East Shadow Production
They say that older dancers often have specific experiences with their bodies and that the movement of these bodies in the space, I think, can have a positive impetus, in a creative way. By overcoming restrictive tendencies in dance, where only bodies aged up to 35 years are engaged, such dancer are the incredible choreographic solution. Does the aging of the body and mind leave room for certain moves within acquiring certain skills? With a good choreographer, the aging body and mind can be both creative and exciting.
In 2015, very well known choreographer Jiří Kylián was awarded at the Belgrade Dance Festival in Serbia (www.belgradedancefestival.com) for his private Kylian Productions with the Jovan Ćirilov Award. Already in the year of 2016, he again visited Belgrade with the production “East Shadow” inspired by the literary work of Samuel Beckett. As the winner of a big, prestigious, worldwide dance awards and long-time artistic director of the Nederlands Dance Theatre of the Hague, Kylian has structured his theater on three dance groups; very young dancers, dancers up to 35 years and senior dancers over 40 years of age. In the dance production “East Shadow” he came along with dancers over 50 years old. “These dancers have something to say, and I’ve created a special hull for dancers older than 40. I think it’s common for those who are over 40 to dance no more, and I think they have something to say, due to their wisdom, at that time of their lives. Beside it is an “East Shadow” that originally meant to support tsunami victims in Japan¹”
East Shadow
It is said that older dancers often have specific experiences with their bodies and that the movement of aged bodies in the space, I think, can have a positive impetus, in a creative way. By overcoming restrictive tendencies in dance, where only bodies aged up to 35 years are engaged, we are finding incredible solutions. Does the aging of the body and mind leave room for certain moves and acquiring certain skills? With a good choreographer, the aging body and mind can be both creative and exciting. “There are limitations after the age of 40 in the physical sense. I had to overcome what I was when I was young. We have to accept what we are and to look at our true abilities. If we cannot offer what young dancers can, then we can offer our experience. When I talk to someone of my age, the conversation is different from a conversation that I have with someone younger. As you can see, I may have stopped dancing, but I have continued working with my dance company.¹”
Choreographer Jiří Kylián speaks in his dance performance “East Shadow” about his own creative dance process. Working with senior dancers, in his opinion, seems sophisticated, challenging, fun and genuine. He advocates the idea that elderly people in society, especially elderly dancers, can continue to live a rich and healthy life, and that through a dance activity they can be creative and can acquire new knowledge and skills. “The basic difference between the younger dancers and the older dancers is obviously because young dancers are very physically fit: they are more physically fit than they will ever be later in life. This body is enhanced with excellent dancing, and it reflexes on the stage, in a quick dancing technique. Today’s modern dance becomes extremely acrobatic, while a dance technique of the senior dancer is completely opposite. Senior dancing can be more spiritual, more humorous, more imaginative and more personal. “¹
In partnership with wife
Production “East Shadow” had a premiere or first performance in Japan, organized for the Nagoya-Japan for Aichi Triennale Tsunami victims. The version showed on Belgrade Dance Festival in 2016 has changed from the original. In this production dancers are over 50, there you can find Kylian’s wife Sabine Kupferberg, prima ballerina, coupled with a marvelous senior partner, an actor Gary Chryst. It is for certain, although I am sure that it is a common thing, difficult to choose a dancer (in real life partner), for the role on stage: I was interested to find out about the way how Kylian has chosen a partner for such an important role. “Gary performed with another Chinese, in a costume that covered his whole body, and his face was covered with a mask. Still, I could feel all the musicality, energy and total joy in Gary, while he was dancing to that point: he was brilliant. I had to hire him, it was so much subtle energy.”¹
A new version of this show has been enriched with the alive performance of the Japanese pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama who wrote a special composition for this occasion. “My work is inspired with love and death: how to put love and death on stage, at the same time, two people are dancing on a video beam. The video was taken three years back, while the same two dancers are performing alive, in front of the screen now, in present time. Film as a medium is dead and dancers are alive: we started with the film and finished the project with alive dance. It was so hard that I was ready to commit suicide. ¹.”This is a very strange combination of something that is alive and something that is actually on the screen. The dance performance is happening in front of the screen: the composer Tomoko jumped in at the key moment and played the piano composition that inter-connected this entire piece. As for the musical part of this performance, “I tried to fit in already existing musical compositions, but that did not work very well. This choreography is the process evolved from the musical composition of Tomoko Mukaiyama, performed alive simultaneously within the piece. ¹”
