A week in the world of dance, by intern Emma Arnoldi

In week 46 I completed an internship at CCDS.

My week at Copenhagen Contemporary Dance School, was a week of challenges and experiences.

The first day was very quiet. The dancers discussed their educational plans just like any other dedicated students. But their plans were far from the world I am used to where students talk of A-levels followed by university. In their world there were dreams and passions of being a professional dancer. Morten Innstrand told the dancers how to write their motivational letters and they were all ears.

The first day I had to get used to the fact that only English was spoken in class, as the school is very international with students from places like Iceland and Greece. But I soon got used to hearing 5 different languages each day!

Tuesday, after strapping on my camera and cycling to CCDS I was blown away by the dancers' skills in their morning ballet class. Neither my camera, nor my eyes were still for even a moment.

After ballet was a change of genre. Hardcore contemporary dance, which I bravely made an attempt to follow, dancing until the sweat poured. I gave up quite quickly and I hereby apologise to all that saw me dance that day. And I humbly bow to you all for not having collapsed yet, because that was so hard and so difficult! However I did manage to take some really great pictures.

Wednesday I woke up to an experience which every dancer must go through a thousand times every day. I had danced no more than 10 minutes and my back was completely beat. An old back injury of mine could be partially to blame, but nonetheless I felt seriously out of shape as I wrote to one of the dancers to say that I was staying home to edit my photos.

Thursday was yet another day of fantastic dancing. The whole week simply merged together, constantly surrounded as I was by these highly passionate and skilled people. And once again I was struck with silent awe by these wonderful dancers and their amazing teachers.

Besides the dancing, one of the things I noticed during my week at CCDS was the feeling of togetherness among the dancers. It was obvious that they had become one large family that cared for one another. I have often imagined that a dance education would be a place of competitiveness rather than friendship, but this prejudice was brought to shame at CCDS. I cannot imagine finding a more wonderful and safe working environment anywhere.

Friday I showed my pictures to the dancers. They seemed appreciative of my efforts and happy with the results. My results from this week weren’t just a stack of wonderful pictures, but also a bag full of experiences.

I had been a little nervous when I came to the school on the first day, but both teachers and dancers gave me such a warm welcome.

So CCDS: Thank you for a wonderful week. I look forward to following all of the wonderful dancers when they reach the stars!

All photos by Emma Arnoldi

One day at CCDS with Manon

It’s Friday morning. A Friday after 4 days of crazy hard training. I feel like a 90 year old when I step out of my bed. Every muscle is hurting, my feet, knees and shoulders are blue. In some weird way it feels really good. This week my body and brain has been bombarded with movements; rolls, jumps, falls, pretty ballet pointed feet and twirled contemporary spines. We’ve learned 5 new choreographies, more or less. And not just any choreographies, but most of them from the astonishing performance Transparency. A performance with 7 fantastic multi-national artists, doing deadly dance phrases showing the never ending wheel of corruption.

This morning I could have stayed in my bed, but I manage to drag myself to school, knowing that otherwise I will regret it. I haven’t looked at today’s schedule, but I think that we have ballet. I’m in school a little hour before class starts, to warm up. I start with a nice exercise that one of my former teachers used to do with us, getting through my whole body, stretching some parts, massaging others. My poor feet get extra attention for supporting me and keeping me up day after day. Push-ups to become stronger when doing handstands, sit-ups to activate the center, and back bends to stay in balance. Time is up and class is about to start.

I remembered wrong, we don’t have ballet, but contemporary. I let my body melt down to the floor and to the voice of our teacher, I imagine a warm oil filling up my body, making it move. I feel the warm oil changing to boiling water, making us bump around like freaks, ending up doing freestyle sit-ups, faster and faster, until we slowly go down to the floor, staying here a few seconds with the blood tickling around. We do some series on the floor, working on loosening up, getting more flexible and strong, precise and aware of our placement on the floor and in the room. We do a funny, kind of awkward, monkey-swinging-like walk over the floor. With that I mean a walk on knees and the upper feet, which doesn’t really make my feet much better, but I get a smile and a nice comment from one of the others, and I keep on, because it actually is quite funny.

After this enjoyful class, we have a half hour break, used for stretching and snacking on some dried fruit and nuts, then it’s time for a 2 hour workshop with Lotte in Store Carl and more killing movements. Luckily not much more new choreography, that wouldn’t have fit into my head, but time to go in depth with the spin-choreography that we learned the day before. There’s a crazy, but beautiful and strong jump, quick movements from up to down and around and a smooth roll back over the shoulder. It just really doesn’t look smooth when I do it. Every time I bump to the floor on a new bone, my skeleton must soon be painted in blue marks on my skin. But it get’s better and suddenly I do it right, once. We dance and dance, over and over again, switching groups, giving and getting feedback from our partner in the opposite group. It feels great to be on the big stage with lots of place to move, improve, use all energy and still do it again.

Then you think that time must have run out, but it’s only been 1 hour, and we get a new exercise. 10 minutes to make a solo, with emphasis on direction and focus on the pelvis. Fuck. Clear your head, don’t think, don’t go black, just act. And I actually do. First 1 movement, then the next. 1, 2, 3 movements, some more. Again from the beginning, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 movements up, down and around, remember to breathe. And time is up. But I have some material, and I find it quite good. Then show it, do it again in front of 36 eyes looking at you, only you. Remember it and all the notes you’ve had over the last couple of months, so the mouth under 2 of the eyes wont give you the same, but probably something new. And there’s always something new.

