Danes dive into the classics.

COPENHAGEN--Peter Schaufuss, who was slated to begin his first season as director of Royal Danish Ballet (RDB) on August 10, when the company will perform Helgi Tomasson's staging of Sleeping Beauty, is focusing on new productions of the classics, replacing versions that already exist in the Danish repertoire.

During the 1994-95 season, for example, Schaufuss's own staging of Giselle (Berlin 1991), will replace the 1979 production by Erik Bruhn, which has been cared for and developed by Henning Kronstam. In the same way, Schaufuss's London production of Sir Frederick Ashton's Romeo and Juliet will return finally to Copenhagen where it had its premiere in 1955. Ashton's Romeo will replace John Neumeier's, which has been a favorite both with the dancers and with the audience since 1974. Schaufuss hopes to show both productions side by side next season.

The biggest concern in Denmark has been Schaufuss's approach to RDB's August Bournonville tradition. It now appears that Schaufuss will maintain this tradition by retaining existing productions, by offering his own interpretations of Bournonville classics, and by staging new productions. Besides Schaufuss's own version of La Sylphide, which he mounted in London in 1979 and which enters the RDB repertoire on August 27, this December RDB will perform the 1991 production of Bournonville's A Folk Tale, staged by Frank Andersen and Anne Marie Vessel, with decor and costumes by queen Margrethe. In March 1995, Niels Bjorn Larsen, Kirsten Ralov, and Dinna Bjorn will mount a complete two-act version of Bournonville's Konservatoriet, which has not been performed in its entirety since 1934.

The season will be full of love stories: Onegin, Sleeping Beauty, and Coppelia all will be danced in addition to the ballets already mentioned. To provide a contrast, Schaufuss has invited Flemming Flindt to create an updated version of his ballet Triumph of Death, which was one of RDB's most provocative and successful productions during the 1970s.

Besides Triumph, Romeo, Harald Lander's Etudes and two works to music of Gustav Mahler by Neumeier, no choreography from the recent past will be visible in the repertorie. The future, however, will be represented by new works that Schaufuss has commissioned from David Bintley and Uwe Scholz, with the premieres scheduled for May 1995. Also during this season some choreographers from Denmark's modern dance companies--Anette Abildgaard, Anita Saij, and Marie Brolin-Tani--will work with RDB. In addition, Anna Laerkesen, Kim Brandstrup (now with Arc Dance Company in London), and Axel Eckert, from Berlin, each will do a commissioned piece.

During his tenure as company director, Frank Andersen did a lot to encourage RDB's dancers to try their hands at choreography, especially through some public workshops arranged by the dancer Stephen Pier. Schaufuss wants these workshops to continue and even hopes to improve the conditions under which the dancers and choreographers work. Furthermore, he will introduce all the major premieres in the RDB repertoire at workshops open to the audience.

Naturally, with so many different productions there can be only a few performances of each. At least one of the nine evenings of La Sylphide, however, will be extraordinary: on November 26 Schaufuss plans to end his own dancing career--appropriately in James's kilt.