JIRI KYLIAN, THE UNBRIDLED DANCE INNOVATOR 
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of May 26-June 3, 2010
                                                                  Vol. 12, No. 105
          BOSTON---The work of Czech-born choreographer Jiri Kylian ranks among the most innovative today, more influenced by  postmodern dance than by modern ballet. 
            Kylian, the renowned veteran director/choreographer  from the Netherlands Dance Theater, offered a quintet of his works  for the season finale of the Boston Ballet---no mean feat. For a ballet dancer to learn Kylian's unorthoxies is akin to a figure skater mastering speed-skating and gymnastics as well. 
            Kylian is a true puzzlement. His thrust is to show off every new move you've never even  dreamt about, even if the dances have little structure or coherence. He pulls in bits of scenic decor that distract from his work, like massive black hoop skirts on rollers that often have nothing to do with the dances at hand. And in the end, he dares to attempt alienating the audience, as in "Sarabande," where between the electronic explosions and the dancers' shouts he has men trying to dance with trousers pulled down over their ankles, chain-gang style. 
            But at his best, he is a fascination. In "Falling Angels," part of the program seen on May 23, he has eight women in dazzling, faster-than-the eyes moves of arms and legs to the insistent and accelerating "Drumming" score of Steve Reich. The tightly woven ensemble shifts between military precision of canonical movement, and total chaos. 
            In "No More Play," he has two groups in contrasting moves simultaneously, and you can't decide whether to watch the closely paired men, or the alternative of a man partnering two women. This is bold, in-your-face choreography with figures rolling about the stage, verging on falling into the pit. There are arresting, angular geometries, enigmatic except when parroting pet dogs on a leash. The ascetic modernistic score of Webern makes the perfect foil. 
            In “Petite Mort” (Little Death) he has six male fencers, wielding their swords, then letting them roll about their feet like sweep-second hands on a clock---now dangerously menacing, now benign. Kylian is also big on novel entrances and exits, one being a giant cloth whipped over the stage, magically leaving a whole new group of dancers. Astute and changing lighting (design by Joop Caboort and Kees Tjebbes) also make possible unexpected changes.  
            The crowd pleaser came at the end, with "Sechs Taenze" (Six Dances), a true comedy ballet sometimes like a marionette show, sometimes like a farce, ending with some bubble machines giddily flooding the stage with rising distractions. 
            Although here and there came a few balletic moves like pirouettes, there was not a single toe shoe visible anywhere. 
            The audience at the Boston Opera House, which may have seen the first take of this dance quintet in 2009, offered pendulum swings between total bewilderment and wild enthusiasm. The Opera is an opulent, palatial hall originally built as a movie palace, long before World War Two, and it warrants a trip of itself.  
            These are all part of Kylian’s “Black and White” (1986-91) package of five works, with just those costume and lighting colors.              The Boston Ballet ensemble was absolutely dazzling in mastering these closely coordinated unorthodoxies. More credit to Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen, the former S.F. Ballet principal who has led the BB since 2001. Like the SFB, the BB roster is heavily international, with eight countries of origin represented among the 11 principals. 
            Boston Ballet, in their "Black and White" program through May 30, Boston Opera House. With music prerecorded.  For info go online.
         ©Paul Hertelendy 2010

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           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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