Dialogue
& Program A
Nederlands Dans Theater
Rose Cinema 2 & Howard Gilman Opera House
Brooklyn Academy of Music
New York, NY
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
by
George Jackson
copyright
© 2004 by George Jackson
published 15 March 2004
In
conversation, Jiri Kylian is engaging and mellow in an old fashioned way.
As the Nederlands Dans Theater's eminence grise, he responded thoughtfully
to questions from the well known author/dancer Deborah Jowitt, who introduced
him, and from the audience that had come to hear them in this pre-performance
interview/discussion. Several times Kylian rephrased a question to the
question's advantage.
He left no doubt that his professional background was classical ballet
technique and that his performers had to be ballet trained no matter what
sort of movement he asked them to do. What Kylian admires about folk dances
the world over is the way music and movement evolved together and became
inseparable. Such integration is something he seeks to achieve with his
own choreography and classical music. In the 1980s, Kylian became intrigued
with the dance of Australia's aboriginal people and he'll always remember
the answer one of them gave to the question why dancing is so central
to their tradition. In effect, the reply had to do with continuity—
"so that I could learn from my father and later teach my son".
The choreographer chided American materialism for neglecting such spiritual
processes as tradition and contemplation. He admitted, though, that Nederlands
Dans Theater was extremely fortunate in the material resources at its
disposal. These include its own building with a theater and rehearsal
facilities, three companies (the regular or NDT #1, the junior NDT #2,
and NDT #3 which is more a series of projects for senior dancers than
a permanent group).
About his process, Kylian said that he relied on his instincts. Not that
he doesn't study hard before he goes into the studio, consulting sources
and looking up relevant topics. Instincts, though, are what guide him.
Sometimes they tell him to abandon a piece, but not too often. Analysis
of his work, he leaves to the critics. Cinema #2 was filled to capacity
for the event.
The BAM's Opera House was nearly sold out for the second night of Program
A by the visiting NDT #1, a company of 27 dancers. All three pieces shown
were conceived and choreographed by Kylian in a relatively close timespan,
the years 2002 to 2003, and had music by Dirk Haubrich and lighting by
Kees Tjebbes. After seeing them, it made sense to consider them as a triptych
although there was no umbrella title.
When we first saw ballets by Kylian, it was in the early days of his choreographic
career. He had emerged from John Cranko's Stuttgart stable with work that
seemed different to a degree. Already he favored elimination of several
of the usual, detailed dance work structures. There was his tendency to
avoid explications, transitions and repetitions. Some people saw his approach
as a going back to basics, a purification, a saying no to expectations,
a rejection of tokenism, a refusal to comply with formulas. Even those
who didn't discern all that, as well as others who were suspicious of
simplification, conceded that the Kylian ballets were fresh. Moreover,
such pieces as Return to the Strange Land and Sinfonietta
were based on ballet technique and, to an extent, developed it in
new directions.
Then, Kylian became fascinated by rubbery motion. It wasn't the French
plastique of the 1940s but a heavier, less balletically articulated manner
of movement. Probably it hailed from the hybrid of ballet and modern dance
that American choreographers John Butler and Glen Tetley had planted in
the Netherlands. Kylian exploited it for duos, interweaving male-female
pairs of dancers in drawn-out encounters. As it evolved, his handling
of bodies looked to some eyes as if he were kneading dough. Soon, three
of the dough ballets began turning up on the same program and his audience
split, some becoming addicted and others allergic.
What is new about Claude Pascal, the opening work on Program
A, is Kylian's return to more balletic movement. In the material he gives
three pairs of dancers, balletic articulation is not inapparent—sorry,
I can't say this more positively. He does not go so far as to give the
three women pointe work. The choreography seemed produced by the yard.
I could not discern why one passage preceded or followed another. There
was no sense of beginning, middle or end. Movement was spun out like cloth
for a long hallway rug. The dancers were dressed in classroom apparel
that went a bit beyond basic by being color coordinated in a muted way.
