About the work
"Hans van Manen in Carré" is a ballet evening by Het Nationale Ballet (Dutch National Ballet) with which the company honoured the Dutch choreographer Hans van Manen (1932–2025) in April and May 2026 at the Koninklijk Theater Carré in Amsterdam. The evening gathered iconic works from van Manen's extensive oeuvre – including his video ballet "Live", premiered at Carré in 1979 and regarded as a milestone in Dutch theatre history. The performance was accompanied by Het Balletorkest; owing to exceptional demand, an extra performance was added.
Plot
Conceived as a tribute, the evening strings together several self-contained works by van Manen. At its centre is "Live" (1979): as a ballerina performs on stage, a live camera follows her, its image simultaneously projected onto a screen – an early, radical dialogue between dance and the moving image. Alongside it stand works such as "Kammerballett", "Two Pieces for HET" and "Black Cake". Van Manen's pieces are mostly plotless: they distil music, movement and the relationship between man and woman into clearly constructed, elegant dance miniatures, often seasoned with fine irony. Rather than narrative, musicality and the precision of pure form take centre stage.
Cultural significance
Hans van Manen ranks among the most important choreographers of the 20th and early 21st centuries; his pared-down, highly musical style earned him the epithet "the Mondrian of dance". Over more than six decades he created around 150 works that belong to the repertoire of leading companies worldwide. Following his death on 17 December 2025, this evening at Carré – a site historically significant for his work – took on the character of a memorial and homage, making the clarity, modernity and emotional precision of his understanding of dance tangible once more.