In conversation: Jiri Kylian on the choreographer's art.

Czech choreographer Jiri Kylian's company, Netherlands Dance Theater, recently performed in Montreal, October 13-15; at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City, October 17-22; and at Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, California, October 25-30. He spoke about his work last December with former colleague Benjamin Harkarvy, director of the Dance Division of the Juilliard School in Manhattan. Excerpts from several Kylian pieces, including Sinfonietta, Submerged Cathedral, Nomads, Stepping Stones, and Symphony of Psalms, were performed that evening by students at Juilliard. Kylian, a world-renowned choreographer, received a Dance Magazine Award in April of this year. Excerpts from his conversation with Harkarvy appear here.

H: When you walk into the studio the first day of a rehearsal of a new work, what do you know about the work?

K: I know everything, yes, as I walk into the studio. But after taking two steps I have forgotten half of it, and by the time I get to the tape recorder my mind is blank. But it's not a void, it's a blankness. At the moment of creation you have to give the creation the chance to take place. And to give the dancers the opportunity to take part in the creation is as important as the creation itself.

H: Do you ever prepare movement on yourself before coming to the studio, or do you do it all with the dancers?

K: When I was very little--twelve or thirteen--I used to go home, lock myself in the room, put on music, and improvise until I fell on the floor exhausted. That's how it all started. Later, because of inseurity and lack of experience, you try to prepare yourself thoroughly. You don't want to be exposed. But as you get older there is more to fall back on. As I get older I prepare myself physically much less--I mean as far as vocabulary and steps are concerned--because I want to give the creation a chance.

H: You said, when we were standing in the wings, that you were opposed to the notion of a "Kylian technique."

K: Yes, because there was a person who said to me that he would like to work out some kind of a technique, which dancers would learn to do my work. But I would not be in favor of such a technique, because I like my work to go in different directions. I think our task as choreographers is to search the extremities of our souls. I don't think that we should find a place where we feel comfortable, and keep walking around that place until we die. I think that the search for what we are and what we want to say should be as expansive as possible.

Dancers are our inspiration and limitation at the same time. Not every dancer is a Stradivarius, but on many occasions through working with dancers who are not Stradivariuses you obtain extraordinary results.

H: Can you point to any influences that shaped your life as a choreographer?

K: As far as choreographers, you are influenced by the Glen Tetleys, by the Hans van Manens, maybe by Maurice Bejart--I don't think that is my inspiration. But if you go back, it all comes down to Graham and Balanchine.

H: What do you do when you get sick of your work? Do you go through periods when you just cannot look at it?

K: You will see some dinosaurs of mine tonight on the stage. On occasion I am asked to give some of my older works to companies, and sometimes it feels like being in purgatory. It feels like you are doomed to seeing your own work in endless perpetuation. I don't want to see the old babies anymore; I want to see the young babies. And all choreographers are the same. It is very unjust to the old works. But I also find interesting that our idea of our older works completely changes; it is never the same. As you grow older your experience changes and everytime you look at your works you see them differently, although they stay the same. A work that you just created you don't really understand well. I do not really understand my work, fundamentally, because much of it is done through instinct, and I cannot really understand my instincts.

H: Were you a fabulous partner?

K: A disaster.

H: But your partnering is very remarkable.

K: Sigmund Freud might have an answer to that. I don't know. Maybe it is another complex, trying to make others do what you failed to do.

H: Can you tell us a little bit about your beginnings in dance in Czechoslovakia?

K: I started dancing when I was nine at the preparatory school of the National Theater. By the age of fifteen I joined the Prague Conservatory, which was a good school. It was very much an orthodox Soviet school, based on Vaganova, but we had some fabulous teachers. One of them was Zora Semberova, who actually was the very first Juliet in 1938 in Brno--it was not in Russia, it was in Czechoslovakia. Zora Semberova was a lady who was not raised under the communist regime. She was raised in the time between the two world wars, when Czechoslovakia was economically and politically very stable, a very strong and very democratic country. So we had teachers who knew it could be otherwise. This lady was a teacher who would say to you: "I'm sorry I cannot walk you through the door. All I can do is open the door for you; you have to do the walking."

H: Tell us about Sinfonietta.

