Préludes CV

• Dance

A choreographic sketchbook in two parts

Don't try to understand ballet. It has no story (that I could tell you) - except for the action that you might feel within yourself when you listen to the music and watch these movement situations at the same time. Many very different stories are sure to form...
I was moved by Lera Auerbach's music and, without thinking too much, I chose dancers that I "heard" in this music. The characters in the ballet emerged from their own personalities. For me, they now have a life of their own. But, like people in real life, they ultimately remain enigmatic, mysterious. That is, I see what they do (I invented it myself!), but I don't always understand their motives. I don't know what they really think, I don't understand why they do (or don't do) something. Sometimes I think I recognize the people - sometimes they look completely different. I know them - but then again, I don't know them. Their relationships seem unclear and change frequently. They are unpredictable - just like real people.

3 April 2003
Notes in the first days of the creation of "Préludes CV"

Sometimes I see ballet like a sketchbook... my very personal movement sketchbook of feelings. Dance images, individual unfinished fragments of human situations (seemingly) unrelated next to each other - spatially limited by the stage space, temporally by the length of the music (like sketches by the dimensions of the paper). They seem unrelated, but as in a sketchbook, the artist's instinct has sketched them right there on the page, thereby unconsciously giving different motifs their mysterious logic. Also, typical of a sketchbook, there are several variations of the same action, dance or situation in my ballet... as if the observer (the draftsman, the choreographer) is trying to capture aspects of the "same" in a different way...

June 9, 2003
Notes in the last days of the creations of "Préludes CV"
John Neumeier


Music: Lera Auerbach – 24 Préludes for Violoncello and Piano and 24 Préludes for Violin and Piano
Choreography, set design and costumes: John Neumeier

2 hours 45 minutes | 1 break
Part 1: 60 minutes, Part 2: 80 minutes

PREMIERE:
Hamburg Ballet, Hamburg, 22 June 2003

ORIGINAL CAST:
Silvia Azzoni
Joelle Boulogne
Laura Cazzaniga
Heather Jurgensen
Elizabeth Loscavio
Susanne Menck
Niurka Moredo
Anna Polikarpova
Lisa Todd

Otto Bubenicek
Peter Dingle
Yukichi Hattori
Carsten Jung
Alexandre Riabko
Lloyd Riggins
Yohan Stegli
Sébastien Thill