Private Project

Just dance the steps

Although Hans van Manen has reached the age of 90, his unstoppable energy is evident in all scenes. Whether he rehearses a piece with his dancers or whether he decides after 40 years to move to a very spacious and luxurious apartment - his respectable age is far from getting in the way.

With more than 150 ballets he has said and done enough. Creating another ballet is the least of his interest. It’s working with the dancers that keeps him in the business and maybe more important, keeps him young.
He can’t show his movements to the fullest anymore but his dancers immediately know what he wants to see. Balletmaster Rachel Beaujean accompanies him in the process of rehearsing his ballets all over the world. She grasps the last pieces of information about how to dance his work the right way to make sure that his work will live on in the future. We see Hans van Manen as he is securing his legacy by giving The Dutch National Ballet the first right to all his work.

The timing, the pace of the music, the lightning, the attitude of the dancers, the costumes, Hans has a very sharp eye of every detail in his work, just like he has in his daily life. “There’s always room for improvement. “
Hans van Manen – Just dance the steps is an intimate character-driven documentary about a passionate choreographer who, despite his 90 years of age, has no intention to quit working. The documentary is told in a visual aesthetic style.

Hans van Manen has also been a successful dancer, photographer and art collector. He donates a large collection of art to the Dutch Rijksmuseum featuring a collection of photographs by Robbert Mapplethorpe, who was a dear friend.

Biographer Sjeng Scheijen, who also wrote the internationally praised biography ’A Life’ about Diaghilev, has been writing a biography about Hans van Manen over the last 5 years. The same period in which this documentary was shot. We follow Sjeng in his research while he puts Hans van Manen and his work in an historical and cultural context.

Hans van Manen (Nieuwer-Amstel, 1932) is internationally recognized as one of the great masters of contemporary ballet. Including his ballets for television, he has created more than 150 ballets and worked together with more than 90 major dance companies internationally. His choreographies have an unmistakable signature, characterized by great clarity in structure as well as refined simplicity.

  • Willem Aerts
    Director
  • Monique Busman
    Producer
  • Indy Kisoen
    Production Manager
  • Hans van Manen
    Key Cast
  • Rachel Beaujean
    Key Cast
  • Wilko van Oosterhout
    Director of Photography
  • Obbe Verwer
    Editor
  • Jos van Galen
    Sound Design
  • Nick Lapien
    Film Score
  • Roos Haasjes
    Title Design
  • Joel Sahuleka
    Color Correction
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Genres:
    Dance, Music, Art
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 30 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    May 30, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    90 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Netherlands
  • Country of Filming:
    Croatia, Germany, Netherlands
  • Language:
    Dutch, English
  • Shooting Format:
    4K Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.35:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Distribution Information
  • Naxos
    Sales Agent
    Country: Worldwide
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Willem Aerts

Willem Aerts studied at the Academy of Visual Arts in Maastricht (audio-visual design) and at the Dutch Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam, where he graduated in 2001 in directing. After his studies he was a performer in the theater for two seasons in the performances Forgotten Faces and Future Lives and Body. (Amsterdam City Theater - La MAMA ETC New York, U.S.A.)
After this theater adventure he started directing documentaries, music videos and art films. He won a number of international prizes for the short documentary ‘Looking for Curtis’. He also works as an editor for the art films of Melanie Bonajo, Dutch entry for the Venice Biennale 2022. The documentary Hans van Manen – Just dance the steps is his third feature-length documentary. He currently works as a documentary director, editor and film teacher at the Fontys Academy of the Arts in Tilburg.

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Director Statement

The story and the characters are the heart and soul of the film. But…, the language of film tells so much in itself. The way a scène is approached by the camera, the way it is cut, the length of the shots and very importantly, the use of music and sound. Using these filmic aspects can hugely intensify the way we experience a documentary. Too often I see documentaries where I feel that there is too little awareness of the potential of these elements.
I love to approach documentary as fiction as much as I love to approach fiction as documentary. In both cases it’s a very interesting way of approaching a project in order to find the very specific realty within the framework of the documentary. I love to observe my characters without judgement and give a lot of room to the audience to make their own observations, create their own stories and form their own opinion. My characters are the lead, I am, as a director, the observer who closely watches the characters with an enormous amount of attention, passion and curiosity. What is in the details? What is it in their behavior that makes people unique?
And yes, they may at times be very confusing, dualistic and sometimes hard to understand.
I don’t prefer a celebrated choreographer (in this case) over an hiv long term survivor (One of the characters of my previous documentary). There is a truth in every life and every person.
I don’t expect from myself to find a fully framed answer. Life is too much a whirlwind for that. Sometimes a freezing blizzard, sometimes an exotic summer breeze, but there is always something in the air.