Over the top - and then some; Kylian in Copenhagen

Silk & Knife

6 Jiri Kylian Ballets

Royal Danish Ballet

October 28, 2007

 

What has happened to Jiri Kylian, the master of the clear, calm and collected approach to semi-modern ballets? Quite a metamorphosis, judged by the six-pack just presented by The Royal Danish Ballet. But not necessarily a happy development. 20 years back one might accuse Jiri Kylian of making all ballets look the same, often a 30 minute piece for 10 -12 dancers, starting with their backs to the audience and dancing the Janacek or music from the same period. But works like “Sinfonietta” and “Verklärte Nacht” was well crafted, entertaining and original works, a fact known to Danish balletomanes who still fondly remember a very fine run of “Verklärte Nacht” in the 80ties.

 

Focus on the group

Kylian’s works have never favoured the individual dancers. His aim has always been on the group and the unison. Therefore he remains a problematic choice for the Royal Danish Ballet. The company has shown on several occasions, including last night, that they can master this demand from the choreographer, but although they can perform on his level, he cannot cater for theirs.

The de-individualisation of the Royal Danish Ballet appears pointless. What is the point of burying dancers like Silja Schandorff, Tina Højlund and Diana Cuni deep in the mass? Although Kylian is a good choreographer maybe the artistic management should have considered whether a whole Kylian evening would benefit the company on the long run. You cannot fault a ballet master for wanting to include major names to the roster, but a deeper understanding of the company needs and quality may have led to another conclusion.

Going underground

At least the company was kept busy and so was the audience. To strengthen the theatrical experience the audience was let through the cellars of the opera house to experience tableaux, where the surplus dancers was performing small grotesques characters like the chained king, the unhappy jester, a pantalone with a major appendage and a screaming fit. In short, miniatures of the kind that almost made one wish that Commedia del Arte never had been invented. The characters was scattered around a large red tree, whpse top was coming up on the stage. This was presented as the tree of life. It was only last season that the tree of life was present on stage. My irritation level re these attempts to be deep, clever and poetic always grows when faced with the unoriginality of most of these projects. They always come out banal and alike. In this case the installation was by some of Kylian's former students; Karin Guizzo and Ivan Dibrell.

The idea was that the installations should prepare the audience for the Kylian programme of six ballets. Four of the ballets were from the repertoire of Kylian's home company,  Netherlands Dance Theatre ,and two works were choreographed for the Royal Danish ballet. In fact although it looked like we got value for the money, the two untitled works for the Royal Danish Ballet consisted of two miniatures, a pas de deux for the elder dancers Flemming Ryberg, who will be experiencing his 50th anniversary with the company this year, and Jette Buchwald. As it turns out the miniature did not pass muster compared to Gallioti's 250 years old “Dance of the old couple” from “The whims of Cupid and the Ballet Master”. The other piece was a short conventional pas de deux to Mahler for Thomas Lund and Gudrun Bojesen.         
 

Entertaining – but seldom interesting

The four pre-cooked Kylian ballets were “Petite Mort”, a piece for five couples, five fleurettes and five rococo dress fronts, moving to Mozart. The piece, taking its title from the metaphor for orgasm, included some of Kylian's favourite moves and effects. He can time an effect, but in all it was a piece of no substantial dept or interest.

“Petit Mort” was followed by “Sechs Tänze”, also to Mozart and also full of sexual innuendo. Four Susannas and four Figaros were kept busy. Some steps were amazing including a kind of yoga flying. The group was surrounded by four “Megastars” doing tableaux and effects heavily borrowed from Pilobolus.         
The third ballet was the most interesting of the evening; “Bella Figura”. Interesting because it, unlike the other bagatelles, gave proof of Kylian’s craftsmanship. I cannot claim to either understand or like this ballet, but it was at least a work of originality. The theme is the beautiful body and mind. But the most outstanding was not the flying naked mannequins, the topless dancers, the fire on stage, but the clear and expressive dancing by Thomas Lund. It was once said that Thomas Lund do not fit many different boxes, but it amazing how well he fits the most unlikely ones. He breaks the mould of Kylian’s choreography and creates an interesting and breathtaking sequence of steps.

The last of the pre-cooked ballets, called “Un Titled 2" was a ha-ha-funny rendering for 40 dancers to the music best known as the finale of Balanchine’s “Theme and Variations.”  It stems from Kylian’s “Achimboldo” project. Kylian choreographed an effective piece and harvested the pre-designed laughs, but this is a too easy win and holds no long fascination. That the festive piece concludes with a direct transmission of the evening news just makes one conclude that Kylian has lost the faith in ballet as an art form in itself and seeks to replace it with a mixture of audience-pleasing stunts, claimed contemporary relevance and a limited understanding of cross culture. In my view this is a poor substitute for his older works and craftsmanship. Will the real Jiri Kylian please stand?