION
Introduction
Carmen with l’Arlésienne, two landmark works of 20th century by French
master-choreographer Roland Petit, is a programme that the Royal New
Zealand Ballet is immensely proud to share with New Zealanders. These
two iconic works are new to the RNZB’s repertoire, and it is a privilege to
bring them to audiences in Auckland, Blenheim, Christchurch, Dunedin,
Invercargill, Napier, Palmerston North, Rotorua and Wellington this
summer – a high energy start to the RNZB’s performing year.
As well as a wide range of insights related to the production, this
resource includes a collection of cross-curricular activities to introduce
you and your students to the dramatic and passionate world of Carmen.
Contents
Carmen with L’Arlésienne curriculum links
3
Origins 4
Ballet timeline of Carmen6
Two ballets by Roland Petit; Carmen and L’Arlésienne7
The Story of L’Arlésienne and Carmen9
Music10
Production11
Activity: L’Arlésienne17
Activity: Carmen18
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Carmen with L’Arlésienne
curriculum links
In this unit you and your students will:
• Learn about the elements that come
together to create a ballet experience.
• Identify the processes involved in making a
theatrical production.
Curriculum links in this unit
Values
Students will be encouraged to value:
• Innovation, inquiry and curiosity, by thinking
critically, creatively and reflectively.
• Diversity, as found in our different cultures
and heritages.
• Community and participation for the
common good.
Key competencies
• Using language, symbols and text –
Students will recognise how choices of
language and symbols in live theatre affect
people’s understanding and the ways in
which they respond.
• Relating to others – Students will develop
the ability to listen actively and share ideas
regarding theatrical ballet performances.
• Participating and contributing – Students
will be actively involved in their cultural
community, understanding the importance
of creative environments.
• Thinking – Students will reflect on their
own thinking and learning after the personal
experience of attending a live theatre show.
Learning objectives for
Levels 7 & 8
Level 7 students will learn how to:
• Understand dance in context – Investigate
and evaluate the effects of individual, social,
cultural, and technological influences on the
development of a variety of dance genres
and styles.
• Develop practical knowledge – Extend
skills in the vocabulary, practices and
technologies of selected dance genres and
styles.
• Communicate and interpret – Analyse,
explain and discuss aspects of performance
and choreography in a range of dance
works.
Level 8 students will learn how to:
• Understand dance in context – Investigate,
analyse, and discuss the features, history,
issues, and development of dance in New
Zealand, including the contribution of
selected individuals and groups.
• Develop practical knowledge – Extend
and refine skills, practices, and use of
technologies in a range of dance genres and
styles.
• Communicate and interpret – Critically
analyse, interpret, and evaluate the artistic
features and the communication of ideas in
a range of dance works.
NCEA
Carmen with L’Arlésienne, and the use of
this resource, is ideal for NCEA level dance
teachers and students who are learning to
analyse and appreciate a dance performance.
©RNZB FEBRUARY 2017
3
Origins
Carmen is an iconic female
character, synonymous with
independence, fearlessness
and the power of seduction.
Carmen revels in her
sensuality and the freedom
to make her own choices.
Whatever the claims made on
her body, her heart and mind
are her own.
Literature
Carmen first appeared in a novella written
by the French writer and historian, Prosper
Merimée (1803 – 1870), in 1845. The story
was inspired by a trip to Spain that Merimée
had made as a young man, and tells of
Carmen, a beautiful gypsy woman, and her
jealous lover, Don José. In Merimée’s version,
the story is told to the author by Don José on
the night before his execution for the murder
of Carmen. Don José was a soldier, but
deserts after becoming involved with Carmen,
whom he has fallen in love with after arresting
her for fighting in the cigarette factory where
she works. He later joins her band of gypsy
smugglers and kills Carmen’s husband in a
knife fight. Carmen and Don José marry but
she continues to consort with other men,
including a successful young picador, and Don
José is consumed with jealousy. Don José
stabs Carmen to death and then gives himself
up to the police, knowing that he will be
sentenced to death.
