Alain Bernard (dance teacher)

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Alain Bernard (born August 30, 1932 in Basel ; † April 18, 2012 in Biel ) was a Swiss dancer , dance teacher and choreographer .

Life

Alain Bernard began his classical ballet training in Bern and Geneva, he expanded it in New York with Antony Tudor at the School of American Ballet and the School of Contemporary Dance of Martha Graham . He brought the techniques of modern dance and jazz dance to Switzerland and thus became a pioneer of jazz dance in various cities in Switzerland and later in Poland.

After engagements as a group dancer from 1955 to 1956 at the Stadttheater Bern, he went as a dancer to Stockholm, to the Teatro del Balletto di Pieter van der Sloot in Rome, and to the Ballet Ludmilla Tcherina in Paris. Alain Bernard began his career as a solo dancer in 1960 at the Stadttheater Bern, followed by engagements at the Städtische Bühnen Oberhausen. In 1964 he was a guest solo dancer at the Lucerne City Theater.

Dance teacher

Bernard sees himself as the founder of the jazz and modern dance movement in Switzerland. He has developed his own technique, adapted to the respective students, which is often used in teaching laypeople.

He was able to gain his first experience as a dance teacher in 1959 as assistant to the dancer and dance teacher Walter Nicks at the summer academy in Krefeld. In 1959 he opened his dance studio Alain Bernard on Brunngasshalde in Bern, followed by branches in Biel and Basel. Since 1970 his school has been called Tanz- und Theaterstudio Alain Bernard , vocational school for musical and jazz-dance pedagogy with a focus on musicals .

The Alain Bernard dance and theater studio was the very first musical school in Switzerland. In addition to the amateur courses, there was for the first time the opportunity to complete vocational training for the musical in Switzerland. The curriculum included: classical dance, jazz, modern dance , Spanish dance , tap dance , drama , speech training , role studies, singing . In minor subjects there were courses in anatomy , methodology , and psychology . Commedia dell'arte , pantomime , Indian dance , Filipino dance, etc. were taught in courses with guest teachers from home and abroad .

Due to the close affiliation to the studio on Monday , a children's musical was developed and performed with the musical students of the upper level. The students also had the opportunity to take part in other productions of the studio on Monday and thus get to know the practical work at a theater from various sides.

Between 1971 and 1981 he taught various international summer courses. In 1991 he closed his dance studio in Bern and moved to Eastern Europe as a choreographer and dance teacher.

choreographer

Bernard's first choreographies were created in 1957 for the New York Ballet Club and in 1958 Promenade as part of a school theater tour in Stockholm. From 1966 to 1969 there were dancing fashion shows in Switzerland. With amateur dancers from Bernards dance and theater school in Bern, he showed his jazz danced 1 . In 1968 Bernard choreographed Charley's new aunt in Klagenfurt . In 1970, Bernard made a tour with Jazz danced 2 with dancers from his Jazz Dance Studio Company. Further choreographies followed: 1973 Hello Dolly , 1976 Arabesque , 1976 Ellingtonia / Orpheus Danza in Sofia, 1981 Jazz for twelve at the Baltic Opera in Gdansk , 1982 Let's Jazz It at the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw , as well as other unspecified and dated choreographies for operettas at the municipal theaters in Oberhausen.

He has been invited as a guest trainer, choreographer or lecturer in many cities in Eastern Europe, for example in Poland, Belarus, Russia, St. Petersburg and the Czech Republic. Bernard choreographed in classical dance style in Warsaw The Nutcracker , Coppélia and Cinderella , in Minsk Undine and in Vilnius the third Brandenburg by Johann Sebastian Bach .

In 2002 Alain Bernard retired entirely to Poland .

Collectors of books and magazines

For more than 40 years, Alain Bernard has been collecting everything related to the ephemeral art of dance : books, programs, graphics, sculptures or letters. Alain Bernard also owns 1500 videos. Alain Bernard bequeathed his collection, which was exclusively dedicated to dance, to the Swiss dance archive in Lausanne . The more than 3,400 works and 700 magazine volumes are considered the most important privately owned collection worldwide. The works are in German, English, French, Russian and Polish.

Collection of dancing figures

The exhibition Dancing Figures from the collections of Alain Bernard and Vladimir Malakhov shows around 200 porcelain figures from three centuries up to the present day, which come from famous European manufacturers as well as from the production of smaller porcelain factories. Almost every porcelain figure represents a concrete dancer in a role that has become famous. Sculptors such as Constantin Holzer-Defanti created expressive porcelain sculptures by Anita Berber , Anna Pawlowa or Tamara Karsawina , for example ; The star of the Ballets Russes , Vaslav Nijinsky , was also reflected in numerous porcelain figures. Other big names: Fanny Elssler , Michail Fokin , Harald Kreutzberg and Tilly Losch or Ruth Saint-Denis . Most of the figures were shaped from pictures or later photographs. The dancers rarely acted as direct models.

So far exhibitions have been carried out in Poznan , Breslau , Kielce , St. Pölten , Austria and also in the Bröhan Museum in Berlin.

Voices on Alain Bernard

"He was and is an unquestionable authority to which people from all over Europe have sought refuge for decades in order to perfect themselves in dance."

Awards

Publications

  • Susana y José . With title illustration by Irène Zurkinden . Edited by the Swiss Professional Association for Dance and Gymnastics. Bern 1969.
  • History and development of jazz dance. Manuscript, in German and Polish, A4 / hardcover.
  • Lexicon of Swiss dance professionals. Traber, Bern 1995, ISBN 3-9520699-1-4

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ He brought jazz dance to Switzerland. In: The Bund . April 20, 2012. Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  2. ↑ Swiss Dance Archive ( Memento from November 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Jan Stanislav Witkiewicz: Alain Bernard dance library and dance collection in the Swiss dance archive, Archives suisses de la danse Lausanne. Catalog of books and magazines. Slatkine, Geneva 2002, ISBN 2-05-101915-0 .
  4. ^ Jan Stanisław Witkiewicz: Dancing Figures from the Alain Bernard and Vladimir Malakhov collections. (On the occasion of the cabinet exhibition Dancing Figures from the Alain Bernard and Vladimir Malakhov collections from March 13 to May 31, 2009 in the Bröhan Museum, Berlin). Bröhan-Museum, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-941588-00-4 .
  5. ^ Catalog for the "Dancing Figures" collection in the St. Pölten City Museum , 2008.
personal data
SURNAME Bernard, Alain
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss dancer, dance teacher and choreographer
DATE OF BIRTH August 30, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH April 18, 2012
Place of death Biel