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John Neumeier has been with the Hamburg Ballet for 51 years and leaves his mark on the company and the city.
By Roslyn Sulcas
Reporting from Hamburg, Germany
This is one of the longest terms of office of a director of an arts organization. Choreographer John Neumeier has been at the helm of the Hamburg Ballet for 51 years, which grew from a provincial opera corporation to a foreign vehicle for its paintings: a prolific combination of summary and narrative ballets that attract fervent audiences in Germany and abroad.
On Sunday, Neumeier will make his directorial debut at the Nijinsky Company’s annual end-of-season gala, which will feature excerpts from thirteen of his works. Then, the Argentine choreographer Demis Volpi will assume the role of artistic director. director.
Neumeier is 85, which might seem like a decent age to retire, but opting to overlook it is difficult for him.
“It was a rational decision, not an emotional one,” he said hesitantly in an April interview at his home, a bright early 20th-century villa in a quiet suburb of Hamburg. Elegant and sublime in shoes and a plaid shirt, Neumeier speaks. with quiet concentration and moves with the ease of a dancer.
“If I was wondering if the dancers were not happy, if they were bored, I have to say that I didn’t feel any of that,” he said. “But when I started getting here in my 50s, I thought I didn’t need an accident. “He seemed momentarily crying. The most difficult thing is to observe the young people who are emerging, it is the most productive component of your work, to feel that you are making a contribution. “
Neumeier is American, born in Milwaukee, and was heavily influenced through his early education with experimental fashion dance choreographer Sybil Shearer in Illinois. But her career has taken place in Europe, where she is a leading ballet figure who has premiered more than 170 works, many of which are in the repertoires of corporations around the world.
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