Dancer and choreographer Jiří Kylián took over the patronage of the Prague Chamber Ballet, February 23, 2023, Prague.
Prague – Today in Prague, choreographer Jiří Kylián took over the patronage of the Prague Chamber Ballet (PKB). He remembers the beginnings of the ensemble founded by Pavel Šmok and his colleagues in the 1960s, Šmok also invited abroad after he left his homeland after the Soviet occupation in 1968. During his visit today to the House of Dance Arts in Braník, where the recently established Pavel Šmok Institute is also located, he arranged, among other things, for the performance of some of his choreographies by the PKB ensemble. He came to Prague from the Netherlands, where he lives, also because of the editing of the film he shot with Olga Špátová.
Advertisement'; }
Šmok (1927 to 2016), choreographer, dancer and teacher, was among the most important personalities who influenced the Czech dance scene. “My relationship with the Prague Chamber Ballet is long-term. I knew Pavel Šmok well and I also invited him to the Dutch Dance Theater, where he did his choreography, and he invited me to the Prague Chamber Ballet. I have my fingers crossed for PKB, it's an excellent ensemble and I hope that the cooperation will continue to develop,” Kylián told ČTK today. Today in Prague, he also discussed the possibility of presenting some of his choreography with this ensemble.
The House of Dance Art opened in Braník last autumn. It is run by the International Dance Center agency associated with the Taneční centrum Praha conservatory. It offers facilities for dance education and the activities of professional ensembles, especially those associated with the conservatory.
“I'm seeing it for the first time today, it's unique not only in the Czech Republic, but also abroad. It's enviable,” he said of the new space for dance art. “Dance is still Cinderella, even though it's the oldest art, humanity's original means of expression. It should be danced in school, it should be a compulsory subject. And politicians should dance too. When they lie, they prove with their movements that it's not true, what they say. You can't lie in dance,” said the famous choreographer and dancer.
In recent years, the seventy-five-year-old creator has also been working on film. “I shot a film with my wife (dancer) Sabine (Kupferberg), with Olga Špátová and Jan Malíř on an island in northern Holland called Terschelling. That's why I'm actually in Prague now to edit it,” he said today. He doesn't know when the movie will be released, because he doesn't like deadlines. “I don't have a deadline, I don't want to work with deadlines anymore, I say: I don't need a deadline, I need a lifeline,” he noted.
The beginnings of PKB go back to 1964, when Luboš Ogoun, Pavel Šmok and Vladimír Vašut founded Studio Ballet Praha. In 1975, the choreographer Pavel Šmok founded the Prague Chamber Ballet, which experts today consider a turning point in the development of Czechoslovak ballet. The ensemble's repertoire mainly included choreographies by Šmok, but also by guest Czech and foreign choreographers.
Jiří Kylián was born in 1947 in Prague. In 1975, he accepted an offer to be artistic co-director of the Netherlands Dance Theater (NDT) in The Hague. He was appointed its artistic director in 1978 and led it until 1999. He brought NDT to great international fame. He created over 80 choreographies for him.
