An Evening With Ji?í Kylián: Black & White at Den Norske Opera & Ballett

“He can tell a complete story with just a single movement,” says Director of Ballet Ingrid Lorentzen about the choreographer Ji?í Kylián. Welcome to Kylián’s universe and six of his ballets.

“Wonderfully danced” and “They dance with an intensity seldom seen,” were two of the comments from the international press, after the Norwegian National Ballet had visited Paris on tour with some of Ji?í Kylián’s works. The company has a close relationship with the Czech choreographer, who is considered to be one of the most important dance artists and a force for renewal in ballet.

The six short ballets presented during the evening cover a wide range of dance and music. While eight female dancers carry out a study in discipline and freedom to the powerful drum rhythms and music of Steve Reich in Falling Angels, six male dancers present powerful, high-energy dance to the music of Bach in Sarabande. Where No More Play is a precise composition danced to the disharmony of Anton Webern’s music, Sechs Tänze is a Mozart-inspired farce with powdered wigs, lace and slapstick humour.

This is the first time you can experience all of Kylián’s “black & white” ballets in one performance. They were created in the period 1986-1991, and have been described as sketches in black and white.

The Hub Review hailed the performance “a triumph”, when the Boston Ballet danced five of the pieces, and continued: “Dance that causes the audience to rise and cry out with joy – and then sit down and start to think.”
The evening brings beauty, power and fun when movement, music and images blend together in six stories from the world’s greatest living choreographer.