I get up on the stage, I start, I move, I remember, I forget… One second feels like eternity. But, I stay in the moment, catching the eyes of some of those watching me, and I continue.

Text by Manon

Photos by Emma Arnoldi

Ballroom Dancer at CPH-DOX

Student Lyn Bentschik from CCDS reports back from dance documentary Ballroom Dancer at CPH-DOX and reflects upon the spirit of dancing.

Yesterday I went to the opening of CPH DOX, the documentary film festival in Copenhagen.

From the outside, the Danish Radio building didn't look very inviting. Two blue lighted cubes and a huge parking area. But as soon as I went inside, the building started to unfold itself and got more beautiful with every level I reached. My seat was on the balcony so I had to go all the way up until I entered the concert hall. 

What an amazing architecture! The room felt huge, warm and very alive compared to the dead and cold parking area I'd just been to a few minutes before. Beside the red seats and the big screen in the middle of the round room I couldn't spot a single 90° angle. The room was round, the walls covered by beautiful wooden structures with groups of seats going all the way up, almost to the ceiling. Instead of an orchestra a big screen was installed in the middle of the room as we were going to watch the opening movie of the film festival Ballroom Dancer.

The film portraits the attempted comeback of a 34 year old Russian dancer after a 10-year break from competition. Even though he trained really hard, dramatically shown in the movie just like you imagine it: sweat, screaming, diet, exercises, close-up of the oh-my-god-I-can't-take-it-anymore-face and so on, he failed and couldn't re-find the spirit that had brought him so much success years ago.

Even though he reached 3^rd place once and 5^th place twice he couldn't take it anymore and decided to give up professional dancing entirely. In the last scene we see his ex-girlfriend and ex-dance partner Anna, marrying another guy and also see him teaching young upcoming talents.

You might think this sounds rather tragic and depressing to watch but the way I felt after the movie was in fact the exact opposite; it left me feeling encouraged and proud. Encouraged, because there's no way of reaching 1^st place (or whatever you want to call the goal we're all working our asses off for) without finding that spirit. And proud to be able to go to a school that understands this und tries to give us room to search for that spirit every single day.

Text by Lyn Bentschik

Image from CPH-DOX

Guest teacher at CCDS this autumn

These coming weeks CCDS will be visited by guest teachers Alexandre Bourdat, Marylise Schmidt-Tanvet and Deborah Macedo. We would like to share with you a little info about our teachers. This weeks bio features Alexandre Bourdat:

Alexandre is educated at the National Conservatory of Dance in Avignon, he worked in (and with):

F.U.B.A.R,  MuteComp, Pernille Garde, Hotel Proforma, The Danish Royal Theatre, Cirque de Soleil, Danish Dance Theatre, X-act, Carte Blanche, Peter Schaufuss Ballet, Malmö Stadsteater & Copenhagen International Ballet.

His most recent project is Tanz im August 2011, assisting Hiroaki Humeda for his new creation for the Berlin dance festival

Alexandre has also choreographed two new works for the Caen Ballet (France) in 2004 and 2006 and created three pieces for the International Copenhagen Ballet in 2008,  2006 & 2004. In 2003 he was commissioned by the Finnish National Ballet for staging his first piece. He also worked on workshop for stage with the Conservatoire National de Danse d'Avignon in 2008 and staged students of Stepz dance school (Copenhagen) in 2009.

He has danced on most Danish stages as well as globally. He has also performed in galas with principal dancers from Hamburg Ballet, Paris Opera, Netherlands Dans Theater, Cirque du Soleil and Batsheva.

Alexandre is currently freelancing as a dancer and teaches in France, Denmark and Sweden.

 

TRANSPARENCY

On October 12th our students are invited to watch a dance performance at Dansehallerne.

TRANSPARENCY is a dance performance about the nature of corruption, presented in connection with the KICK BACKS festival arranged by Transparency International and Copenhagen Dance Arts.

From October 6th-21st KICK BACKS presents performances, workshops and lectures focusing on the many faces of corruption. See the full program at www.cph-dancearts.com

Take a sneak peak here:
TRANSPARENCY is choregraphed by Lotte Sigh who is also one the Artistic Directors at Copenhagen Contemporary Dance School.

CCDS final exam 2011

COPENHAGEN CONTEMPORARY DANCE SCHOOL - EXAM 2010/11 from Kir Qvortrup on Vimeo.

Dansens Dage 2010

CCDS regularly attends Dansens Dage with student performances. Here are some of our previous students at Statens Museum for Kunst in the performance "Remodeling the Word", choreographed by Artistic Directors Morten Innstrand and Lotte Sigh.

What do our students say?

Lisa Marie Hennig-Olsen is from Norway and was a student from 2009-2010. She was accepted at Hoogeschool voor de Kunsten in Amsterdam in 2010 and will graduate in 2013.

"For me, the year at Copenhagen Contemporary Dance School was truly inspiring. It is a place where you, through opening up and broadening your view and perspective on dance, learn about yourself as a performer.

Final exam 2011 at Cph Music Theatre

All photos by Annett Ahrends

New students at CCDS

This week CCDS welcomed 17 new students to this years Professional Pre-Education and the new Post-Graduate programme. We look forward to following their progress.