Choreography: Pavel Šmok, Kateřina Dedková – Franková
Music: Leoš Janáček
Staging: Kateřina Dedková – Franková
Assistant choreographers: Igor Vejsada
Set and costume design: Marie Franková
Premiere: 14.6.1998
Renewed premiere: 7.12.2017
Duration: 29 minutes
The first part of the cycle On an Overgrown Path ends by a composition which Janáček titled Sýček neodletěl (The Barn Owl Has Not Flown Away). The motif of a barn owl, in his strength and dramatic effect not unlike the Beethoven’s Destiny Symphony, lends a distinctive tragic accent to the staging. When the choreography was premiered in 1998, Pavel Šmok commented: “The individual compositions of the cycle have not got any stronger mutual dramaturgic connection apart from the fact that they all are internal testimonies of the composer. Dance stage is, nevertheless, quite different from a concert hall. Therefore, I believe that Janáček would forgive us for inserting a little story inside the performance which is loosely based on a motif of another of his compositions, anyway.”
