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character info |
HECTOR HANSEN
!BACKGROUND
[ CW: loss of romantic partner, mention of cancer. ]
To Hector, there is the life he led before he lost Jacques and the life he leads after. They are very different and not comparable. One is good, the other simply is.
Born in 1968*, he grew up in an upperclass family in the Northen Zealand part of Denmark. His early childhood was very secluded and safe, but at age 7 he enrolled with the Royal Danish Ballet School, moving into the dormitories in Copenhagen and embarking on a whole different kind of existence. The training was rigouring, the teaching style strict and old-fashioned, it was a tough way of living, but it was also where he would form some of the most enduring relationships of his whole life. Friendships, partnerships and animosities.
After finishing his formal education in 1984, he became first an apprentice and then a part of the corps de ballet of the Royal Danish Ballet. He was perceived as an obvious talent and danced featured soloist parts almost from the get-go. At age 19, he danced his first story ballet lead, as James in La Sylphide, a role that would become his signature for the rest of his career. At 25, he was finally named principal dancer of the company.
For five years, he danced with the RDB, becoming a coveted guest artist in many other companies as well, and finally at the height of the Danish leg of his career, 30 years old, he was offered a contract as étoile at the Paris Opera Ballet - the first international dancer to do so. Having guested in a few POB productions and liking the POB repertory, he jumped at the chance of getting away from Denmark whose narrow-mindedness was starting to become very straining, now that he had realized he was gay. Paris was another kind of environment. So, he made the move and never returned as a dancer to Copenhagen.
For 12 years, he was one of POB's big sensations, both dancing well-known roles and originating new ones in Nureyev's long reign as A.D. of the company. At the POB, he would meet his life partner, Jacques Abadie, who was a premier danseur, two years younger than Hector. Theirs was a quiet, solid kind of relationship, all the drama left on the stage, and they had about a decade together, before Jacques would eventually succumb to cancer and die, 45 years old.
In the meantime, Hector ended his dancing career at age 42, having gained a reputation as great storyteller and an incredible interpretor of the male role in ballet, retiring to work as a private teacher in Paris. However, after Jacques' death, his grief led him to apply for the job of Artistic Director at his old company in Copenhagen, when the seat became available, and to many people's great surprise, he was hired. He moved back to his old neighbourhoods and started a new life alone in Denmark. Far way from Jacques' grave in Montmartre. The only thing he brought with him from Paris was his ambition of writing a biography about his deceased partner, the way he knew him.
As an A.D., his biggest interest was re-staging the old classic story ballets from the Romantic period to the RDB repertory. His style bore a resemblance to Nureyev's and was by some called pretty much undanceable and definitely not the most musical, but his productions were large-scale and elaborate and drew a lot of people into the ballet as an art form. He was loved and he was hated, simultaneously.
Mostly, his style was called slightly removed and somewhat dispassionate, even if his work required an upscale of the technique and standard of the RDB dancers that was generally seen as good.
His dancers experience him as a very serious, strict and demanding leader. The general consensus is that he's fair in distributing roles and "can't be sucked off for differential treatment" which gains him the respect of his company, but also makes him seem professional to a fault. To a point where he can mostly just seem really cold.
His breakthrough as an A.D. comes when he creates a choreography inspired by Flemming Flindt's The Lesson, but in his version danced by two male dancers, himself in the role of the teacher and the young, French sensation, André Garnier, as the pupil. It 's a scandal of a ballet and divides the waters right down the middle. Some call him a genius, others a self-promoting narcissist.
Himself, he simply experiences passion for the first time since Jacques.
* All years and dates can be adjusted to fit the age and era of the other character, so that Hector remains 54 years old.
To Hector, there is the life he led before he lost Jacques and the life he leads after. They are very different and not comparable. One is good, the other simply is.
Born in 1968*, he grew up in an upperclass family in the Northen Zealand part of Denmark. His early childhood was very secluded and safe, but at age 7 he enrolled with the Royal Danish Ballet School, moving into the dormitories in Copenhagen and embarking on a whole different kind of existence. The training was rigouring, the teaching style strict and old-fashioned, it was a tough way of living, but it was also where he would form some of the most enduring relationships of his whole life. Friendships, partnerships and animosities.
