Premiere US Premiere
Country of Origin Netherlands
Description Since taking the helm of the acclaimed Nederlands Dans Theater more than 25 years ago, ultra-modernist choreographer Jirí Kylián has created upward of 60 works, each a stylistically unique marriage of classical ballet and modern dance.
Two stellar programs featuring five US premieres, performed by NDT’s 30 standout dancers, mark the troupe’s long-anticipated return to BAM. Program A consists of three visionary Kylián works all created since 2002. Claude Pascal features ten dancers on a stage dominated by 20 giant mirrors. Kylián’s latest work, Last Touch, is a study in contrasts as the thoroughly contemporary NDT dancers perform in proper Victorian-era dress. The program is anchored by the insouciant 27’ 52”. Named for the precise duration of the piece, 27’ 52” borrows texts from the Dalai Lama and Baudelaire, among others, and pulsates with the choreographer’s trademark intensity.
Program B opens with Symphony of Psalms, a danced prayer set to Stravinsky’s eponymous choral work, in which four couples, weaving tenderly among one another, embody the score’s potent spirituality. On a stage illuminated only by the overhead glare of fluorescent lights, a revolving mirror, and the Cyclops eye of a huge television screen, the tautly conceived Click-Pause-Silence chronicles the perils and pleasures of human interaction. Rounding out the program is the inventive Walking Mad, an affectionate battle-of-the-sexes—set to Ravel’s Bolero—by Johan Inger, NDT alumnus and artistic director of Sweden’s Cullberg Ballet.
Identifier 2004s.00785
