Homecomings – the Main Project of the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre for this Season
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NMST prepares the main staging project of this season - a ballet premiere entitled Homecomings. Audiences can expect three shorter pieces in one evening: Trio g minor, The Strangler and On an Overgrown Path. Homecomings will be an evening of three contemporary Czech choreographers. Jiří Kylián and Pavel Šmok will present their unique dance works and Nataša Novotná will stage a new ballet The Strangler with the company. The premiere of Homecomings will be held on 21st November at 18.30 in the Jiří Myron Theatre.The entire triple bill will open with Pavel Šmok’s Trio g minor with music by Bedřich Smetana: "Smetana wrote Trio g minor after the death of his - musically gifted - daughter Bedřiška, whose departure affected him deeply. I do not know what was going through his head when he was writing the score, but I know what his music told me. The whole tragedy of loss and emptiness, but also memories of children's games and carefree youth. If our physical expression invokes similar feelings in you, we have succeeded, " Pavel Šmok comments on his piece.
The second part of the triple bill will be a ballet by Bohuslav Martinů The Strangler, choreographed by a known dancer and member of the 420PEOPLE dance company - Nataša Novotná, who states: "The subtitle of the ballet for three dancers in the score is: Ceremony of transformation. The piece, composed by Bohuslav Martinů after a long illness in 1948 in the cosmopolitan New York City, full of new influences, and also the source - the mythical story of Oedipus and the Sphinx from a time long before the year zero - unconsciously evoke more dramatic atmosphere. But how much does the present drama actually correspond to a given situation and how do we create it ourselves based on a couple of obsessive ideas? If we find the courage in the end to pass through our ideas, quite possibly we might discover that things are completely different, and what seemed to us to be an insurmountable obstacle yesterday, is a story for laughter today."
The evening will be closed by a piece by Jiří Kylián, choreographed on music of Leoš Janáček’s cycle On an Overgrown Path, staged for the first time in the history of NMST: "I was „infected“ by music of Leoš Janáček already in my student years at the Prague Conservatory. Our teacher Mrs. Zora Šemberová created a piece “In the Mists” for my partner Lucie Novotná and me, for our graduation concert in 1967. Janáček's music was actually poured directly into my soul already with the breast milk. My mother's part of the family originates from Silesia," says Jiří Kylián, among others the winner of the Ministry of Culture prize for his contribution to theater. "My choreography of „On the Overgrown Path“ is in its essence derived directly from Janáček's music. But not only that - it is also a praise of our „little human world“, which at the same time reflects the whole universe... In this piece, our theater stage is not the main scene of the choreography... The stage you are looking at is just a small and unimportant detail of what is beyond our imagination, even though this is about our life and our death... Janáček surely knew that... This principle is present in all his works and in his life!". Homecomings foreshadow the unique project Year of Czech Music 2014, held under the auspices of the mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená and the head of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Sir Simon Rattle. Nationwide scenic opening of the Year of Czech Music 2014 will be held on 7th January 2014 in Prague by hosting the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre with a new production Mirandolina by Bohuslav Martinů. Source: NMST