Choreographer Terence Kohler promises an innovative take on The Nutcracker
In taking on The Nutcracker, choreographer Terence Kohler had to answer his own question: how to keep its uplifting spirit while updating the Christmas classic, he tells Mabel Sieh
It's like watching a flower blossoming, with its petals slowly unfolding, as Australian choreographer Terence Kohler whispers his free-flow creative ideas to his team of dancers at a dance studio inside the Hong Kong Cultural Centre.
He instructs the male dancers to lift up their female partners and let them sway from side to side slowly, like branches in the wind. Then the 28-year-old observes, quietly: "It's always interesting to see how the dancers take the idea and develop it into something of their own."
The Sydney-born and Munich-based Kohler, who is rehearsing with the Hong Kong Ballet one of the epic scenes in - , adds: "I was thinking about the movements of this scene while standing outside in the Kowloon Park yesterday."
Kohler is in Hong Kong with a new version of the two-act ballet with the score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. There have been many versions of the ballet since it premiered in 1892 at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia. But the basic storyline tells of a little girl, Clara, who is given a wooden nutcracker by her godfather, Drosselmeyer, on Christmas Eve and her magical journey that follows.
Kohler has won a swag of awards including the 2007 German Dance Prize "Future" Award for choreography and a nomination as the most promising choreographer in Europe's leading dance magazine, . His work has been performed far and wide - by the Bavarian State Ballet to the National Ballet of China and, more recently, the Finnish National Ballet and the West Australian Ballet.
So it is no surprise that he was approached by Madeleine Onne, artistic director of the Hong Kong Ballet, back in 2009. "It's not easy to find young choreographers who are willing to create a classic story ballet. Terence is an extraordinary choreographer with a unique style that makes the dancers look their best," says Onne.
