This DVD includes:
"Bella Figura" - Nederlands Dans Theater I
"Sleepless" - Nederlands Dans Theater II
"Birth-Day" - Nederlands Dans Theatre III


"Bella Figura"
Choreography and Light design by Jirí Kylián
Live Music by Holland Symfonia
Conducted by Henrik Schaefer
Music by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Antonio Vivaldi, Giuseppe Torelli

The moment that a dream creeps in...
It does not occur often that the viewer has only one remaining wish after watching a ballet: to see it one more time. This ballet by Jirí Kylián, with the dancers draped in red skirts which the viewer will not soon forget, is of an indescribable beauty. The moment that a dream creeps into our life and the life of our dreams forms the foundation of this ballet. In Bella Figura, Jirí Kylián ventures into the twilight zone of the human soul. Dream and reality collide on stage offering a constantly changing perspective. The flashing images which rapidly change in color and mood flow harmoniously together with a collage of renaissance and baroque music by Vivaldi, Torelli and Pergolesi. The result is elusive and enigmatic. ‘Simply – the feeling one has after dreaming of falling down only to wake with a broken rib’, as Kylián himself described it.
From ‘A dream of a choreography’ (Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf)


"Sleepless"
Choreography and Decor by Jirí Kylián
Music by Dirk Haubrich
Costumes by Joke Visser
Light design by Kees Tjebbes

Jirí Kylián has already made many masterpieces, one of them the fascinating Sleepless, a creation for six young dancers in which the set plays an important part. It has a wall behind which dancers – or sometimes just parts of their bodies – appear, disappear and return. The set allows unexpected entrances or creates hallucinating images of heads which in a grotesque way do not appear to go with the bodies.


"Birth-Day"
Choreography by Jirí Kylián
Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Costumes by Joke Joke Visser
Film image adaption by Rob De Groot

'We all were born, and we all celebrate this event every 365 days … This is the cycle of time in which nature is born, dies and is re-born again – regardless of our existence. We ask questions about why we were born, about what was before our birth and what will be after. But there aren’t – and there will never be – any satisfactory answers. Since I was very young, I have felt very deeply that our birth certificate is actually our death sentence (as Francis Bacon put it: ‘After all, we are here to die’). I have also felt that parents, whenever they conceive a child, they actually die in a metaphoric sense – they have given birth to new life, and consequently their own life becomes redundant, as they fulfilled their genetic duty.

Sometimes, when our birthdays arrive, we think of the day we were born, but maybe also of the day we will die (or be reborn again). It is all the same – the same cycle of a year that has just gone by – with buds and fresh greens, followed by flowers, heat and sun, full of ripeness and fulfilment, the delicious picking of fruit, soon to face the frost – the imaginary ‘end of time’, only to prepare all the forces of nature to be reborn again.
Between our Birth-day and our Death-day much time and energy, filled with creation, desire, love and confusion, is spent … and during much of this time we make fools of ourselves.

Mozart, whose music I have chosen for this production, is the greatest example of someone whose time between day ‘A’ and day ‘Z’ was painfully limited, but who nevertheless has understood life in all its richness, fantasy, clownery and madness. It is his spirit, and his acceptance of the fact, that our life is not more than a masquerade or a dress rehearsal for something deeper and more meaningful, which has inspired me to make this work.'
Jirí Kylián


Sound Format: PCM Stereo
Picture Format: 16:9
Menu Languages: GB, D, F, ES, NL
Subtitle Languages: D, F, ES, IT, NL
Running Time: 92 min (Ballets) / 36 min (Introductions)
DVD: 9 NTSC