After finishing his formal education in 1984, he became first an apprentice and then a part of the corps de ballet of the Royal Danish Ballet. He was perceived as an obvious talent and danced featured soloist parts almost from the get-go. At age 19, he danced his first story ballet lead, as James in La Sylphide, a role that would become his signature for the rest of his career. At 25, he was finally named principal dancer of the company.
For five years, he danced with the RDB, becoming a coveted guest artist in many other companies as well, and finally at the height of the Danish leg of his career, 30 years old, he was offered a contract as étoile at the Paris Opera Ballet - the first international dancer to do so. Having guested in a few POB productions and liking the POB repertory, he jumped at the chance of getting away from Denmark whose narrow-mindedness was starting to become very straining, now that he had realized he was gay. Paris was another kind of environment. So, he made the move and never returned as a dancer to Copenhagen.
For 12 years, he was one of POB's big sensations, both dancing well-known roles and originating new ones in Nureyev's long reign as A.D. of the company. At the POB, he would meet his life partner, Jacques Abadie, who was a premier danseur, two years younger than Hector. Theirs was a quiet, solid kind of relationship, all the drama left on the stage, and they had about a decade together, before Jacques would eventually succumb to cancer and die, 45 years old.
In the meantime, Hector ended his dancing career at age 42, having gained a reputation as great storyteller and an incredible interpretor of the male role in ballet, retiring to work as a private teacher in Paris. However, after Jacques' death, his grief led him to apply for the job of Artistic Director at his old company in Copenhagen, when the seat became available, and to many people's great surprise, he was hired. He moved back to his old neighbourhoods and started a new life alone in Denmark. Far way from Jacques' grave in Montmartre. The only thing he brought with him from Paris was his ambition of writing a biography about his deceased partner, the way he knew him.
As an A.D., his biggest interest was re-staging the old classic story ballets from the Romantic period to the RDB repertory. His style bore a resemblance to Nureyev's and was by some called pretty much undanceable and definitely not the most musical, but his productions were large-scale and elaborate and drew a lot of people into the ballet as an art form. He was loved and he was hated, simultaneously.
Mostly, his style was called slightly removed and somewhat dispassionate, even if his work required an upscale of the technique and standard of the RDB dancers that was generally seen as good.
His dancers experience him as a very serious, strict and demanding leader. The general consensus is that he's fair in distributing roles and "can't be sucked off for differential treatment" which gains him the respect of his company, but also makes him seem professional to a fault. To a point where he can mostly just seem really cold.
His breakthrough as an A.D. comes when he creates a choreography inspired by Flemming Flindt's The Lesson, but in his version danced by two male dancers, himself in the role of the teacher and the young, French sensation, André Garnier, as the pupil. It 's a scandal of a ballet and divides the waters right down the middle. Some call him a genius, others a self-promoting narcissist.
Himself, he simply experiences passion for the first time since Jacques.
* All years and dates can be adjusted to fit the age and era of the other character, so that Hector remains 54 years old.
APPEARANCE
Tall, long-limbed man who could've been lanky to look at, but his training gives him a noticeable elegance. Short, dark hair, greyish-blue eyes, always somber-looking. Dresses like a university professor, never losing more than his jacket, not even in the studio. Has a slightly haunted, gaunt look about him and is called the Ghost by his dancers for that reason.
PERSONALITY
When people think about an Artist™, they often think about a passionate, emoting individual who feels All Feelings and feels them a lot. A certain sense of mental anguish and perfectionism may apply as well. Yet, when you meet Hector, it seems he only got the memo for the latter part. Perfectionistic to a fault, applying his own high standards to everyone around him as well as to himself, which makes him produce things of an extremely high quality, but at excruciating costs for everyone involved. He is a muted man who expresses himself subtly and without great fanfare. Still grieving his partner, seven years later, he buries himself in work and the Royal Danish Ballet has become the whole bane of his existence. As an Artistic Director, he is both dedicated and professional, bordering on strict. His style is no-nonsense and non-argumentative, he does not accept any show of entitlement or attitude from his dancers. And although it has only gotten worse after Jacques' death, even as a dancer, Hector was a somber and serious type of person who would mull over his work, his interpretations, the steps, the stories. He never found it easy to adopt a carefree or fun attitude, at the heart of him a quiet, slightly subdued man. Intellectual, but crippled to some degree my his own expectations, he was known as a storyteller and an amazing interpreter of characters, but also slightly withdrawn. He was freer when dancing, yes, but never truly free.