BAVARIAN STATE BALLET: Black Cake and Concertante (PAL)

BLACK CAKE & CONCERTANTE
From the Prinzregententheater 1997

The Bavarian State Ballet

Music by Tchaikovsky, Janacek, Stravinsky,
Mascagni, Massenet ("BLACK CAKE")
Frank Martin ("CONCERTANTE")

Set Design & Costumes by Keso Dekker
Choreographed by Hans van Manen
Directed and produced for Video byThomas Grimm

Sound Format: PCM Stereo
Picture Format: 16:9
Region Code: 2, 5
Running Time: 56 mins
DVD 5 / PAL

Catalogue Number: 100 422

• One of the most exciting choreographers on the modern dance scene today, Hans van Manen's work is characterised by a supreme musicality and striking versatility. The ballets in this double bill, recorded under studio conditions at the Prinzregententheater in Munich, reflect his choreographic preoccupation with relationship between the sexes.

• Danced to music by Tchaikovsky, Janacek, Stravinsky, Mascagni and Massenet, Black Cake includes some wonderfully funny sequences. Set in a society party, elegantly-dressed couples dance with each other and van Manen plays with ballroom conventions, revealing a whole range of undercurrents in the relationships between the men and the women. In the finale - set to the Meditation from Massenet's Thaïs - the party-goers succumb to the influence of alcohol and all pretence of sophisticated decorum crumbles.

• Both humour and aggression are to be found in Concertante, which generates an explosive tension in a succession of encounters between four male and four female dancers. The springboard for this ballet is Frank Martin's expressive Petite Symphonie Concertante.