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Opera
Ballet
Georges Bizet was commissioned to compose
a full length opera for the Opéra Comique
in 1873. After several suggestions from the
theatre’s management, which the composer
rejected, Bizet suggested Merimée’s novella
as a suitable scenario for the new opera
which, as was always the case at the Opéra
Comique, would include spoken dialogue
as well as singing. The opera had a long
gestation, with the theatre’s management
at times being very uncomfortable with
its risqué subject, and then difficulties in
finding a singer-actress who could portray
the title role. The premiere took place at the
Opéra Comique on 3 March 1875, and was a
moderate success. The critics were divided,
in part because nothing like Carmen had been
seen on the operatic stage before. It was not
a mythological music-drama, like Wagner, and
it was not a lavish spectacle like the works of
Massenet or Gounod. The ‘amoral’ heroine
and the low life setting disgusted some critics.
After 33 performances, Carmen was not seen
in Paris again until 1883.
The story of Carmen, and especially its iconic
heroine, has also inspired many dance works,
of which Roland Petit’s 1949 ballet is the
most enduring. It was premiered by Petit
and his company ‘Les Ballets de Paris’ at the
Prince's Theatre in London on 21 February
1949.This version is in five scenes and offers
a striking mix of classical ballet, Spanishstyle movement, mime, and freshly invented
dramatic dance action.
Get a glimpse of Roland Petit as Don José and
his wife as Carmen dancing the famous Pas
de deux :
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=9n1xS1u5ZLo
Outside Paris, it was a different story, with
productions of Carmen soon seen in Vienna,
Brussels, London and New York. By the
time of the Opéra Comique revival in 1883,
Carmen had entered the repertoire of opera
houses throughout Europe and the Americas,
and has continued to be one of the most
frequently-staged and popular works in the
operatic canon.
Carmen rehearsal with Peter Schaufuss and
Susan O'Gan, Berlin Opera Ballet, 1995
RP PRIVATE ARCHIVES
©RNZB FEBRUARY 2017
5
Ballet timeline of Carmen
1800
1900
1845 Carmen first appears in
Prosper Merimée’s novella
1875 First performance of Bizet’s
Carmen Opera in Paris
1949 Premiere of Roland Petit’s Carmen
ballet in London
1953 Poul Gnatt (1923 – 1995) founds
the Royal New Zealand Ballet (RNZB)
Poul Gnatt
1967 Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin writes his
Carmen Suite, using Bizet’s music and scenario but
orchestrated for strings and percussion
1967 Cuban choreographer Alberto Alonso
creates Carmen Suite, a one-act ballet using
Rodion Shchedrin music arrangement
1976 The RNZB performs Philip
Charfield’s Carmen choreography on
Rodion Shchedrin music score
1992 New Carmen ballet by Swedish
choreographer Mats Ek premiered by the
Cullberg Ballet in Norsberg, Stockholm
2000
1999 Dutch choreographer Didy Veldman
creates a full-length dance theatre version
of Carmen for the Northern Ballet in the UK
2002 the RNZB performs the
Carmen ballet of Didy Veldman
2010 the RNZB restages Didy
Veldman’s Carmen ballet
2017 New Zealand premieres of Roland
Petit’s Carmen and L’Arlésienne ballets by
the RNZB
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RNZB Carmen ballet 2010
Two ballets by Roland Petit;
Carmen and L’Arlésienne
Choreography ROLAND PETIT
Music GEORGES BIZET
Staging LUIGI BONINO, with GILLIAN WHITTINGHAM
Lighting JEAN-MICHEL DÉSIRÉ
Set design (L’Arlésienne) RENÉ ALLIO
Costume design (L’Arlésienne) CHRISTINE LAURENT
Set and costume design (Carmen) ANTONI CLAVÉ
ROLAND PETIT
(1924 – 2011)
"The work of Roland Petit is a crucial
link in the chain of the development of
dance theatre and story ballets around
the world."
