Frank
Andersen

Jury member of Benois de la Danse

Frank Andersen's appointment as Artistic Director in 1985 gave the Royal Danish Ballet a very young director. He was then 32. And indeed he had danced all the most carefree lads — the boy Franz in The Nutcracker and later the reckless Franz in Coppelia, the petrified First Cadet in Graduation Ball — and above alt the lovable naive Geert o/The Kermesse in Bruges. A more complex nature was demonstrated by his teasing Pock in Neumeier's A Midsummer Night's Dream, a role which Frank Andersen made his very o wn.

Frank Andersen was not wholly unprepared for the role of leadership. He has a/way, both as dancer and later as ballet master, had the will to seek his own goals: as a soloist in Etudes and as Basil in Don Quixote, to name just two roles.

Frank Andersen was himself an outstanding interpreter of Bournonville s happiest festive dances so it was by no means chance that placed the young dancer, as early as 1976, at the head of the worldwide lours of the Kournonville group, and later made him director of the Royal Theatre's annual Bournonvilte Summer Academy.

After concluding his own career as a dancer, Frank Andersen has also begun to work as a stage director — for example of Bournonville s ballets. This demanding work o/ keeping the traditions alive may in the final analysis also prove to be his key to eternal youth.

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