Jiří Kylián: 'The silence of a photograph, I love that'

Jiří Kylián shows with Free Fall his photographic works for the first time. He talks passionately about his discoveries, his inspiration, and Sabine.

The house in The Hague where Jiří Kylián has now lived for more than 30 years radiates joie de vivre. Warm colour tones, fragrant flowers, classicist furnishings yet cosy. Unmistakably the 'touch of a woman.' That woman is Sabine Kupferberg, Jiří Kylián's life partner and muse. She plays a prominent role in the choreographer-cum-photographer's new photo installation.

'The subject, or if you like the object of the exhibition is Sabine. She is able to show emotions she has experienced over the years and the way she is able to express them becomes richer and richer.'

Actually, you can't call it a photography exhibition, it's more than that.

‘Free Fall is a photographic, theatrical installation. Photos don't just hang on the wall, they are also exposed in a special way. You actually walk through a labyrinth-like corridor.

The photos I took were taken from the front of Sabine and at the same time from the back. It was complicated to get that done. Because one camera may not see the other and the exposure cannot be the same on both sides. So two exposure plots are needed and in a hundredth of a second, that one shot has to work.'

That sounds very technical.

'I had good help from photographer Joris-Jan Bos, and Loes Schakenbos who did the lighting. But even printing the photos was tricky. The photos had to fit together at a precise angle and then also the front and back of the photo.'

All in all, a unique project?

'It was a new experience for the whole team, we all learnt something from it. It is also very exciting and it gets me all excited. Because I am working on a completely different approach. All of a sudden, here I am working with 'frozen' movement. I call it that because I see a photograph as a cut-out of time: like a guillotine, you dissect a moment from the past on the one hand and open the way forward, into the future, on the other.

Sabine also works with a doll made 10 years ago, for Far Too Close. The crazy thing is that Sabine is confronted with a ten-year younger version of herself in that doll. That has directly to do with our alter ego, the contradictory forces working in us in our existence. The dark, aggressive side and the sweet one, they mirror through in it.'

Do you want that in Free Fall show?

'I would like it to come across that way. To reinforce that, that's why you see puzzles. Everyone, you, me, is ultimately a puzzle.'

Jiří takes me into the front room. There, a circular canvas lies on the floor with a pattern of the Chartres cathedral labyrinth on it. Above it, in Free Fall, a large photograph will slowly rotate with one white and one black side. Elaborate and fascinated, the choreographer and photographer explains how the light of a spotlight reflects against the photo and projects a shadow proportionally on the ground. By chance, Jiří discovered that the reflection travels a perfect circle after first being cut up on its axis to just a line. Thanks to his explanation, an impressive spectacle is already unfolding in my imagination.

'I made a model first. How is it possible that this reflection travels a full circle? It gave me a kind of eureka feeling.'

Saturday 7 May is the opening at five o'clock. Are you going to say something?

‘Yes indeed. Especially because I got help from a young man from Zwolle, Herman Henniphof, who managed to fulfil all my idiotic wishes. He made wonderful things for me. I should definitely say something about him during the opening. Everyone had to stand in front of Free Fall By the way, doing things they never did before.‘

You want to innovate, not so much pushing boundaries as discovering what else is possible?

'I always want to go a little further than where I am. Standard work doesn't interest me that much. Even if you try something and don't succeed, I prefer that to what you already know.'

Is Free Fall to be seen in one of Korzo's theatres?

'Actually in a studio. It requires theatre lighting and enough floor space.'

Can as many as 50 people enter the exhibition at once to observe everything properly?

'At most, there will be about 12 people inside at all times. We will monitor that. But anyway, at the opening, there might be about a hundred people and then later in the week, it's just a matter of wait and see.'

That sounds modest for a unique project.

'Maybe I'm just saying, I'm terribly excited about it then!'

Spiritually, Jiří immediately grabs an iPad, slides in next to me on the sofa and shows a video so I can get a good impression. I see a beautiful and modernly decorated room where all the attributes form a work of art as a whole. Pictures in successive sizes, rotating pictures, pictures with a sequence of movements.

The brochure talks about the theme 'art and artificiality' but you mentioned earlier a picture with something demonic, the alter ego, and there is an apple prominently displayed here and there.

‘Free Fall has to do with all those things. With forces in the subconscious that can do the strangest things to you. I have quite a lot to say about it, but as in my ballets, I prefer to leave it to the spectator to get something out of it.'

How long does a visit within the facility take?

'I have a couple of wooden benches set up on the sides. It should be a kind of meditative place. Not immediately one, two, three out. I hope people will take the time to look at it quietly.'

You are about two years into cinematic and photographic research. Where does Free Fall in this process?

'This is actually my first time holding a public exhibition. I've been working on this project for at least six months now. And I'm quite used to working with objects and with lighting and with models of stage design, but this was a really big job. With a model that I got from Free Fall made me notice that the simple turned out to be terribly difficult. Towards scientific even.'

