Unity of Difference

The two met when Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) had reached a transformative moment by moving into their own premises at Lucent Danstheater in The Hague. ‘A major breakthrough’, noted director Jiří Kylián. Now with their own studio space and theatre, NDT has become a hotbed of creative energy and the most sought-after contemporary dance company in Europe. Enter Paul Lightfoot, Cheshire born and Royal Ballet School trained, and Spaniard Sol León with years of folkloric dance experience then a brief immersive ballet training at the National Ballet Academy of Madrid. They met in the studio and discovered a shared passion in creating dance.

The partnership thrived, both on and off stage, as the two choreographers combined their different strengths, and working with mutual respect they created a new dance language to serve their expressive needs. It didn’t happen overnight. Lightfoot said: ‘The first ballet, honestly, was a disaster. Jiří just said two words: “Try again”, he understood process’. León added: ‘Jiří supported us by leaving us to find our own way’. However, she had to stand her ground to insist she was an equal partner in the choreography as male choreographer and female muse was the accepted stereotype. Sharp-eyed patrons will notice that all León and Lightfoots creations have titles starting with ‘S’: back when Lightfoot still often got full credit, Sol’s initial is there to remind us of her essence in the process.

The choreographers have been generous in their praise of the welcome they received at The Royal Ballet. Lightfoot said he was overwhelmed with the spirit in the House and the dancers desire to embrace a new and different technique which is a challenge even for these highly trained dancers.  Principal dancer Matthew Ball felt there was a lot in the style that suited him, but what struck him was ‘the precision, the speed and the dexterity, the morphing between different states. One moment it’s like a laser beam and the next minute it’s like a puff of smoke. The immediacy of those changes is almost instantaneous and it’s something you can't fake, and you can't approximate.’

The atmosphere in the rehearsal room is intense, with occasional bursts of laughter. The choreographers have brought a small team of assistants with them who know the dance style intimately and are able to demonstrate accurately what is needed. Both choreographers feel uneasy with terms like contemporary dance or classical dance. León made a comparison with Spanish painters, the Baroque Zurbarán and 20^th century Picasso. ‘They both did classical studies, they had technique and from there you fly.’ For the dancer, the line is not a standard arabesque, ‘because the perfection of the line now goes somewhere else, somewhere bigger. You’ll need to deliver it to be free, to make something happen in the moment. In the classical ballet you have the step and then you add the drama. In our style the technique is the dramaturgy. It’s not just the story; it is how you tell it.’

León and Lightfoot have achieved phenomenal international success. In roughly 35 years they have created together more than 60 works for NDT1 and NDT2. They have won numerous awards ranging from an Olivier nomination in 1994 for SH-Boom!, the Prix Benois de la Danse 2005 for Signing Off and Zwaan ‘Swan’ awards, considered the Oscars of Dutch dance, for Shutters Shut and Subject to Change in 2003-4 and for Shoot the Moon in 2005-6. Lightfoot received VSCD Golden Theatre Dance Prize in 2002. Sol León was awarded the 'Premio Nacional de Danza 2021 Creación' from the Spanish Ministry of Culture and in 2024, they each received the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Culture Ministry.

The couple have had parallel dance and choreographic careers. They each joined the junior company NDT2, Lightfoot in 1985 and León in 1987, and advanced to NDT1 a few years later. In 2002 León and Lightfoot were appointed as resident choreographers of NDT. In 2003 León decided to devote herself fully to choreography together with Lightfoot. He was appointed Artistic Director in 2012 with León as the Artistic Advisor. Paul Lightfoot and Sol León left the Nederlands Dans Theater in 2020. They now work as freelance choreographers and occasionally create alone.

