Controversy is brewing after a recent announcement that Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, the most important opera house in Belgium and a source of some of Europe’s most cutting-edge music and dance productions, would eliminate all dance programming after a forthcoming production by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.
The general and artistic director of La Monnaie, Pete de Caluwe, states the reason for the cut as a steep reduction In funding to the Brussels opera house since 2009, with further cuts announced in mid-October by the newly formed Belgian coalition government.
De Caluwe said he had no wish to stop producing dance but was backed into a corner by the combination of less money and the need to further reduce personnel.
“Because we will have fewer technical staff, we will have to cut down from three to two shifts a day,” he said. “This means each production takes more time to prepare and will have to run for longer to recoup costs. We don’t have a resident dance company. What we give them is money to invest and time on stage. Now we have neither of those things to offer.”
Belgian choreography has been a major force in the dance world since De Keersmaeker, Jan Fabre, Wim Vandekeybus, Alain Platel and others burst onto the scene in the 1980s, and it has been fueled to a large extent by the financial support given by the Belgian government.
Although the opera house has not had a resident dance company since de Caluwe’s tenure began in 2005, he has regularly programmed and supported work by De Keersmaeker and other Belgian and international choreographers, including Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Sasha Waltz.
De Keersmaeker and Cherkaoui, who are among the best-known contemporary dance makers worldwide, expressed pessimism about dance’s future in Brussels.
“This situation creates no guarantee that I’ll be able to continue my work here and the relationship with the public I’ve built over 30 years,” De Keersmaeker said in a telephone interview with The New York Times. “I do have an understanding of how much pressure there is on the opera house, but to cut all dance is a choice I find very hard to take.”
