![]() He took lessons with Anna Sybranda and then with Sonia Gaskell, a former Ballets Russes dancer who ran a school and a small classical company. ![]() When he wandered into a cinema showing Michael Powell's The Red Shoes, his future path was decided. Returning to school in Amsterdam, Van Dantzig proved a poor scholar, uninterested in most of his schoolwork. This provided the inspiration for his prizewinning novel For a Lost Soldier, published in the Netherlands in 1986, and later filmed and translated into English. ![]() There, after the liberation, he encountered a Canadian soldier with whom he formed a relationship. He was separated from his parents and sent to the countryside where conditions were safer. His Last Songs to Richard Strauss's song cycle was musical, restrained and moving.īorn in Amsterdam to strongly leftwing parents, Van Dantzig was six when Germany invaded the Netherlands, and grew up under the occupation. His ballet Ulysses – made for Nureyev, a lifelong friend – had the hero slouching around in pyjamas and dressing gown trying to avoid Penelope's vigourous vacuum cleaning. Its final coup de théâtre came when the music by Niccolò Castiglioni gave way to a recording of the final chorale from Bach's St Matthew Passion, which was taken up by the cast, the choreographer and some of the company's staff. Painted Birds (1971) was an early alert to man's ability to pollute both minds and the environment, and made extensive use of film projections to illustrate and amplify the action on stage. ![]()
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