Serendipitous events shaped their remarkable careers. In 1967 Jennie Lee, the United Kingdom’s first Minister for the Arts, visits Prague and notices the exceptional talent evident in Jiří Kylián’s student choreography. She awards him a scholarship to The Royal Ballet School and he comes to London. He auditions for John Cranko and joins Stuttgart Ballet, then escapes Prague just as the Russian tanks are rolling in. Cranko was not afraid of choreographic competition and encouraged the young Kylián to create. Kylián welcomes the opportunity and brings similar ethics to NDT; opening the door to new choreographers when he takes the leadership in The Hague in 1975.

In London 1985, Lightfoot happens to take a later class one morning at the Royal Ballet School – the one class that by chance, Kylián watches. A short contract to NDT2 follows. In Spain, León while continuing her folkloric dance realises she needs a ballet technique and enrols at the Madrid Academy. She is spotted by a photographer from NDT who suggests she audition for the company. She does and also gets the job.

Fate had moved the pair to fertile ground. NDT under Jiří Kylián’s directorship provided the perfect environment for choreography that takes advantage of well-trained dancing bodies while incorporating contemporary ideas and themes. Kylián was inspired to start dancing after seeing traditional ballets, but he remembered Pina Bausch saying, very simply: ‘I think that dance should be something more adult.’

The atmosphere at Lucent was exhilarating. Lightfoot explained: ‘NDT was not repertoire-based. It was pure creativity with no hierarchy.’ León added: ‘Everybody was creative and there was respect for difference. The directors were top creators – that is what made the house.’ For Lightfoot: ‘Jiří was absolutely the reason that NDT flourished but he never monopolised the artistic vision. He would let other choreographers in and watch what they brought out in his dancers.’ In his company ideas flourished as he encouraged young choreographers to find their own voice at the same time as bringing in some of the titans of modern choreography to work with them. William Forsythe, Mats Ek and Ohad Naharin wrote works for the company and Hans Van Manen was for many years the resident choreographer.

León had an immediate bond with Van Manen from day one: ‘I had more contact with Hans. He was the godfather in my career and I adored him. I was fascinated by Hans’ style, how he did it. It’s not that you do steps. He said: “style is 50%, the other 50% is the artist”. I watched him and copied his spirit.’

‘We were so bloody spoilt at NDT!’ said Lightfoot, ‘when I travel to visit classical companies, I am aware that their art has to serve their House. We lived in a reverse state; Lucent Danstheater was there to serve our art.’ Having their own theatre also allowed greater experimentation and use of sets, props and adventurous lighting. Lightfoot noted how under Kylián’s direction the bar on production levels went ‘ridiculously high’. Striking designs that became part of the choreography were a feature of NDT’s works. Shoot the Moon is an outstanding example of this integration.

León and Lightfoot have chosen two works to present with The Royal Ballet; a new work Salle de Danse and Shoot the Moon written for NDT1 in 2006. This work is now 20 years old and has deep personal resonance for the couple. It has a cast of five, three men and two women and deals with their relationships. The set revolves, dividing the stage into three rooms furnished only with doors and a window, the clothes are streetwear and the emotions are blindingly real. The score is Philip Glass’s Tirol Concerto, the movements mirroring the razor-sharp tension in the notes.  Watching the ballet for the first time Glass was moved to ask: ‘How did you know?’ Apparently, he had been going through a difficult emotional period when composing the music and felt the pair had perfectly captured his mood.

During the rehearsals for Shoot the Moon, every comma in the dance language is important. In the duets Léon is exacting: ‘I need reality, no dramatics!’ It’s tough on the dancers but they are relishing the challenge with each action sparking a reaction, and it’s fascinating to see the nuanced differences in the dancers’ interpretation. For the choreographers, it’s a ballet where the personal and the professional overlap. Instinct is the art of blending the usual and the unusual in just the right mix and it takes an artist to do this. Léon summed it up ‘When we begin, we use the instinct, we don’t intellectualise.  Whatever is in your heart – you put it there.’