Your ballets could also be very complicated and detailed for dancers, with intricate rhythms and ingenious beat counting. This technical aspect is also reflected in your photographic work.

'That's also what I like about technique, the aura of it. Especially when a dancer adds something to it from his mind. Like the theme of Free Fall: art and artificiality. An artist hates it when you call his work artificial, but of course it is also artificial. For example, if I ask Sabine to show anger, (wrroefgg does Jiri probing, RB) then it's feigned anger. However well she can bring out feelings - and she can do that like no other - it is still completely artificial.'

I feel that truthfulness matters to you. Truthfulness. Which you discover in technique, and in performing.

'I had a teacher at school who demanded that I keep repeating a play until it was true. 'Now you just hit me,' she would say. That made you tremble. The only way to get to that moment was to believe in it. Through concentration and technique.'

Technology sounds a bit cold. Is it more a matter of a will: now I'm going to believe it?

'Everything is technology, is a statement by Sabine. Everything is technology.'

How to arrive at the idea of free fall: Free Fall?

'When you are born, your free fall begins. It depends on how high you were born, until you drop to the ground boom. Dying.'

Why fall? For example, you could also argue that you take off from birth.

‘We have gravity. Therefore, the apple in Free Fall, referring to Newton and his discovery of gravity. But it is a symbol of man being born and dying. This is also why Sabine is alone in the installation. Basically, you, me or anyone else don't necessarily need another person. You mainly have to make do with yourself: your flaws, your illnesses, your contradictions. For that, you walk the labyrinth. Simple and yet complicated.'

When Sabine says: everything is technology, do you say: everything is contrast?

'Definitely. Yin and yang. Two contradictions.'

There is also music, I understand Free Fall?

'Yes, Kunst der Fuge Of Bach. I have been a Bach fan since I was 15. In his music, circles close, which I also find in Free Fall return. I mentioned labyrinths and puzzles earlier: the most beautiful labyrinth ever written is Kunst der Fuge. Unbelievable that a human being could compose that. But it is mainly silence at the installation and from four sides you hear occasional parts of Kunst der Fuge. Played, of course, by Glenn Gould.'

Which photographers inspire you?

'At least Josef Koudelka and Josef Sudek. Koudelka is a famous photographer, he has an exhibition in Antwerp this year. He made a brilliant book of photographs called The Black Triangle, of a region of coal mines covering parts of the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany. I once gave the book to then Queen Beatrix. She was so impressed by it that when she visited the Czech Republic, she didn't visit the beautiful, old Prague but instead wanted to go to those mines. Later, when I worked on the dance film Car-Men worked, including in the region there, I wanted the book again. But you could only buy that on the internet for a thousand euros, very expensive. Now a friend of mine knew Koudelka. He drank a bottle of slibowitz with him and asked: do you know Jiří Kylián? He's a fan of yours. No, the photographer didn't know me. Yes, said the friend, he gave your book to the queen and now he wants to make a ballet about those mines. To that, Koudelka gave me his book, with a preface written in it.'

Jiří looks up the book and shows it to me. You can fold out the wide photobook with beautiful photos of abandoned, vast mining landscapes into a panorama. With a beautifully handwritten preface on the inside, by a probably inebriated artist.

Has Koudelka's work influenced your photography?

'Actually more Josef Sudek. He lived around the corner from us in Prague, where I often saw him. He had lost an arm in the war. Using an old 1898 Kodak with wooden legs, glass negatives and a cloth you had to bend your head under, he would go to the same spot a hundred times to take a picture. Until the light was perfect. Back then, you couldn't choose from a thousand digital shots.'

What kind of camera do you use yourself?

'I have an old Leica from 1936 and also used an old Kodak. Normally I work with a Nikon but for Free Fall Joris-Jan Bos hired a Canon for me.'

Goes Free Fall travel?

'Yes, it will go to Lyon, to Prague and probably to Stuttgart. But I would love to see it elsewhere in the Netherlands too. Preferably in a small theatre.'

You exhibit in Lyon, and it news went That Jiří Kylián is also returning to work there as a choreographer?

'That of Lyon is a bit inflated. I'm happy to be there artist in residence: they've been performing plays of mine since 1980, I might give workshops there, we'll have the play East Shadow see and Free Fall goes there. I have indicated that should it ever come to creation we can talk about the idea. That's all.'

Choreography is not an issue now?

'You can argue: I'm not that keen on it, but it's not on. For example, for a Jiří Kylián evening in Monte Carlo recently, I did a piece for a funny, short film for the director.'

Basically, you say, working with human movement is equally on hold.

'No, it's just that through photography I work with human movement on hold! (Laughs) But seriously, I still love dance and theatre and that never stops. Just, the stillness of a picture, that's what I love - as a maker especially. That fascinated me even as a little boy.'

Do you have plans or ideas for a new photography project?

'Not yet. But the danger is great.'

Free Fall by Jiří Kylián can be seen at the Korzo theatre from Saturday 7 May 2016. For more information and visiting hours, see.