“It's already one of the must-see dance classics" – Trouw on Kylián's Toss of a Dice”
With the return of Jiří Kylián’s Toss of a Dice and world premieres by Marco Goecke and Marina Mascarell, accompanied live by Het Balletorkest
The eighteenth Holland Dance Festival opens with a grand, festive premiere program by Nederlands Dans Theater 1, in the new cultural temple of The Hague: Amare. While Nederlands Dans Theater has performed during all of our previous festival editions, it is for the first time since 2009 that the company is responsible for the opening of the festival. It’s a direct result of the immediate connection and mutual appreciation felt by Emily Molnar, artistic director of Nederlands Dans Theater, and Holland Dance Festival director Samuel Wuersten and the warm connection our festival has enjoyed with choreographer Jiří Kylián.
A wealth of staccato’s
Kylián is one of the three idiosyncratic choreographers brought together by Nederlands Dans Theater 1 in Traces Left Within. His intriguing Toss of Dice (2005) will be danced by the company for the first time since 2006. For this dramatic and at times haunting ballet, filled with a wealth of staccato’s, the master choreographer was inspired by a steel object created by the Japanese sculptor Susumu Shingu, whose artworks Kylián describes as ‘dancers of eternity’. He was also inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé’s philosophical poem Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard, on which the choreography’s name is based. Kylián: “For me, Toss of a Dice is symbolic for a sunken ship, something that has been submerged in the waters of our unconscious behavior, something that can be found again, or perhaps not.”
Razor-sharp and lightning-fast
Apart from Toss of a Dice, Traces Left Within includes world premieres by associate choreographer Marco Goecke and former NDT dancer Marina Mascarell, who is seen as one of the rising stars of European dance. Goecke – whose previous choreography for Nederlans Dans Theater was nominated for the Zwaan award for ‘Most Impressive Dance Production – is known for his unique, complex and intense dance language. With his razor-sharp, lightning-fast, and nervously fluttering movements the German choreographer stimulates the nervous system of both his dancers and his audience.
Poetic engagement
The Spanish Marina Mascarell has created her first work for the dancers of Nederlands Dans Theater 1. Mascarell’s choreographies are characterized by their socio-political engagement and, at the same time, by their poetic and intimate character. Her approach of movement is grounded in the recognition of patterns to be able to conquer them, and while doing so, she continuously asks questions in order to find the ‘true self’. Mascarell: “I believe that theater should let your imagination soar, that’s why as a maker I never want to set a rigid frame of reference. I do challenge the established ways of being, relating to the problems that I believe society faces. That’s what drives me to create.”
