Cullberg Ballet
Known internationally as a cutting-edge contemporary ballet company, Sweden’s Cullberg Ballet balances innovation with a long-established identity. Brigit Cullberg, who founded the company in 1967, broke new ground as a choreo-grapher during her 18 years as artistic director. Her son, Mats Ek, who succeeded her as AD, is also famous for ballets that offer sharp social commentary, as well as contemporary interpretations of classics such as Giselle and Swan Lake.
Since 2003, CB has been in the hands of Swedish-born choreographer Johann Inger. “There’s an audience that has seen Cullberg for a long time looking a certain way,” says Inger. “What I do is a bit different, so it’s been exciting but very difficult.”
Inger sees the Cullberg legacy as one of creativity. “I think [the company] should be a mirror of its time,” he says. “It should be alive, not turn into a museum.” For that reason, the company dances new works by Inger and Ek, and does not revive ballets from its past repertoire.
None of the new works are on pointe, but like any ballet company, a typical day starts with a ballet class, followed by rehearsals that are focused on creation and exploration.
“I don’t prepare material in advance, so we work it out together in the studio. I work a lot with the dancers [using] what they have to offer,” says Inger. “It’s very much a dialogue when we create material.”
CB’s 20 dancers come from a range of countries and backgrounds. Åsa Lundvik Gustafson, who danced with the Royal Swedish Ballet for five years before coming to CB in 1996, enjoys leaving behind the formality of ballet. “You can be more of a personality here,” says Gustafson. “In the corps de ballet, you are supposed to look like everybody else and beauty is all that matters. With modern dance you can express more updated problems and relations, where classical ballet is much more focused on telling a fairy tale.”
Jermaine Spivey, who trained at the Baltimore School of the Arts, graduated from Juilliard and joined the company in 2005, appreciates the company’s eclectic atmosphere. “[It’s] very creative, very spontaneous in the studio. Even though we learn set choreography, there’s also a lot of improvisation,” he says. “I often find that people, even if we are working on something that they already know, try to find the spontaneity to do it differently every day.”
The works that are developed each season are then taken out on tour internationally and throughout Sweden. “That’s actually our mission,” says Inger. “We’re part of the national theater that has a mission to bring culture to the countryside.”
It takes a particular kind of dancer to fulfill CB’s artistic and professional requirements. At the company’s annual audition in January, along with maturity, Inger looks for some ballet background. “You need to have some kind of a classical skill,” says Inger of the dancers he selects for the company. “I’m not after perfect feet, but [rather] coordination and a certain sensitivity. Because I work the way I do, I think it’s important for people to be interested in the creative process-¬that they’re thinking human beings and very aware.”
