Tivoli's Pantomime Theatre

Ballet technique isn’t enough if you want to succeed at the Pantomime Theatre in Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens. First, you have to be willing to immerse yourself in the tradition and language of the special 200-year-old form of pantomime that survives there.

Today, the 22-member company performs the half-hour pantomimes twice each evening during Tivoli’s summer season, which runs from mid-April until the end of September.

Of the 22 contracts, 15 are given to dancers who are expected to have a strong ballet technique, and seven are reserved for artists who specialize in the older character roles. One of them, Tommy Edvardssen, laughs when he recalls how he joined the company. “They asked me to fill in for a missing dancer,” he says. “I was supposed to dance three performances. Thirty years later, I’m still waiting for the dancer to return!”

Edvardssen, who trained at the Royal Danish Ballet, is very conscious of the way in which roles are passed from dancer to dancer. “When I started, there were more older dancers, and I learned so much by just watching,” he says. “They told me

stories about the dancers who taught them the roles. I feel like I’m part of a big family.”

Carrie Walsh, who is in her second season, feels the same. “The atmosphere is very personal,” she says. She contrasts it with the Royal Birmingham Ballet, where she was an apprentice: “It’s much different from dancing in a big company. Everyone takes time to help you here.” Her biggest shock was the raked stage, which slopes downward from back to front, allowing the audience to see the dancers’ feet. “It was quite scary,” she remembers. “But the other dancers showed me how to adjust my weight, and now I’m fine.”

The 16 pantomimes that remain today are based on the Italian commedia dell’arte, but over the years, the Danes have turned the Italian theater form into a uniquely Danish institution. Each pantomime is a variation on the classic scenario. Harlekin loves Columbine, the daughter of Kassander, a stuffy businessman, and Pjerrot, the greedy servant, tries to prevent their predestined union. The fools are outwitted, and the lovers are carried to an apotheosis in Fairyland.

In addition to the pantomimes, the company dances modern works and is adding a program of Bournonville excerpts this season. Director Peter Bo Bendixen, a former principal dancer with the Royal Danish Ballet who took over the company a year ago, hopes to expand the troupe’s range. Impressed by the high level of its dancing, he says, “I want to use the dancers’ talents. Without forgetting our roots in this very special tradition, this should be more than a pantomime company that does a little modern or

ballet. I want the dancers to be fulfilled.”

In recent years, the dancers found off-season work in opera and theater productions. Next February, the company will perform for a week at the Royal Theatre, a very special event that Bendixen hopes will lead to expanded performing possibilities.

For Walsh, the performances offer more than ballet technique: “This company is about being expressive. And isn’t that what ballet should do first?”