No More Kylián’s Ballets in NDT…

No More Kylián’s Ballets in NDT…

No More Kylián’s Ballets in NDT…

Before the world premiere at the Dance on Screen Festival Cinedans on 15 March 2015 in Amsterdam, the Mat cinema in Prague held a private screening of a documentary following the last rehearsals and preparations of three Jiri Kylián’s ballets at his former residential theatre in Haague which is still a home to the Nederlands Dans Theater company. During the film we find out that the modern building of Lucent Danstheater is likely to be dismounted. In the documentary, Jiri Kylián remembers the beginning of his dance career at the Prague conservatory, his stay in London and his final resolution to live abroad after 1968. From Stuttgart, where he danced with the local ballet company and met the legendary John Cranko, he moved to the Netherlands and for twenty-five years, he was setting the artistic tone of the NDT company which was later extended by the second company - NDT II for young dancers to twenty-two years. The individual chapter was the foundation of NDT III formed by dancers in their forties who could dance in ballets accentuating their artistic experience and mature performance. As Kylián pointed out in the documentary, this company had already been closed due to financial reasons. We also learn, as if by the way, some facts from Kylián’s career. He talks about his 104-year-old mother, but attention is paid especially to his work with the dancers and the two weeks of rehearsals, accompanied by Kylián’s observations and ideas. The probe into the backstage life will probably be more interesting for those who are familiar with Kylián’s work and are able to orientate in the montage combining stage rehearsals, memories and opinions of the world-famous artist. Duets – dialogues between a man and a woman In the 60-minute documentary, Jirí Kylián talks his work, illustrated by the ballets in preparation: Vanishing Twin, Tar and Feathers and Claude Pascal. For the first time, the film unit was allowed to the stage to capture the last corrections and subtle improvements. Between these shots, Kylián is commenting on his early dance career, he explains that he found his way to the Netherlands through the paintings of Dutch masters. This country won his heart for its liberalism. It already feels like home for Kylián, like some other places where he can find good work and good friends. Kylián contemplates his creations, and those who know his choreographies will not be surprised by the fact that the core of his dances is a duet. The choreographer sees a duet as a dialogue between a man and a woman, physical as well as spiritual: “I don’t want to create dances full of incomprehensible hieroglyphs, I make pieces for the audience. In movement, I aim at capturing an emotion and experience.” He understands art as the opening of soul – and his choreographies are always like that. It is obvious that he protects his private life. And just by the way, he remarks that it would be possible to live without women but life would lose its sense. He also mentions his life-long partner Sabine Kupferberg, with whom he has recently finished a film, shot in Hýskov, Bohemia. Reconciliatory leaving One of the strongest moments of the documentary is the process of rehearsing the triple bill, consisting of Kylian’s pieces and opening the 2013/2014 season. It is the last time… Kylián focuses on every little nuance – be it even more accentuated slowing-down of the given phrase, correct positions or dynamic transitions. His ballets stem from life experience, outsights, from inner feelings. He wants to share his ideas with the dancers while he is working with them in the studio and on the stage. It is up to them whether they will “accept them or throw them away”. Jiri Kylián is an exceptionally sensitive person, for himself, he defines dance as a fusion of physicality and spirituality. And all his choreographies testify it as they express human desires, frustrations, expectations, joys and sorrows in the unique theatre context where music, dance and visual art form a meaning-making whole.  Kylián uses his pieces to reveal inner stories depicted in an intense, always surprising stream of movement – like in Vanishing Twin. For the piece Claude Pascal (premiered 2002) Kylián wrote his own text, and narrated it, together with other dancers, to make an original composition in which the dance and music sequences are connected with individual performers and their voices. The composition plays not only with movement, sound, but also with space as the stage is framed by light-coloured rotating panels, with the opposite side covered with mirrors.  In Tar and Feathers (this choreography is dedicated to Sabine and was premiered in 2006), Kylián employed Samuel Beckett’s poem What this the Word. A piano on long legs standing on the stage, the sound of Concerto for piano n. 9 Es Major by W. A. Mozart merges with the original music by Dirk Haubrich and the pianist’s improvisation.  This piece revives a dream-like world, with its fleeting moments and surreal pictures. The fact, that his pieces will no longer be featured in NDT’s programme, Kylián accepts with the feeling of reconciliation – he gives way to other choreographers. The final scene of Martin Kubala’s documentary shows the curtain calls after the premiere of the performance which was taken to perfection in the eye of the camera. Jiri Kylián touches upon manyissues, he pronounces more or less serious statements – and you feel that he deliberately leaves many things unrevealed and puts them into his choreographies instead… Written from the premiere screening of the docuemntary on 9 March 2015, Mat Cinema Prague.  Jiří Kylián

Camera and direction: Martin Kubala
Subject: Jaroslav Bouček
Script: Kateřina Knappová Direction, choreography and scenography of the ballets: Jiří Kylián
Costume design: Joke Visser
Music: Dirk Haubrich
Editing: Jindřich Juna
Shooting location:Haag – NDT Nederlands Dans Theater, Prague Producer: Jaroslav Bouček – BUCFILM and Česká televize Translation: Tereza Cigánková

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