Moving Still "Moving still" is an installation consisting of eight life-size sculptures of dancers who were scanned 3-dimensionally. I have asked these dancers, with whom I worked for many years, if they would participate in this project and whether they would be willing to be scanned nude in 3D, printed in life-size and publicly exhibited. The dancers are Lorraine Blouin, Cora Bos Kroese, Valentina Scaglia, Shirley Esseboom, David Krügel, Ken Ossola, Stefan Żeromski and Michael Schumacher. I would also like to mention that in the realization of this project, Patrick Marin (former dancer of NDT) is my assistant for this project and that he accompanied me on every step of the process and also my manager Carmen Thomas who helped me realizing it with great care and understanding. Finally I wish to mention Kateřina Hanáčková, who became the driving force behind the physical realization of the sculptures, their presentation in Prague and the major organizer of two performances at the National Theatre connected to this event.
The project: Since years I am fascinated with movement in general and moving inside or outside of a space in particular. The life-size 3D prints of these dancers should be situated either inside of the big windows or outside - or they should be caught just in the midst of their flight through the windows with their bodies cut in half - one part inside and the other outside. I started working on this project in October 2021 in the middle of the pandemic. At that time we were not allowed to move anywhere. That is why I gave my work the title "Moving still". It is an installation of motionless sculptures flying through space between life and death. Their bodies are marked with cuts and wounds... I am a choreographer since many years and movement has obviously always preoccupied me. But working on this project, I have realized that neither a living dancer nor his static 3D print ever stands still. Nothing ever stands still... But movement and stillness in choreography was not the only inspiration for this project. I was equally inspired by the sculptures of the deceased people of Pompeii who died in October 79 AD when mount Vesuvius erupted. This tragedy happened 1974 years ago and still today these motionless sculptures move us deeply. Jiří Kylián - Den Haag, January, 2024