Sechs Tänze (Six Dances)

Music

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(Sechs Deutsche Tänze [Six German Dances], KV 571, 1789)

Choreography

Jiří Kylián

Staging

Roslyn Anderson
Stefan Zeromski (2023)

Scenic & Costume Design

Jiří Kylián

Lighting Design

Joop Caboort

Lighting Supervision

Kees Tjebbes

Duration

13 minutes

Cast

13 dancers

Premiere

August 24, 1986; Nederlands Dans Theater

PNB Premiere

September 24, 2010

The 2010 PNB premiere of Jiří Kylián’s Sechs Tänze (Six Dances) was generously underwritten by Jeffrey & Susan Brotman.

Program Notes

Choreographer Jiří Kylián has written: “Two centuries separate us from the time Mozart wrote his German Dances—an historical period shaped considerably by wars, revolutions, and all sorts of upheavals. With this mind, I found it impossible to simply create different dance numbers reflecting merely the humor and musical brilliance of the composer. Instead, I have set six seemingly nonsensical acts, which obviously ignore their surroundings. They are dwarfed in the face of the ever present troubled world, which most of us for some unspecified reason carry in our souls.

“Although the entertaining quality of Mozart’s Sechs Tänze enjoys great general popularity, it shouldn’t only be regarded as a burlesque. Its humor ought to serve as a vehicle to point towards our relative values. Mozart’s ability to react upon difficult circumstances with a self-preserving outburst of nonsensical poetry is well known.”

Notes by Jiří Kylián.