Sarabande

In this piece, the choreographer expresses his sense of humour at the same time as he reveals a suddenly triggered, terribly aggressive side of his nature.

In this piece, the choreographer expresses his sense of humour at the same time as he reveals a suddenly triggered, terribly aggressive side of his nature. That the music is an essential component in Jiři Kylián’s work is immediately clear here. The sound tape Dick Heuff created electronically intrudes with a downright raw violence upon, but is also framed by the fragile tones of the D minor “Sarabande” from Johann Sebastian Bach’s partita for violin solo (the recording used is by the important violonist Gidon Kremer). Six male dancers attempt to prevail over a painfully loud acoustic wall of screams, cries, clattering instruments, and violent sounds of respiration. They can succeed in this only by creating their own cries and noise, tearing their T-shirts off in athletic motions, and thenoffering an unusual dance with their trousers pulled down around their ankles. The ideas are as bizarre as the choreographic vocabulary employed. And all this happens between the introductory and concluding filigree Baroque music, which thus builds a frame around a nighmare that breaks out in bizarre sequences of screams and steps. The piece won the Silver Rembrandt at the “Nombre d’or HDTV Awards” in 1995. Kylián describes it as a black and white sketch that the viewer fills with colour. His choreography is so rich in invention and intensely oriented toward visual stimulation that it offers the audience almost unlimited possibilites of interpretation.

Source : Arthaus Musik