But, Claude Pascal wasn't just about dancing. There were also
four figures in period costumes (pre-World War 1). They alternated with
the dancers, posing, fussing with paraphernalia, speaking. What they said
was rather incomprehensible in my part of the house but evoked a little
laughter where it could be understood. Haubrich's music for the dancing
and characterizations was a sparse electronic soundscape of drones and
tones. More intriguing than either the action or the sound, I found Kylian's
set: a reflective floor that mirrored people darkly and their shadows
too. The floor was partially framed by panels that could be turned. They
served as doors for the cast and as set changes since on one side the
panels were mirrored and on the other plain. Sometimes, color washes of
light were projected onto the panels' plain surfaces.
The dancers had vigor, not just in this first piece but throughout the
program. One could tell one dancer from another but not discern any individual's
schooling. Stylistically, this was anonymous ballet. The figures in period
costuming had dramatic skill. Their characterizations could easily have
been laid on with a heavy hand, but that didn't happen. They maintained
their personas, neither overstating them nor—at this point—developing
them.
Kylian elaborated the period characterizations in Program A's midpiece,
Last Touch. There were now three women and three men in a handsome
drawing room setting (by Walter Nobbe). The six characters (in search
of a choreographer?) moved slowly, very slowly. Initially, two men were
seated at a small table playing cards and the third was just entering
the room. One woman (it seemed to be the same black gowned personage who
had appeared in the first ballet) stood at a larger table, straightening
a tablecloth. A second woman sat reading in a rocking chair. Woman #3
sat drinking, dressed toga-like in bleached tan dustcover cloth, the same
material that was spread widely over the room's floor and some of the
furniture. It made her too, like the room, seem to have been put on hold
for a season, or about to be.
Much of the movement for these people was that of normal behavior, except
for its slow pace. Gradually the men and women paired off, and then some
moves became hyperbole, fantasy, but still they were slow. Suddenly, like
lightning, something happened. Its nature was violent, its aftermaths
were desolation, stillness, death. Then, ever so slowly again, movement
returned, the figures came to life and resumed their original, peaceable,
civilized postures.
The suddenness and speed of the violence in Last Touch was a
shock, but not a surprise. Martha Clarke builds this type of living picture
more subtly.
27'52", the last piece on the program, had something from
the 1960s: quasi-starting with some of the cast already in motion on stage
as the audience returned from intermission. There are no costumed figures
in this work, just six dancers— again as in Claude Pascal—dressed
by Visser in classroom wear. There were differences between the duets
of that first piece and the three duos in 27'52". The movement
in this final work was less articulated, closer to dough kneading and
it took place in a stage design which featured a big white square of floor
matting bordered by black. The white matting was sometimes lifted by a
dancer at its ends or at internal slits and then let go. There were curtains
too, cut short and suspended from above the stage, that were lowered and
raised at unexpected moments. Much of the choreography seemed yardage
again, only the final duet being distinct—as was its musical score.
The male-female pair of the last duo began by sparring. Both were topless.
Magnetically they were drawn together and embraced. Then they died. He
succumbed, his vitality ebbed. She entered the grave reluctantly but consensually.
Their graves were formed by a third dancer holding apart slits in the
white mat. When both of the pair had been buried, the raised curtaining
came crashing down like falling sails in a shipwreck.
Music for the last duo was relatively lush and chromatic, based by Haubrick
on two Gustav Mahler themes. What transpired between the two dancers suggests
a Tristan and Isolde theme, reminiscent of Maurice Bejart's 1969 Les
Vainqueurs.
In Part 1 of Program A, dramatic characterization and contemporary dance
were presented separately, in alternation. In Part 2, dramatic characterization
was developed into choreographed drama. In Part 3's last duo, there was,
finally, a merging and we were shown dramatic dance. In this program Kylian's
instincts seemed secondary. He belabored process.
Originally
published:
www.danceviewtimes.com
Volume 2, Number 11
March 15, 2004
Copyright
©2004 by George Jackson
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