K: The music of Sinfonietta is written by Leos Janacek. He was excited about the new freedom of the Czech people in 1918, when, after the First World War, we became free of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So he wrote this fantastic, beautiful, non-problematic piece about the free Czech man. I don't know what that means exactly; but I think the piece represents free men in general and has nothing to do with "Czech man" at all. Any kind of nationalism, any kind of nationalistic feelings are the greatest horror to me and when I see the situation in many places in Europe, it is so saddening and so disgusting that I would like to distance myself from any kind of nationalism at all.

H: When I see Submerged Cathedral or Sinfonietta I recognize your base as a classical dancer. But Nomads is quite different. Did you ever have any other training?

K: We had Graham training in Prague. I was a member of a jazz ballet. We did a lot of folk dancing, and that was quite exciting--just to feel the different way of moving and the different rhythms. But you will find that most choreographers, no matter how bad they are as dancers themselves, can always do their own steps. It's fantastic. After I left Prague, I went for one year to London to the Royal Ballet School, and after that I was engaged by Cranko in Stuttgart. And Cranko was not a good dancer. He would never dress for rehearsal; he would come in boots and a big belt with a big buckle, and quite strange outfits sometimes. And he would get up and do these steps that had a very specific and very idiosyncratic character that very much had to do with him. And you see that often in choreographers, I think.

H: What about Nomads?

K: When I was in my first year in Stuttgart, in 1968, I saw on television a film of a festival in the South Seas, around Australia. And there was one dance that was performed by two aboriginal men. They danced constantly around the perimeter of a circle. It was the most fascinating dance I have seen in my life. Ever since then I have thought that I must go one day to these people to see what they do, how they create their dances, and what dance means to them. In 1980 we organized the biggest gathering of aborigines of all times, and we made a documentary, realizing that these people possess nothing, literally nothing, except for their legends, their songs, and number one: their dances. These are their only real possessions. If somebody creates a dance for himself, only he is allowed to perform it. If somebody else would like to dance it he goes to this man and says, "May I dance your dance?" So the first man teaches him the dance and if he does it well enough the first man says, "You are okay, give me a boomerang." That's the copyright.

Their culture is a true living culture, because it only exists in the moment of singing, in the moment of telling a legend, or in the moment of dancing. They have to keep it alive by doing it, not by writing it down, or by making films. And you realize, being with them, that dance is one of the most important facets of that society. So I created a series of dances that are directly influenced by that. You will see a very lighthearted sort of spoof. There is nothing of importance--no real link with the aborigines. But seeing these people move freed me, and made me realize the importance of tradition.

H: I have seen a number of your ballets on pointe, but the majority of the works that I have seen are not on pointe. How do you feel about pointe work?

K: I like when the dancers cover a lot of space, and cut corners very fast, and change directions very fast, which is terribly difficult to do on pointe. I find that pointe work has a more vertical speed, which is wonderful, which I adore. So it's a fifty-fifty thing with me, depending on what kind of work I want to do. I don't like to work so much with bare feet, but I also did some works like that. It depends on the subject, I think.

H: Tell us about Stepping Stones.

K: Stepping Stones is the most classical work I have made. I asked one old aboriginal man and he said to me: "You know, we dance because I learned it from my father and I have to teach it to my son." Great. Fantastic. Absolutely fascinating. The simplest answer in the world, and he told me a lot about what tradition means. He saw himself only as a link in an endless chain. But if this link were not there, the chain would not continue. This aboriginal man made me aware of tradition and, for me, my tradition is classical dance. So I created this work, making it very difficult for the dancers. It's a piece about this impossible profession of classical dance, to music by John Cage, music for prepared piano. Every teacher will tell you that you cannot dance classical technique with perfection; there is no such thing; there is no way. So you have to adapt the technique to your abilities or to your deficiencies. Learn to cheat. I shouldn't have said that.

H: What about Symphony of Psalms? Can you tell me something about the chairs on the stage?

K: They are from church. They are praying chairs. The piece musically is based on the Russian Orthodox church ceremony. But I just want to say a couple of things about how the piece came into being. It was in 1978, during a very unhappy time in my life, both privately and professionally. The company was not happy. Dancers were leaving. Even terrible moments in your life can inspire you to make work, however, sometimes the best work. So to my fellow choreographers who may be here, young choreographers, I say, "It hasn't been a smooth ride for me." It's not been honey-tasting all the time. There have been very very hard times. But to live through those hard times and fight through them can bring good results. And it definitely strengthens character. Definitely.