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV, 1997
Born in Villemomble, outside Paris, Roland
Petit entered the School of the Paris Opéra
Ballet in 1933 at the age of nine. In less than
a decade, he became a member of the Paris
Opéra corps de ballet before to be promoted
to the rank of sujet (soloist) at the Paris
Opéra Ballet.
At the age of just 20 Petit decided to leave
the Paris Opéra and with the financial
help of his father, founded Les Ballets des
Champs-Elysées, creating ballets like Les
Forains and Le Rendez-vous, soon followed
by his landmark Le Jeune Homme et la Mort.
Despite his young age, Petit was already
demonstrating his uniquely theatrical vision
of ballet, to which he remained faithful
throughout his life.
In 1949, he created Carmen, in London, with
dancer Renée (‘Zizi’) Jeanmaire (b. 1924) in
the title role and with himself as Don José.
Jeanmaire and Petit had first met as students
at the Paris Opéra Ballet; they went on to
marry in 1954 and were lifelong artistic
collaborators.
By the early 50s, his career was becoming
increasingly international as more ballet
companies around the world asked him to
stage his ballets including Carmen. As for his
L’Arlésienne ballet, it was created in 1974 for
the Ballets de Marseille which became the
Ballets National de Marseille-Roland Petit in
1981.
Alongside his works for Marseille, Roland
Petit created new works for other companies
including the Paris Opéra Ballet, American
Ballet Theatre, the Staatsoper and Deutsch
Oper of Berlin and the Teatro alla Scala.
©RNZB FEBRUARY 2017
7
FUN FACT
Petit’s Carmen was created
for Les Ballets de Paris, and
premiered in London in 1949
with Zizi Jeanmaire (whom Petit
was to marry) in the title role,
and Petit himself as Don José.
It has become Petit’s
signature work.
Carmen 1949, Roland Petit and Zizi Jeanmaire II
PHOTO BY SERGE LIDO
After running Le Ballet National de Marseille
for twenty-six years, Roland Petit left the
company in March 1998 and continued to
create new ballets, and also to stage his
works around the world.
Roland Petit died of leukaemia on 10 July
2011, aged 87. His wife Zizi Jeanmaire,
his daughter Valentine Petit and his close
associates are committed to preserving and
continuing his work throughout the world.
RNZB dancer Abigail
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The Story of L’Arlésienne
and Carmen
A BRIEF SYNOPSIS FOR THE CLASSROOM
L’Arlésienne – Characters
Carmen – Characters
FRÉDÉRI a young man, about to marry
VIVETTE his fiancée
THEIR FRIENDS
CARMEN a free-spirited, strong-willed gypsy
girl, working in a cigarette factory
DON JOSÉ a soldier
THE TOREADOR a professional bull fighter
CIGARETTE GIRLS, BANDITS
Synopsis
It is high summer in Provence. As his wedding
approaches, Frédéri is captivated, and then
obsessed, by an unknown, unseen woman –
the faithless ‘girl from Arles’. We never see
her onstage, in fact, she may be a figment of
his imagination.
Despite Vivette’s efforts to help him, as their
wedding day approaches, Frédéri loses his
reason, and ultimately, his life.
Synopsis
Don José encounters Carmen as she fights
with another woman at the cigarette factory.
Despite initially being sent to arrest her, he is
attracted to her and invites her to meet him
at a tavern later that evening.
At the tavern, Carmen dances for Don José.
While he has eyes only for her, her bandit
friends rob him. Carmen and Don José leave
and spend the night together.
Driven by passion and a desire to prove
himself to Carmen, Don José kills a man.
Nonetheless, she abandons him for the
glamorous Toreador, leaving Don José broken
and despairing.
Serata Petit – L'Arlesienne
Il Corpo di Ballo del Teatro alla Scala
PHOTO MARCO BRESCIA
Don José cannot bear to see Carmen with
another man. As the Toreador fights in the
arena, the lovers meet one last time, and Don
José stabs Carmen to death.