In addition to the dance performance of two dancers in the show, the video screen is dominant, on which the other choreography of Sabine and Gary is projected, taken three years earlier for the premiere performance in Japan. “It was a complicated process, the preparation of this piece lasted for 11 weeks, although the show lasts less than an hour. The connection of a live-action movie was extremely difficult but interesting, it’s really fascinating when you work with older people.¹” According to Jiří Kylián older dancers have a sense of humor, depth and are full of information: it’s something that young dancers do not have. The tragedy is when dancers get old and stop dancing. Imagine the actors stop acting, we would really be deprived of some of the best roles of individuals. Of course, with all the privileges having with a wife in the production, other problems have arisen there. Did Kylian find it difficult to work with his wife, I asked? “Both. It was difficult and easy. We have been living together for a long time and we know each other very well, so it’s very difficult on one hand, but on the other hand, it’s easy. ¹”
“East Shadow” is drama without words. Everything that’s going on is slow. We should not have expected a piece in this regard, although it is a performance of the dispute. It is often that the video in dance performances is too dominant. Use of technology on the stage should enhance and help the quality of choreography, but if video placed on stage does not swallow everything else. It often happens that choreographers are hiding behind the video set on stage. They can hide the flaws of their work behind the dominant screen.
And so Beckett again
Kylian’s production “East Shadow” is a play, a dance piece inspired by Beckett and the phenomenon of a theater the absurd. Samuel Beckett’s brilliant mind, who often spoke about nothing, this time inspired simplicity in the choreography of Jiří Kylián. Seemingly easy, but in short, some choreographic solutions sometimes act as a release. It is necessary to accept the human state of the spirit as it is, in all of that mystery and absurdity, and to carry it with responsibility. There is no easy solution to the mystery concerning aging and existence. In the end, a man is alone in a world that does not make sense. When asked why Beckett, I’ve got a very original answer: “I adore Beckett, but I never understood it: he had the strangest ways to get to something, I just admire it. Whenever I would come back to him, he would always be different, and I would always find something new. I do not think he spoke in a very precise way about anything really. “¹
If the Second World War was a catalyst for the creation of the absurd theater, the global nature of this conflict must be put into the general perspective of the uncertainty of human life, that is gone in a moment. Here the theater of absurdity opposes the conventional theater, and so Kylian’s idea that Beckett’s job involves senior players opposes the conventional belief that only young bodies can perform a good dance piece. If Becket started with surreal, illogical, non-conflict dialogue, then a performing dance dialogue that may not make any sense can also start with non-conflict here. “There are a lot of components here: I am not a typical choreographer: it’s common for choreographers to find a way to do something and this is their signature throughout their career. If you are familiar with my pieces, you will see that each one is different from the other. The music is part of my inspiration, it’s impossible for me to use the same dance vocabulary. My first education was musical, much of my inspiration that comes from music. It’s impossible for me to hire the same dancers in the piece using the music of Mozart and Stravinsky. And, while observing all the things surrounding us, we can study the works of other choreographers, we can be inspired by other arts, and inspired by everywhere¹.” There is a story about Beethoven’s insistence. While Beethoven wrote one of his famous works, his cleaner asked him what inspires him? He told her that he was instantly inspired by her bursting into a laughter while entering into the chambers. She laughed loudly, and Beethoven caught tonality from her and engraved it in his notebook. It should be clear that choreography and dance piece are not the same, these are different things.
The theory of absurd in a theater can be understood as an attempt of return of noticing the importance of myth and ritual in our century, making a man aware of the ultimate reality of his condition, thus guiding him again to the lost meaning of primordial distress. The hope that this will accomplish a man from a single existence that has become odious, and mechanical. It is considered that the mystical experience is in dealing with the boundaries of the human condition.