Six Dances and Petite Mort, Kylián

Jiří Kylián’s works Petite Mort and Six Dances are being performed as part of the Hungarian National Ballet’s “modern evening” for the second year in a row, it’s the 29^th of March 2014 and I’m sitting in the recently re-opened Erkel Theatre, Budapest’s “second” opera house. I paid just under 2 euros for my seat in the stalls and I enjoy a perfect view of the entire stage and also the audience. In Hungary they uphold the excellent ideals of “art for all” and there for it is very affordable and I promise you the quality is not compromised either. The performance is titled Modern+1, the first half is comprised of Kylián’s two short works and the second act continues with Etudes, the highly technical symphonic ballet by Harald Lander. Part of the perks of being a student with the Hungarian Ballet Academy I, along with the rest of the school were given the privilege to see the dress rehearsal for free 10 days previously. I watch the same cast of dancers for my second viewing as well.

The curtain opens…

Imagine several perfectly muscled male figures all walking backwards, moving slowly towards the audience while each balance a sword on one finger above their head. The women stand at the very back of the stage, covered in shadow, waiting poised but unmoving while the men slash their swords, lunge and leap in silence and perfect synchronization, the only sound is made by the sword’s hilt as it hits and rolls across the floor and by the blade as it cuts through the air. Petite Mort begins with this image and for the audience the relationship ideas are immediately established. The men stand forward fighting for dominance, displaying their natural physical gifts and primal emotional instincts. The women remain subdued, waiting patiently for their queue to enter into the dance but also into the game, the game played by a man and a woman, the dance they perform together, the yin and yang created by their sexual energies.

The audience is then blasted with a shimmery grey cloud as the men pull a huge piece of material forward, all the way to the front of the stage and back again… after the material billows, blocking the audiences view and the women appear in new positions, like a magic trick. This very clever stage design by Kylián himself adds an element of mystery and fantasy to the piece, a statement of “anything is possible” that is clearly evident in the way he approaches all his choreographies. I think Kylián’s works are exceptional because he does not work with limits or boundaries. He believes that everything he dreams up in his head can and will be transferred onto the stage for the audience to view and believe in as well. This rings true in Petite Mort where the simple use of cloth and lighting creates an illusion, although not perfectly executed by the Hungarian dancers the concept was still effective in both the performances I viewed. Switching to the movement technique aspect of the dancer’s performance, I will say that I cannot find any fault. The company, which I have watched over the past three years, excel in a colourful array of big classical and dramatic story ballets and they also came through on this night doing great justice to Kylián’s contemporary ballets.

The very complex duet sequences that make up the bulk of this piece are filled with eye catching details, a small kick of a pointed foot, the waving of a male hand between the women’s legs or an especially daring counter balance, for me these things create an interesting texture within the movement and alludes again to the idea of a game being played between the two genders. A game that is at times aggressive and complicated and then at other points contrasted by a dancer’s stillness and the focus shifts to their vulnerability.

The beautiful lines created by each pair of dancers is also note worthy and this acts as a clear example of how Kylián exploits the ballet technique to blend it seamlessly within his choreographic style. It also serves its expressive purpose in this piece where an arabesque is extenuated by an arm extending on the same axis, a simple grand plié in second is lifted into the air or a normal pas de chat jump is coupled with an upper body contraction and sustained by the help of the partner. These basic ballet movements become something new, an exciting display of strength used to support the other dancer and complimented by grace and a careful precision of movement, the male and the female effectively move as one. This is, of course, achieved through hours of rehearsing the movements until they flow together without strain or fault. But the audience only views the final product, a spectacle of two beautiful bodies that, although working as a single entity, both people manage to retain the essence of their own gender, their own sole and display their individual emotions. I think this explains entirely the purpose and struggles of a relationship, to become apart of somebody else without loosing yourself. Perhaps this is exactly what Kylián was trying to explore in this piece or possibly it is only my personal interpretation.

 It is undeniably important to mention the music for Petite Mort, which includes two pieces from W.A Mozart’s series of Piano Concertos (KV 488 Adagio and KV 467 Andante). Kylián always manages to be successful in blending the movement with the music so that it can become a united team in expressing the same feelings to the audience. Sometimes the movements are even perfectly matched to the keys of the piano, one key stroke evokes every movement or one movement for each key, who can tell which controls which.

This same unity of music and dance can also be seen in the second Kylián piece of the night, Six Dances. In this work the dancing is not as sleek and defined but rather playful, leaving more room for an individual interpretation of the character and the ability to really have fun whilst completely being a hectic display of flirty, flighty, fast and at times outright bizarre choreography. The score is again by W.A Mozart, his Six German Dances that has a distinct Baroque style matching well with the choreography and costumes to create a full atmospheric picture for the viewers. However light and fun the ballet may seem it is also harboring some dark undertones, with the dancers first appearing on-stage shrinking away from the audience as if scared and self conscious. Then throughout it becomes apparent that the dancers enjoy teasing each other a little too much and while they present the act as just “fun and games” they are actually ready to turn on each other at any moment. This feeling of dark humor is extenuated by a dark rumbling sound that interrupts the different sections of Mozart’s score.

In Six Dances the stage design is simple but important, Kylián has cut out a rectangle part of the back black wall and it is pushed back for the first half of the piece and forward for the second section. This creates an interesting place for the dancer to be exiting and entering the stage it also acts at times like a frame, placing emphasis on specific groups of dancers and the picture they are making. Six Dances also has a few simple props that are used throughout to assist the dancers in creating comical snippets that intersect the phrases of movement; a male dancer dressed as a woman who’s dress rolls away from him and he is left baring his bright yellow sun flower to the audience, horizontally lying dancers flowing in a stream across the back of the stage with swords in their chests and apples in their mouths, the white powder constantly coming off the made-up dancers as they jolt excitedly across the stage, or a cascade of bubbles that falls from the sky. These hilarious moments were brilliantly executed by the company and successfully made me, and the rest of the audience, enjoy a little giggle.

Overall I think that the Hungarian National Ballet dancers gave a truly exception performance of these two Kylián pieces. The works themselves are, in my eyes, contemporary ballet masterpieces that appear very nicely in a program side by side simultaneously complementing and contrasting each other.