Music
GEORGES BIZET
Born in Paris in 1838
(as Alexandre-CésarLéopold Bizet, but
baptised as Georges),
Bizet entered the
prestigious Paris
Conservatoire at
the age of nine
and studied under
Zimmerman, Halévy
and Gounod until the
age of twenty.
In 1855, at the age of seventeen, he composed
his first symphony. It was not discovered
until 1935 and upon its first performance was
immediately hailed as a junior masterwork
and a welcome addition to the early Romantic
period repertoire.
In 1857, a setting of the one-act operetta Le
docteur Miracle won him a share in a prize
offered by Jacques Offenbach. Bizet also won
the Music Composition scholarship of the Prix
de Rome, the conditions of which required
him to study in Rome for three years. There,
his talent developed as he wrote such works
as the opera Don Procopio.
Following his stay in Rome, he returned
to Paris where he dedicated himself to
composition. In 1863 he composed the opera
Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers) for
the Theatre-Lyrique. He followed this with
the opera La jolie fille de Perth, the incidental
music for Daudet’s play L'Arlésienne, and
the piano piece Jeux d'enfants. His next
composition was the romantic opera
Djamileh, which is often seen as a precursor
to Carmen.
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Bizet died from angina on 3 June 1875, before
the first season of Carmen had finished, and
without seeing his work become one of the
world’s most popular and enduring operas.
L’Arlésienne
Drawing on Provençal folk music as well as
original themes, Georges Bizet composed
incidental music for the premiere of
L’Arlésienne, a play by Alphonse Daudet,
in 1872. While the play is now seldom
performed, Bizet’s L’Arlésienne Suites are
frequently heard on the concert platform.
Petit’s ballet, based on Daudet’s scenario, was
created for the Ballet National de Marseille,
the company founded by Petit, in 1974.
Listen to Bizet’s suite #1
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=NwaoEONSxmk
Carmen
The music is taken from the 1875 opéra
comique of the same name by Georges
Bizet, arranged and orchestrated by Tommy
Desserre.
To hear Bizet’s Carmen music, click on the link
below:
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=cCrKncOpE7Q
FUN FACT
Over 5,000 performances of
the ballet Carmen were given
around the world in its first
50 years alone.
Production
Staging
LUIGI BONINO
Luigi Bonino was
born in Bra, Italy,
and began dancing
with Susanna Egri in
Turin, at the age of
ten. He participated
in many televised
performances in
Italy, and in 1973
joined the Cullberg
Ballet in Sweden,
under the direction
of its founder Birgit Cullberg. As a Principal
Dancer he was entrusted with leading roles
in the company’s repertoire, including Adam
in Cullberg’s Adam and Eve and Romeo in her
Romeo and Juliet.
In 1975 Luigi Bonino joined Roland Petit’s
Ballet National de Marseille, where his early
roles included Coppélius in Coppélia, Le Jeune
Homme et la Mort, Frollo in Notre Dame de
Paris, Le Fantome de l’Opéra and Ulrich in La
Chauve Souris. In 1979 he performed Petit’s
choreography with Margot Fonteyn as part
of Fonteyn’s celebrated television series
The Magic of Dance. Many other roles were
created by Petit for Luigi including the title
role in Le Chat botté (Puss in Boots, 1985),
the King in The Sleeping Beauty (1990) and
Charlie Chaplin in Charlot danse avec nous
(1991).
In 1984, Roland Petit chose Luigi Bonino as
his assistant and dancer for the creation of
Le Mariage du ciel et de l’enfer, for La Scala,
and in 2001 he assisted Petit in the creation
of The Queen of Spades for the Bolshoi Ballet.
He went on to assist Petit in the staging of
all his works, including La Chauve-Souris
for the Teatro San Carlo, La Chambre for
Aterballetto, Bolero for K Ballet and Carmen
and L’Arlésienne for La Scala, as well as works
for the Asami Maki Ballet at the New National
Theatre in Tokyo.
