Intimate Clouds
Premiere 22 May 2022 at 19:00, Vinohrady Theatre
For the Prague Chamber Ballet’s May premiere, resident choreographer Petr Zuska has prepared a new creation to Leoš Janáček’s second string quartet “Intimate Letters”, set to music by the Zemlinsky Quartet. The choreography is dedicated to Dr. Ivan Dunovský, a long-time patron and supporter of PKB, on the occasion of what would have been his 70th birthday. The Prague Chamber Ballet continues to return to the legacy of its founder Pavel Šmok and presents original works set to music by Czech composers. Another piece on the programm of the premiere evening will be Jiří Pokorný’s choreography “Black Clouds Don’t Cry”, adapted for the PKB ensemble. It explores the phenomenon of disguise and hidden emotions, symbolised by expressionless white masks. The theme of the choreography has become very topical for our society again in recent years.
The premiere will take place under the auspices of Senator MUDr. Alena Dernerová and Councilor for Culture of the City of Prague MgA. Hana Třeštíková.
BLACK CLOUDS DON’T CRY
Choreography by Jiří Pokorný
Music by Yukari Sawaki
Stage design and costumes by Jan Nečas
Lighting design by Loes Schakenbos
Length: 22 minutes
The production “Black Clouds Don’t Cry” is inspired by feelings and thoughts we consciously or unconsciously repress and hide in our souls. Our human body turns into a hard shell, impenetrable and perfectly masked by a wide range of different faces we show, while only one is hidden beneath the surface.
If we pick an apple from a tree and want to paint it, its surface and imaginary structure are still vivd in our eyes, yet its contents are already lifeless and certainly dead. Indeed, in Spanish, “still life” is called far more appropriately “naturaleza muerta”, or “dead nature”.
Jiří Pokorný
2013
INTIMATE LETTERS
Choreography by Petr Zuska
Music: Leoš Janáček, String Quartet No. 2 “Intimate Letters”
Stage design by Petr Zuska
Costumes by Pavel Knolle
Lighting design by Petr Zuska
Musical direction by Zemlinsky Quartet
Length: 25 minutes
Leoš Janáček composed the string quartet Intimate Letters shortly before his death in 1928, inspired by his long-standing love affair with a married woman forty years his junior. We could perceive this work as a kind of musical performance of their written correspondence.
However, in my interpretation of this opus, I have abandonded the aforementioned intrinsic motive or story and decided to follow a completely free and uninfluenced path, led only by the one thing that matters – the music.
This living, pulsating and changing organism is a theme and a story of its own.
An elusive web of relationships, destinies and threads between us, a complicated labyrinth of our souls, something that cannot be named.
Everything is in constant motion, nothing lasts forever and nothing will ever be repeated.
A rapidly disappearing palm print on glass, a fleeting imprint of our presence in space and time.
Dedicated to Ivan Dunovsky
27 February 2022
Petr Zuska