DE Interview with Ballet Virtuoso John Neumeier
John Neumeier has been director of ballet and chief choreographer at the Hamburg Ballet for 40 years. In celebration of this anniversary, we put three questions to him.
1. Mr Neumeier, you took over the Hamburg Ballet 40 years ago and transformed it into a ballet centre of international renown. What constitutes outstanding ballet for you, and what inspires you time and time again?
My goal is to touch and move people with my ballet. On my first day as director of the Hamburg Ballet 40 years ago I would never have thought that I would come so far. I had a vision but no roadmap for how to achieve it. My most important source of inspiration has always been and remains music – then come the dancers, who are the most important instruments in my work as chief choreographer. Last but not least, my work is of course also influenced by everything that happens in my life. Ballet is very much a living art, and every piece is different each time it is performed. Over and over again, I scrutinize and review my work. Perhaps that is what accounts for my success.
2. You are celebrating your anniversary with a record programme of events for the Hamburg Ballet Days. What will be the highlights?
I believe that each of the 23 ballets that we will be performing for this season’s record Ballet Days in Hamburg will be a highlight. Of course, the new production of the “Shakespeare Dances” represents a wonderful homage to the great poet, wonderful musicians and singers will be on stage alongside the ballet dancers for the “Gala for Piano, Voice and Dance”, and we will be bringing my “St. Matthew Passion” ballet back to Hamburg’s most important church, St. Michaelis. I think there’ll be something for everyone: sacral and symphonic ballets, as well as narrative ballets and galas. We will also be visited by two excellent guest companies, the Ballets de Monte-Carlo and the Bavarian State Ballet.
3. Pina Bausch is quoted as having said “Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost”. What is your credo? Or what significance does ballet have for you?
For me, dance is the most immediate art form there is. The music goes directly into people and makes them want to move. Audiences cannot move around in their seats during our performances, of course, but they can watch and feel the movements on the inside, allowing themselves to be moved. Furthermore, the language of dance is universal, its vocabulary is understood by everyone, which is why dance is able to connect people.
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