Luigi Bonino continues to perform the role of
Coppélius in Roland Petit’s Coppélia, which
Petit created on him, however, most of his
time is now spent staging Petit’s ballets
around the world, including for the Bolshoi
Ballet, the Paris Opéra Ballet, the National
Ballet of China, the Wiener Staatsballett, the
Mariinsky Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, English
National Ballet and the Teatro Colón.
Since July 2011, Luigi Bonino has been Artistic
Director of the Roland Petit Trust, with overall
responsibility for the staging of Petit’s works
and the preservation of his artistic legacy.
Madeleine Graham, Luigi Bonino and Shaun
James Kelly
©RNZB FEBRUARY 2017
11
Lighting design
JEAN-MICHEL DÉSIRÉ
Jean-Michel Désiré
began his career in
1978, at the Marseille
Opera House, where
he met Roland Petit
for the first time.
In 1984, Roland Petit
offered him a position
at the Ballet National
de Marseilles, so
beginning a long
collaboration that
lasted far beyond Petit’s association with the
Ballet National de Marseilles.
In 1998, when Roland Petit decided to leave
the company in Marseille, Jean- Michel Désiré
followed him and since then he has been
responsible for the technical staging of all
Petit’s works, worldwide.
Working on tours of Petit’s works throughout
Europe, Asia, South America, and the United
States, Jean-Michel Désiré has worked in
the most prestigious theatres in the world
including the Théâtre des Champs Elysées,
the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Teatro dell
‘Opera in Roma, the Bolshoi in Moscow, the
Mariinsky in St Petersburg, the New National
Theatre in Tokyo, the National Centre for
Performing Arts in Beijing, the Metropolitan
Opera of New York and the Kennedy Center
in Washington DC.
“I am one of the lucky people who had
the privilege to work with Roland Petit
and thus share precious moments of
his own career. He taught me all the
skills and tricks of the stage trade.
Each rehearsal with him was like a real
lesson to me. All I have been able to do
in great and beautiful theatres all over
the world, I owe it to him. I admire him
immensely.
From the time when I was a ‘kid’ at the
beginning of our collaboration, till he
passed away, during all the years spent
with him, I hung on his every word. I
was nourished by our long discussions;
I loved all his ballets, but also all the
music-hall shows he created for his wife.
Zizi on stage was a dream.
We do feel lonely since he left us.
With me, as with so many others, he
was generous, trusting and faithful. A
few months before he left us, when I
told him that beyond our professional
collaboration we could say we were
friends, he replied: ‘Oh yes!!! We are
even brothers’, and I was in heaven.
For all those exceptional moments
forever engraved in my heart, I will
never stop saying, ‘Thank you Maestro.”
JEAN-MICHELi
For the ballets of L’Arlésienne and Carmen,
the lighting design was revamped by Roland
Petit and Jean-Michel Désiré in the 1990s to
include new lighting technologies.
Look below to see how the lighting helps
create a different ambiance in all five scenes
of the ballet Carmen.
Scene 3 – shades of blue give a romantic
feel to the bedroom
Scene 1 – a beautiful afternoon in Spain
Scene 4 – the lighting creates an effect of
leaves in the moonlight
Scene 2 – bright red lights create a rustic
tavern look
Scene 5 – we see the warm flamboyance of
the bull-fighting arena
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Costume design (L’Arlésienne)
CHRISTINE LAURENT
Born in Lyon in 1948,
Christine Laurent is
an actress, director,
screenwriter, set
designer, costume
designer and makeup
artist. As an actress,
she appeared
extensively in French
film, television and
theatre, from the
mid-1960s to the
1990s. She now works mainly as a theatrical
make-up and wig artist. Working with her
husband René Allio as set designer, she
created the costume designs for Roland
Petit’s L’Arlésienne.
This specific ballet requires 18 dancers: nine
couples in total.
