Click here to see the Bournonville Courses brochure (English version)
Click here to see the Bournonville Courses brochure (French version)
The Bournonville Summer Academy
Auguste Bournonville was the son of Antoine Bournonville, a French dancer and ballet teacher who lived in exile in Danemark. He studied ballet with his father in Copenhagen before completing his training in Paris with Pierre Gardel and Auguste Vestris. He joined the Paris Opera in 1826, but left France in 1830 to become Artistic Director at the Royal Danish Ballet. He succeeded his father and it was a position that he held until 1877. Throughout his life he supported the lightness, the elegance and the phrasing of the French balletic style, but this style now became his own, known as The Bournonville Style. This style that he taught has survived him thanks to an uninterrupted tradition. He was the Choreographer of around fifty ballets essentially resting on a harmonious and happy vision of life. The Bournonville Style, in spite of the way ballet changed during his lifetime and as testified by the “romantic ballet”, gave equal importance to male and female dancers. That was an esthetic measure for Bournonville, but a social one as well, since it enabled the Royal Danish Ballet School (founded in 1771) to develop great male dancers.
The Bournonville Summer Academy was founded by Dinna Bjørn and Frank Andersen in 1985. The first BSA took place in Midland, Michigan in the USA.
The BSA has a 6 year curriculum - one year for for each Daily Bournonville Class. The first BSA teaches the Monday Class and only the Monday Class and the next year the Tuesday Class and so on. That enables the individual student to work and concentrate on one Bournonville Class only each year. There are 6 daily Bournonville Classes ie. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, therefore a 6 year curriculum. Beside teaching the Classes, the BSA also offers Classes in the famous Bournonville Mime and Bournonville Bar and also the Bournonville Repertoire. These last mentioned classes gives the students the opportunity to learn from the Bournonville ballets such as Napoli, A Folktale, La Sylphide, Flower Festival in Genzano etc. etc. The Faculty consists of the foremost Bournonville specialists, mainly from the Royal Danish Ballet and with the help of these personalities who are particularly attached to Auguste Bournonville´s work, the academy provides the best possibility to venture into the fantastic world of August Bournonville, that choreographer whose place in the history of Danish and international ballet are both special and fundamental.
The BSA can in 2014 be found in Biarritz, France - where the last Bournonville Class, the Saturday Class, is being taught.
In 2015 you can find the BSA in Tokyo, Japan where we are teaching the Friday Class and the same place in 2016, we shall be teaching the last class as well there, the Saturday Class.