April 07, 2006 -

OTTAWA -- Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal pay homage to an internationally celebrated dance maestro when they perform Quintessential Kylian in Southam Hall of the National Arts Centre on Saturday April 22 at 20:00. Czech choreographer Jirí Kylián is a genius – one of the world’s most celebrated neo-classical choreographers. One of ballet’s brightest stars, he is in great demand worldwide for his sensual, lyrical, music-driven style – a perfect match for the elegant performers of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal.

The evening includes the intense Expressionist melodrama Forgotten Land (music by Benjamin Britten) as well as two recent masterpieces: the witty and surreal Bella Figura, Kylián's return to intense emotion and visual beauty set to a lush Baroque score by Pergolesi, Boccherini, and Vivaldi, and the fast, funny and wholly delightful Mozart romp Six Dances, with dancers in lush period costumes.

Please be advised: scenes of nudity

Dance-maker Jirí Kylián uses classically-trained dancers to expand the meaning of life in beautiful, profound, and inventive ways. Although his meteoric rise as a choreographer curtailed his performing career, his unforgettable dances have made him a giant in the world of ballet -- his name inspires awe among dancers, critics, and ballet lovers alike. Jirí Kylián is above all else a seeker of harmony. Kylián is a highly-cultured humanist who transforms observations of everyday life into often uplifting, mischievous dances. Widely read and curious, he borrows from folklore, modern dance, classicism and everyday movement to shape a profound and witty gestural language. Constantly evolving, his style eludes definition. However, since his earliest days, an intense understanding of music has been his inspiration. Music drives his ballets – it runs under, over, through and around all his movement, with such compelling harmony that although gestures and steps frequently repeat, they are changed and charged by their relationship to each new sound and rhythm. With Kylián, movement goes beyond image and translates into real emotion, a place where “the body doesn't lie”.

[Bella Figura] “Kylián …has created images and moods through movement …Those quivering legs, those steps sliding across the stage, those writhing limbs, those brief robot-like jolts of the torso, those unusual twits of the body, those timidly scurrying feet -- they are like fleeting fantasies which together tell the most beautiful, the most ghastly, the most exciting, and the most heartrending of life’s stories.” Ine Rietstap, NRC Handelsblad, October 1995

“In my opinion, (Kylián) is not only the best choreographer of our times but one of the best in the whole history of dance.”

Nacho Duato, Kylián protégé and artistic director of Spain's Compañía Nacional de Danza

“I don't know many choreographers who work on so many different levels with different concepts, different music and different ideas … he always comes up with something new.”

Hans Knill, assistant to Jirí Kylián for 29 years

“Sensitivity, sensuality and musicality. You can recognize (his style) right away. He really knows his music and always chooses the best.”

Mário Radacovský, who danced under Kylián's direction for seven years

CHOREOGRAPHY AND CONCEPT Jirí Kylián

Bella Figura (1995)
MUSIC Pergolesi, Vivaldi, Boccherini SET DESIGN Jirí Kylián
COSTUME DESIGN Joke Visser LIGHTING DESIGN Tom Bevoort

Sechs Tanze (Six Dances) (1986)
MUSIC Mozart SETS AND COSTUMES Jirí Kylián LIGHTING Joop Caboort

Forgotten Land (1981)
MUSIC Sinfonia da Requiem, op. 20 by Benjamin Britten
SETS AND COSTUMES John Foster MacFarlane

Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal performs Quintessential Kylián: Bella Figura, Forgotten Land, Six Dances in Southam Hall of the National Arts Centre on Saturday April 22, 2006 at 20:00. Tickets are $51.50, $48.50, $38 and $29, and $26.75, $25.25, $20 and $15.50 for students (upon presentation of a valid student ID card). Tickets are available at the NAC Box Office (in person) and through Ticketmaster (with surcharges) at (613) 755-1111; Ticketmaster may also be accessed through the NAC’s website at www.nac-cna.ca. Last-minute tickets (subject to availability) for full-time students are $10 at the Live Rush Centre in the NAC Foyer two hours before each performance only, upon presentation of a valid ‘Live Rush’ card. NEW for 2005-06! Groups of 10+ save 15% to 20% off regular ticket prices to all NAC Music, Theatre and Dance performances; to reserve your seats, call 947-7000 ext. 384 or e-mail grp@nac-cna.ca.

Photos for all dance events can be viewed and downloaded at: www.nac-cna.ca/media/

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Information:
Gerald Morris
Marketing and Media Relations,
NAC Dance Department
(613) 947-7000, ext. 249
gmorris@nac-cna.ca

LES GRANDS BALLETS CANADIENS DE MONTRÉAL
Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, founded in 1957 by Ludmilla Chiriaeff, has made a significant contribution to the evolution of dance in Canada. The company performs ballet masterpieces of the 19th century and has also commissioned original works from exceptional contemporary choreographers, notably Nacho Duato, Mark Morris, and Kevin O’Day. Choreographer emeritus Fernand Nault created works that stand among the company’s greatest successes (Tommy, Carmina Burana and The Nutcracker) and which are still being performed today. Several other Canadian choreographers have worked with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, including James Kudelka, Édouard Lock, Ginette Laurin, Jean Grand-Maître, and Gioconda Barbuto. Former Artistic Director Lawrence Rhodes also welcomed such internationally renowned choreographers as Nils Christe, Jirí Kylián and Ohad Naharin. Gradimir Pankov, a native of Macedonia, became Artistic Director in January 2000. Mr. Pankov excelled as a dancer in the former Yugoslavia and Germany and as a guest teacher at some of the world’s most prestigious ballet companies. He has been the Artistic Director of Nederlands Dans Theater II, the National Ballet of Finland, Cullberg Ballet Riksteatern in Sweden, and the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève. Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal is now recognized throughout the world, touring successfully in Asia, Europe, South America, the United States, and Canada.

JIRÍ KYLIÁN
Born in 1947 in Prague, Jirí Kylián started his dance training when he was nine years old at the ballet school of the Prague National Theatre. From the age of fifteen he studied at the Prague Conservatory. In 1967, Kylián went to the Royal Ballet School in London with a scholarship from the British Council. There he came into contact with the most important developments in choreography -- ballet as well as contemporary dance. Consequently, John Cranko, a major choreographer of this period and director of the Stuttgart Ballet, offered him a dancer's contract and encouraged Kylián's ambition to create his own dance works. In 1973, an artistic relationship between Kylián and Nederlands Dans Theater began, which has brought about the creation of almost 50 dance productions for this group. 1978 brought a decisive international breakthrough with Sinfonietta -- his choreography to the music of compatriot Leos Janacek at the U.S. Spoleto Festival in Charleston N.C. The years after Charleston established Kylián's reputation as one of the most ingenious choreographers, with dance works such as Symphony of Psalms, Forgotten Land, Overgrown Path, Svadebka, Stamping Ground, and l'Enfant et les sortilèges, to name only a few.

Since the mid 1980s Kylián's artistic view and style have changed considerably towards abstraction and surrealistic images. Having created a unique and very personal style, Kylián's choreographies defy academic categorization, blending elements of many sources. There are always new inspirations to be explored, new challenges and boundaries to be overcome. Profoundly based on musical reading, there is something in his work which penetrates deeply into the mystery of the human being itself, unveiling hidden traces through his dance.