The principal couple is shown by their
different costumes. The principal male dancer
is dressed in shades of brown: his brown
waistcoat and trousers are a nice contrast
with the white shirt and red sash. Even his
flat shoes are dyed brown. As for the leading
female dancer, she wears a white blouse with
petticoat and a cream dress.
All eight couples required in the corps de
ballet ensemble are dressed identically; the
male dancers wear some black trousers with
a waistcoat, a white shirt and a red sash. As
for the girls, they look elegant with their
white blouse, black dress and cream scarf.
Some pink pointe shoes and hair tied in a bun
complete their traditional look.
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Set and costume design (Carmen)
ANTONI CLAVÉ
Spanish painter
Antoni Clavé I
Sanmartí was born
in Barcelona in 1913.
Apprenticed to a
cloth maker in 1925,
Clavé joined the
evening classes at
the Fine Arts School
of Barcelona in 1930.
After two years’
study, his family
accepted that he was to become a painter.
In the 1930s, he quickly made a name for
himself resulting in his first solo exhibition
prior to moving to Paris where he met one
of the greatest painters of his time Pablo
Picasso.
Like Picasso, whom he greatly admired,
Antoni Clavé was inspired by the bullfight. On
this subject, he produced a large number of
lithographs, notably La Corrida and Toreros,
from which he created a costume for the
choreographer Boris Kochno, whose ballet
was given in 1943 by Les Ballets des ChampsÉlysées, headed by Roland Petit.
During the 1940s and 50s, Clavé enjoyed
success as a theatrical designer. Working
closely with Roland Petit, he created designs
for many of Petit’s ballets including Carmen
(1949). However, after this fruitful period,
Clavé decided not to take up any more
theatrical commissions. He set up a workshop
in Paris, where he created paintings, collages
and sculptures in an unclassifiable style,
neither figurative nor abstract.
In 1965, Antoni Clavé and his wife Madeleine
moved to Saint-Tropez, where they built
a new workshop and Clavé created what
he regarded as his greatest paintings and
trompe-l’oeils.
In 1978 the Museum of Modern Art in Paris
devoted a retrospective to Clavé, and his
works were exhibited at the newly-opened
Centre Georges Pompidou. More than a
hundred of his works were shown in the
Spanish Pavilion in the 1984 Venice Biennale,
and the same year, he was awarded the ‘gold
medal for merit in fine arts’ by the French
Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports.
Antoni Clavé died in Saint-Tropez in 2005
and is buried in Paris, in the Montparnasse
cemetery.
While the costumes for the Carmen ballet
have a definite Spanish influence, they are
surprisingly simple, drawing on the main
colours of black, white and red. It’s also
interesting to note that the main lead female
dancer doing the role of Carmen has a total of
four different costumes throughout the ballet:
• black leotard and a black rag skirt
• a green corset
• a blue corset
• a black dress.
See the next page for detailed images of
the costume.
©RNZB FEBRUARY 2017
15
FUN FACT
Black leotard and a black rag
skirt
The green corset
Tonia Looker in the blue
corset
Costume of the bandit girl in
Carmen
Complete costume for
Vivette
Underwear of Vivette in
L’Arlésienne
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©RNZB FEBRUARY 2017
As a short haircut is required
for the female dancer doing
the role of Carmen to be
faithful to the original dancer
who danced the role for its
premiere performance (Zizi
Jeanmaire), the RNZB dancer
doing Carmen is wearing a wig
so that she doesn’t have to
cut her real hair.
Activity: L’Arlésienne
L’Arlésienne studio rehearsals
In the opening scene of L’Arlésienne the corps
de ballet do a lot of dancing holding hands with
each other.
Dancing while holding hands.
Divide the class into small groups – six to eight dancers per group.
Ask the groups to find interesting ways of holding hands, not just having
their arms by their sides and holding onto their neighbour. Let them
experiment with being in any formation they wish, a straight line facing
the front or back, a diagonal line, or a circle.
