RARE \"Danish Ballet Dancer\" Svend Erik Jensen Signed 4X6 Card For Sale

Up for sale the "Danish Ballet Dancer" Svend Erik Jensen Hand Signed 4X6 Card.

ES-6898

IT is now nearly eight

years since the Royal Danish Ballet last danced in New York. It was a very

exciting company at that time. But it was also a company very much on the point

of change. Today the Royal Danish Ballet is in many respects unrecognizable as

the same company that gave a triumphant month's season at the New York State

Theater in the fall of 1965.The company was then directed by Niels Bjorn

Larsen, who was a kind of lame‐duck

director, for it had been arranged that at the end of the year Flemming Flindt,

present with the company at the State Theater as a guest artist, would take

over the directorship of the troupe. Two other important dancers were virtually

severing their connections with the company. Margrethe Schanne, Denmark's

leading ballerina, was giving her farewell performances on any stage, and Erik

Bruhn, appearing with the company as a guest artist, was, in the future, to

dance very little with the Danes. In fact, of the 16 principal dancers of that

time, only six are still dancing with the company. The departures include not

only some of the older dancers, such as the distinguished Svend Erik Jensen,

but also quite a few young stars, such as Jorn Madsen and Eske Holm, who have

given up for one reason or another. Indeed, among the youngest members of the

company was the youthful Peter Martins, then just arrived in the Danish corps

de ballet, but today one of the stars of New York City Ballet. Today, New York

would only barely recognize the Danish ballet, This fact struck me in

Copenhagen the other week. I make it my business to keep up with the major

dance companies year by year. For me this is very useful. The ballet world is

comparatively small and I like to keep up to date with every part of it. But

this has some disadvantages as well as its overwhelming advantages. Dance

companies change. They change in personnel, in repertory, occasionally in

artistic direction. In the major dance, centers, particularly in New York and

London, the dance audience likes to think that it sees most of what is

important in the dance world. To an extent, again particularly in New York and

London, the audiences do. But there are often surprising gaps. For example,

most regrettably, New York City Ballet has not appeared in London for eight

years. It is today a very different company.