© BETON
The Baltic Dance Theatre is presenting the second instalment of its Netherlands project: a triple bill of Body Master by Izadora Weiss, Falling Angels and Sarabande by Jiří Kylián. Body Master is a tale of a Master, operating in hermetic reality, who is trying to conjure up his own world by the agency of dancers. Falling Angels is a story of the mysterious magic of seduction and sensuality as the truth about human nature. In Sarabande, fluid, undulating movements characteristic for Kylián’s early choreographies give way to his fascination with primitive ritual dances.
The premiere is planned for Saturday, 8 November; subsequent performances will take place on 14?16 November at the Baltic Opera.
Body Master
The title of Izadora Weiss’s latest choreography is ironic. The piece is a tale of a Master, operating in hermetic reality, who is trying to conjure up his own world by the agency of dancers. He is reminiscent of the great reformer of ballet, Edward Gordon Craig. He, too, became seduced by the concept of the perfect Actor ? the Uber-Marionette able to convey preprogrammed emotions. Before and after Craig there have been many prominent creators tragically torn between the demuirgic desire to control the performer and the willingness to elicit truth from them. Using a self-conceived story as an example, Izadora Weiss once again struggles with fundamental questions about the nature of theatre making and the relation between the creator’s vision and the performers who put life into it.
libretto, music editing, staging, choreography: Izadora Weiss
stage design: Hanna Szymczak
lighting: Piotr Miszkiewicz
assistants to choreographer: Elżbieta Czajkowska-Kłos, Filip Michalak
premiere: 8 November 2014
Falling Angels
What’s fascinating in Reich’s music for Jiří Kylián is its rhythmic structure, and the use of phasing in particular. Thus the music serves as a fluid backdrop against which choreography may develop independently. While usually Kylián treats music as the primary inspiration for his choreographies, modelling his work to reflect the existing structure of the musical piece, here he began from dance. The outcome is a fascinating, direct flight of eight dancers.
music: Steve Reich
staging, stage design, choreography: Jiří Kylián
costumes: Joke Visser
lighting: Jiří Kylián (concept), Joop Caboort (implementation)
technical supervision over lighting and stage design: Joost Biegelaar
assistant to choreographer: Roslyn Anderson
world premiere: 23 Novemner 1989, AT&T Danstheater, Haga Nederlands Dans Theater
premiere by the Baltic Dance Theatre: 8 November 2014
Sarabande
Against the backdrop of Bach’s Sarabande, Jiří Kylián continues his efforts to answer fundamental questions asked by children. Simple structures, banal situations, dreamlike visions, retrospections, elements of dance and mime ? these all serve to show that the answer to “Why?” is never coming. Kylián’s Sarabandecame to life, just like many of his latest works, as a “choreographic undertaking”. A black-and-white sketch, the work will be completed and coloured inside the audience’s minds. It is also a reference to Kylián’s other choreographies: No More Play, Falling Angels, and Sweet Dreams.
music: Johann Sebastian Bach (arranged by Dick Heuff)
staging, stage design, choreography: Jiří Kylián
costumes: Joke Visser
lighting: Jiří Kylián (concept), Joop Caboort (implementation)
technical supervision over lighting and stage design: Joost Biegelaar
sound director: Dick Schuttel
assistant to choreographer: Patrick Delcroix
world premiere: 13 September 1990, AT&T Danstheater, Haga Nederlands Dans Theatre
premiere by the Baltic Dance Theatre: 8 November 2014
Sarabande and Falling Angels are produced in association with the Institute of Music and Dance in Warsaw under the programme “Choreographic Commissions 2014”.
