Anna Lærkesen
Anna Lærkesen | |
---|---|
Born | Copenhagen, Denmark | 2 March 1942
Died | 14 January 2016 Copenhagen | (aged 73)
Nationality | Danish |
Occupation | Ballet Dancer |
Anna Lærkesen (2 March 1942 – 14 January 2016) was a Danish ballet dancer who was a soloist at the
Dance career
Born on 2 March 1942 in
Roles
As a ballerina, Anna Lærkesen found herself portraying a different character in many fascinating storylines. From her beginnings with the Royal Danish Ballet, her first starring role, and most-well known to date, remains as her portrayal as the first sylph in Bournonville’s La Sylphide.[7] Her successful placement as the lead allowed her to dance the same role for almost seven years. Among those years though, she took part in a work by Swedish choreographer Birgit Cullberg entitled Månerenen and Flemming Flindt’s version of The Nutcracker.[8] 1961 found her in English choreographer, K. MacMillan’s Solitaire when shows were set to be put on in Copenhagen.[9] Her next role required training at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1964 to prepare for the technically advanced roles as both Odette and Odile in Swan Lake.[10] In 1968, she also took part in the ballet Giselle[11] and many others before the final years of her career with the theatre. With her impending resignation, Lærkesen was set to star in one more role as Louise in King's Volunteers on Amager,[12] but was not given the chance before her retirement in 1984.[13] With an honorary career behind her, Anna Lærkesen was not ready to give up ballet yet though.
Choreography career
After almost twenty five years with the Royal Danish Ballet, Lærkesen had to decide what would come next in her life, as she was only forty two years old. At the time, she had still been working with her former company and decided to participate in a dancers’ workshop a few years later.[14] It was in those classes in 1988 that Lærkesen created her first piece of choreography for the company. Since then, she took on choreographing full-time, developing several more ballets for the Danish. In 1990, she produced a ballet entitled Patita that did well enough to air on a local television station in her home country of Denmark.[15] More choreographing led her to her debut with the New York City Ballet in 1994, where she developed a piece for the second addition of the showcase entitled the Diamond Project. Her dance, "In the Blue" exhibited a combination Brahms’s Violin Concerto and principal dancers including Wendy Whelan and fellow previous Royal Danish Ballet dancer [16] Lærkesen’s choreography featured a wide expansion of movement across the entirety of the stage and no perceivable rule in which she followed. Most of her choreographed pieces ended up similar to the aforementioned, and she continued creating ballets with her own company and others, including the San Francisco Ballet and the Opera of Stockholm.[17]
References
- ^ "Anna Lærkesen (1942-)". Retrieved 29 January 2013.
- ^ Kisselgoff, Anna (27 January 2016). "Anna Laerkesen, Danish Ballerina With Poetic Originality, Dies at 73". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
- ^ “Dansk Kvindebiografisk Leksikon - Anna Lærkesen.” Text, 15 May 2003. http://www.kvinfo.dk/side/597/bio/1878/.
- ^ “History | The Royal Danish Theatre.” Accessed 26 January 2015. "History | the Royal Danish Theatre". Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-21..
- ^ Dunning, Jennifer (15 May 1994). "DANCE; Making Ballets, Just the Way Men do". The New York Times.
- ^ Dunning, Jennifer (15 May 1994). "DANCE; Making Ballets, Just the Way Men do". The New York Times.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 19 August 2022.
- ^ “Dansk Kvindebiografisk Leksikon - Anna Lærkesen.” Text, 15 May 2003. http://www.kvinfo.dk/side/597/bio/1878/.
- ^ “Dansk Kvindebiografisk Leksikon - Anna Lærkesen.” Text, 15 May 2003. http://www.kvinfo.dk/side/597/bio/1878/.
- ^ “Dansk Kvindebiografisk Leksikon - Anna Lærkesen.” Text, 15 May 2003. http://www.kvinfo.dk/side/597/bio/1878/.
- ^ “Dansk Kvindebiografisk Leksikon - Anna Lærkesen.” Text, 15 May 2003. http://www.kvinfo.dk/side/597/bio/1878/.
- ^ “Dansk Kvindebiografisk Leksikon - Anna Lærkesen.” Text, 15 May 2003. http://www.kvinfo.dk/side/597/bio/1878/.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 19 August 2022.
- ^ Kisselgoff, Anna (28 May 1994). "Review/City Ballet; Choreography by Two Ballerinas". The New York Times.
- ^ Dunning, Jennifer. “DANCE; Making Ballets, Just the Way Men Do.” The New York Times, 15 May 1994, sec. Arts. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/15/arts/dance-making-ballets-just-the-way-men-do.html.
- ^ Kisselgoff, Anna (28 May 1994). "Review/City Ballet; Choreography by Two Ballerinas". The New York Times.
- ^ “Dansk Kvindebiografisk Leksikon - Anna Lærkesen.” Text, 15 May 2003. http://www.kvinfo.dk/side/597/bio/1878/.