Andrew Skeels creates new work with Bayerisches Staatsballett

The Bayerisches Staatsballett in Munich opens its annual ballet week on April 12 with a new work by Canadian choreographer Andrew Skeels. Jeannette Andersen attended a rehearsal and talked to him about his work.

Highly concentrated, Skeels and two dancers, first and second cast, worked on a solo. Despite knee-pads and sore muscles – the dancers said that Skeels’ style is hard on a ballet trained body – the studio at times reverberated with laughter.

During the entire rehearsal, except at the very end, they practiced without music. When asked why Skeels explained, “I do not like to have people try to go with the music right away. This has to do with how I, as a dancer, like to work. I am a slow learner, and I like to have a chance to really figure out what the movement is doing inside of my own body, and then find out how I respond to it with the music. To me, movement always comes first; also when I collaborate with contemporary composers. Usually, the dancers and I create the bulk of the movement, work out how it all fits together, and then the music arrives at the end.”

Skeels grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, and his early dance training was in hip-hop and street dance. He wanted to become a choreographer, so in 1997, when 16, he took a choreography class at Boston University. His teacher advised him to study ballet because, ‘The money is with the ballet companies.’ He did, and was accepted into Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montreal, where he danced until 2015.

That same year he decided to become a full-time choreographer, and founded his own company Skeels Dance Montreal. “For me, working with my company is the way I continue evolving,” Skeels says. “The dancers know my style and have an understanding of what I find interesting. But when we go into the studio, I want them to challenge me in different directions, so that we do not recreate the same piece that we have done in the past.”

When he does commissioned work, as now for the Staatsballett, he says it’s challenging and fantastic. “I get tons of resources, a fabulous theatre, costumes, sets and a large group of dancers. But the work does not allow for me to evolve as an artist in the sense that I have to come in super prepared. When I arrived here, 85 to 90 percent of the choreography was done. I have a limited time frame. Therefore, I have to try and get the work done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

“Nevertheless, it is really interesting to work with the BSB dancers, and to see the incredible evolution they have gone through since we started in January. They have adopted well to my style, which is informed by all the people I have worked with, in particular the urban dance teachers.”

Skeels calls his new piece Chasm, “Because it is a rich word with many meanings. For me, it conjures up this image of a deep, dark pit, in which you cannot see what is lurking at the bottom. But it also means a break or a rift. I am using both meanings to look at a futuristic society that is starting to crumple, the breaks happening, and how this is affecting its people.”

His inspiration was science fiction, which Skeels loves. He explains, “It makes us able to explore these very big pertinent themes. If you do a work too based in contemporary society, it sometimes gets too preachy and tries to dictate the audience what to think or feel. When I see a piece, I want it to be open to interpretation.”

When creating, Skeels is always highly aware of the fact that his choreography is only one part of the performance, which also needs the dancers, obviously, but also the audience. He says, “Often, immediately before a premiere, I will be sitting in the audience and going to myself, ‘This piece does not work.’ Then, the audience steps in, and it is like some kind of magic happens. It is like everything coalesces, and we are able to actually see what I am trying to do.”

This, he says, is also the moment the dancers really feel they have a reason to be onstage. “When they find what it is inside of them, that is trying to be communicated. My job as a choreographer is to give them the resources to be able to tell the story that I am trying to tell but, obviously, I am not the one telling it. They carry all the responsibility. So, it takes the audience for all that to bubble up and finally be seen.”