It was the choreography, intricate and intense, that first identified León and Lightfoot. Many of their early works were also packed with wit and even slapstick humour. Skew-Whiff (1996) - filled with virtuosic ballet and knockabout jokes to Rossini’s Thieving Magpie Overture - and the witty word play in Shutters Shut (2003) - to Gertrude Stein’s plummy voice reciting, If I told him: A completed portrait of Picasso - remain some of their most popular short works. Comedy is hard work and the work ethic in building these comic masterpieces gesture by gesture and step by step is intense. The same intensity is evident in the more serious works like Shoot the Moon, where each gesture and move has profound significance.

For Léon casting the work was about finding the chemistry in the small group. ‘There were a lot of possibilities because the dancers all wanted to be in the work which made me super happy and gave a good feeling.’ They have brought a small team of NDT dancers who have performed the roles.  She explained: ‘The only way to pass on the tradition is through the person, through the intensity of the body, avoiding words. That is why it’s called dance! You don’t need to understand; you will feel it. Please don’t try to find the intellectuality of it.

As with most of their works, the designs for sets and costumes are done by León and Lightfoot. ‘We’re control freaks’, Lightfoot confessed! ‘You can make a ballet look very old in just three years’, said León. ‘Simplicity and universality are the elements I consider. When you look at a ballet and you say, “Wow, what amazing costumes”, that's wrong for me. I consider the materials as carefully as I do the steps, so we use high quality fabrics which we source from Florence. The wallpaper in Shoot was also given careful consideration. They were researching silent film, thinking in black and white, and feeling texture was necessary when they came across ‘Fleur’ a design from the 1800s. The first room has black on white, this reverses in the second room and becomes shades of grey in the third.  

The timing of the revolving walls with both music and movement, lighting and camera is scarily complicated. The stage crew who film and project the images during performance, attend rehearsals and uniquely get a curtain call to acknowledge their skilled work.

When the invitation came from ballet director Kevin O’Hare to present an evening of their own works the idea of using the ballet class came up. For Lightfoot it’s a return to roots: ‘I feel Salle de Danse should be about love, passion and dedication and I can’t think of a better place for it to be born.’ He had already started on a film project on the theme during Covid and the idea was now given a fresh start. The idea is not new. From August Bournonville to Serge Lifar to Harold Lander and even to William Forsythe and his Barre Project with Tyler Peck, many choreographers have been inspired by this daily ritual in dance. León and Lightfoot have mapped out the structure in sequence from introducing the ballet master to the end-of-class applause.

Lightfoot explained: ‘At NDT we had a full ballet class in the morning and then went to the studios and did crazy stuff! There was a time when we had a certain generation who said, “should we still be doing ballet class?” I said yes! Because for an hour and a half we are together. Today we are going to go together into a studio and do what somebody tells us to do and we’ll do it together.’ León says: ‘To tell the truth, we love to work with classical technique. To me technique is the essence of all.’

Watching the fluency and ease of the NDT assistants Mikaela Kelly, César Faria Fernandes, Chloé Albaret, Jorge Nozal, Roger van der Poel and Olivier Coeffard in interpreting León and Lightfoot’s dance language, the fluidity in their bodies is impressive. For Matthew Ball, there are differences for the ballet dancer: ‘I find that I'm most limited in the use of the spine, thoracic curves and deep contractions. But I discovered that, very often, movement from the pelvis or the torso can be a natural and powerful way to deliver an explosive movement. Of course, frequently in ballet, we brace one part of the body, so that another part of the body can move but, in this kind of dance, it's actually the whole body that is being used.’

‘The company are really enjoying themselves working with choreographers who are so bold in their theatricality and use the choreography to make a really strong impression. They are not afraid to imbue things with a deeper meaning to give a real sense of drama and tension in the work. It's incredible. I'm just excited to be having this moment and I hope it’s not the last time.’

Maggie Foyer, former dancer and dance teacher, contributes to various magazines including Dance Europe and Danza International and programme notes for ballet companies in Europe and the USA. She has lectured for The Open University and Trinity Laban Conservatoire.