Petite Mort is a cut above in Oslo’s second Kylián celebration

The second programme of Norwegian National Ballet's Jiří Kylián festival, Day After Yesterday, features four older works, enhanced by the accompanying Opera orchestra and, in the concluding Symphony of Psalms, the Opera Chorus too. Day After Yesterday is a more varied bill than the first, bookended by two pieces of more classical choreography, while No More Play and the more widely known Petite Mort serve to showcase the ingenuity and unique movement vocabulary Kylián is renowned for. 

Just behind the Oslo Opera House sits the Edvard Munch Museum, the Norwegian artist whose impressionist painting The Dance of Life was the inspiration for the programme opener, Forgotten Land. It depicts a woman at three stages of life (virginal, mature, widow). Set to music by Benjamin Britten, Kylián seeks to explore memories, events and people that are lost over time.

Starting quietly, we see the full ensemble walking upstage and downstage in silence, their backs to us, the hasty shuffling of feet the only audible sound, before the swell of Britten’s score begins its slow burning journey. Those familiar with John Macfarlane’s designs will note the atmospheric backcloth that could only be his creation.

Samantha Lynch and Jonathan Olofsson are an elegant pair, with the former in the role of the widow, possessing all the necessary regality and stateliness. They float unhurriedly through numerous lifts and the twists and turns of the demanding partnering. The energy shifts for Tsukino Tanaka’s skittish and excitable woman in red. She’s a charismatic seductress whose feet fly across the stage; her partner, Gabriel Gudim has no hope of keeping up with her.

Forgotten Land moves along perfectly nicely. Britten’s score is stirring and the choreography wafts with notable accents such as stretched arms and arching backs. In the final moments, the three women are united, minus their male partners, but it lacks a real moment of impact.

No More Play and Petite Mort are squeezed together before a second interval, and these two signature Kylián works give us something a bit more gritty and interesting to unpack. The former is a stylish piece for five dancers, with theatrical lighting, set to a Webern string quartet. Five dancers split into trios and duos, lit by spotlights. Frantic movements at warp speed ensue with dancers thrown into different groupings, they are lifting, pushed, pulled between each other as if they are human climbing frames. One rolls along the edge of the stage. Stuffed with big extensions and stretched limbs, it fizzes with urgency.

Principal Grete Sofie Borud Nybakken is the highlight; a majestic dancer with a stage presence and sense of calm, she has a beautiful line, delivering the fast string of steps with flair.

Perhaps the best known offering is Kylián’s 1991 creation, Petite Mort. We’re all familiar with the euphemism, yes? Six men in flesh coloured bodices brandish swords with impressive uniformity, the swish of the weapons cutting through the air is the only sound until we later hear the delicate notes of a Mozart piano concerto. They must negotiate a number of challenges, bend them back and forth and pick them up with their toes, before the inherent playfulness of the piece begins.

The pas de deux which follow have a watchable purity and physicality to them. Whitney Jensen and Silas Henriksen offer a sophisticated take in their section, technically neat and fluid through the movements, with an earnest vulnerability. The lighting, devised by Kylián himself, takes on its own special role too. There’s an exposing brightness to it as if we are seeing something intimate, private, the flow of movements their own personal conversation, Petite Mort stays classy in the way that only hints at sensuality, as muscles pulse and undulate above the defined structure of the bodices.

Kylián created Symphony of Psalms shortly after becoming Artistic Director of Nederlands Dans Theater and states that the choreography allows room for “individual statements and outburst of emotions”. It’s certainly true that a deeper, more tender connection was present between some of the central couples.

Psalms is memorable too for the oriental carpets which, layered on top of one another, form a luxurious backdrop. It’s a piece that has all the bells and whistles to earn its place as the closer on the bill, but I found it to be a little repetitive. The action bounces from rousing partnering against the voices of the chorus, to whispering subtly that almost comes to a standstill. Couples spring from left to right, crashing from side to side before subsiding again without ever getting anywhere, slick and committed as the dancing is.

Kylián has choreographed just shy of 100 works. At this month’s festival, Norwegian National Ballet have given seven of them the star treatment. Is it, I wonder, the intention for audiences to see both programmes? If you have the choice, the triple bill Day Before Tomorrow is more effective when it comes to showcasing Kylián at his exhilarating best. In Day After Yesterday, Psalm and Forgotten Land lack memorability but Petite Mort and No More Play are unquestionably highlights of his expansive repertoire.

Vikki Jane's press trip was funded by Norwegian National Opera and Ballet