Today is a special, memorable day...
Antwerp, May 20th 1970
I got the news: Dutch KRO-tv's Zaterdagavondaccoorden was no more. The HAVE-TO-SEE monthly Saturday evening show was announced to end after emmm... 10? years. Sure, many people said oh, well, something else will come instead. But I had my first real problem.
Just seventeen, I left the Antwerp ballet school 3 months ago for a beginners career as a dancer in the show bizz, with the Zaterdagavondaccoorden. No daubts, that was what I wanted. I didn't wanted to be a corps de ballet dancer at the just new founded Ballet van Vlaanderen. Not even with the "prediction" that I would (not even might) become the second director if I stayed at the ballet school.
Amsterdam. May 20... 2010, 40 years later: Yesterday I was "gardening" in our public parc when someone asked me how to get into our building. Well, that's a problem here. Ten towers linked with an internal gallery but for safety reasons since some 10 years only accessible trough the first and main entrance for visitors. So I told but asked the man: "where do you have to be?" getting my keys. He said: "I have some books abaut the National Ballet for nr 823." Eh? 823??? The National Ballet???That's me!
The man looked very confused at me... likely due to my confusion. "Perhaps I have a wrong number," he said, "but it's for someone I know who lives here... Hans Nieuwenhuis... and..." but before he could say anymore I was laughing. Of course. I let the man in and rang the door to announce the visitor to Hans. Some 15 mins later the man left again also laughing about the confusion at the back door. I talked to Hans last night about the confusion at the door and he showed me the books. One was 25 years Het Nationale Ballet. So indeed also my year, 1970-71 and the years before and after.
I couldn't sleep again. Even an tranquilser didn't help... until 9.00 a.m. Meanwhile I watched some documentaries (not a good thing to do with insomnia) reminding me of my first years in Amsterdam...
Antwerp end May 1970. My parrents were very worried. I left school and now there was no work for dutch tv anymore. I was thinking of Paris, Las Vegas, or perhaps Berlin... I knew Paris very well, my sister lived there until she moved back to Amsterdam in 1969 and of course I knew that Paris was la vie de boheme, strikes, students rebellion and even President De Gaule couldn't save France anymore. But no way my parents would let me go alone, just 17, to cities like Paris not mention Las Vegas! ... That last saturday my ex-brother in law came to visit his daughter who was living with us and asked me what I was going to do. I woke up! He was going to do tv work in Germany! He had just quit as the co-director of het Nationale Ballet in Amsterdam!!! Köln, München... and perhaps Berlin at last? Yes!!!! I want do! But that was not realistic he said. After all, I was only 17! How abaut a year at Het Nationale Ballet in Amsterdam? ...
Amsterdam, May 20. 2010. I woke up dizzy. Those tranquillisers do work... with a delay of 6 hours... :( In that documentary last night a proffessor from Oxfort said something much alike another quote I heard the night before: The truth is usually not in what people say but in what they don't tell! Interesting! I wanted to say that the lies are usually not obvious in what people say but likelyin what they write. Reports, biographies, you name it beeing print is usually full of lies just hidden by the omitments. It's usually not so difficult to know, to smell, to assume that it isn't true but so difficult to proof it, due to the ommitments who would make it clear. The right to remain silent is such a weard thing: of course, when you remain silent you cannot tell a lie. But is it thus the truth????
Oh? Hans has been here! The book 25 Years het Nationale Ballet ! Let's see... 1970-71...
Antwerp june 1970. I had no other choise. Amsterdam, with my sister nearby to keep an eye on me was okay. Paris, Berlin, Las Vegas, what ever else was out of the question. Well.... Amsterdam was like paradise! So why not! Het Nationale Ballet wasn't an old fashion ballet company. Even Rudolf Nureev signed in again. I was readdy for it!
---to be continued ---
Leuk om te lezen Daan.....gr LIA
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