After they have tried a few ideas set some tasks to help structure a
movement sequence where they must stay holding hands with their
group. Remind the students that sometimes they have to hold their
neighbour’s hands loosely, so that moving between positions is more
comfortable.
At the start of the sequence the students will not be holding hands, so
they need to find an interesting pose/shape to hold, then they begin by
holding hands in canon.
Some things they must include in their sequence are:
• Maintaining physical contact
• Travelling in the space while holding hands – in the ballet while the
dancers are holding hands, one of the main ways they move is by
shuffling their feet very fast in parallel. Suggest this way of travelling
to the students; then they can concentrate on what they are doing
with their arms rather than their feet
• Changing the direction that the group is facing
• Turning/twisting the body while holding hands
• Moving the arms/hands in canon
• Changing level
• Bending the torso forwards or backwards
• Pivoting the whole line
The above can be done in any order but each task must be clearly seen.
The group can end their sequence by holding a pose/shape or by exiting
the space (still holding hands).
This activity can be a way to introduce having physical contact with
other dancers. You might like to experiment with playing a game of
musical statues where when the music stops you have to find a partner
and have contact with them without using your hands, for example an
elbow to a knee. This is also a good warm-up game.
17
Activity: Carmen
In the Tavern scene of the ballet, the
dancers use chairs in many different
ways – sitting on them, standing on
them, moving around them and using
them for counter-balance.
Dancing with chairs
Divide your class into pairs, and each pair will have one
chair between them.
You’ll need to set some ground rules before starting this
activity, for example, if someone is standing on a chair
the other person must hold the chair, no sharp or sudden
movements with the chair, and don’t make your partner
do something if they feel unsafe.
Ask your students to find some different ways to work
with the chair. Both dancers do not have to maintain
contact with the chair all the time.
You can either let them experiment with not much
direction at first then set some tasks, or set tasks
straight away. The tasks do not have to flow from one to
another initially.
Here are some tasks you might like to set:
• One dancer must travel around the chair, while the
other stands on the chair
• Find a way to use the chair for a counter-balance pose,
try and find interesting ways of moving into and out of
the pose
• Move the chair from one place to another, both
dancers do not have to be in contact with the chair
• Find a way of using the chair without it being upright
• Pass the chair between you
• At some point you and your partner must be at
different levels
• At some point you must use different body bases on
the chair or floor (standing, sitting, kneeling, lying)
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©RNZB FEBRUARY 2017
Carmen studio rehearsals
Carmen studio rehearsals
The performance quality of this ballet is very important,
so if you would like your students to work at a deeper
level, encourage them to project a confident and proud
energy. They need to make strong shapes, have lifted
posture and make their hands as articulate as possible.
Once the students have worked on the tasks, ask them
to choose four of their favourite chair manoeuvres. Then
they need to put all their choreography together to make
one long sequence.
In the ballet during this part of the scene, the movements
are fairly slow and sustained, so you may want to ask
your students to give their work the same dynamic.
If you are using music for this, you may want to use
some Spanish or Tango style music, and you may want to
ask your students to make their sequence fit into a set
amount of counts.
If you want to develop this activity, you can put the chair
duos together to make a group piece.
There are lots of options here:
• All the chairs can be randomly set in the space with
no dancers onstage and the dancers have to make an
entrance
• All the chairs can be randomly set in the space with
some of the dancers in their start positions and the
rest make an entrance
• All the chairs can be randomly set in the space with all
of the dancers in their start positions
• The chair duos can be performed all at the same time,
or they can be done in canon
• You might want to choose one or two duos, or
sections from some duos, and ask the students to
teach the rest of the class their work. Then these duos
or sections can be performed in unison
• You can add moments of stillness where everyone
holds a pose and looks towards the audience
• The piece can finish with all dancers onstage, or they
can exit with the chairs, or some can stay and some
can exit
©RNZB FEBRUARY 2017
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