Evening Songs

The time in which I was making “Evening Songs” was a difficult 
time! We were about to open our new built theatre in The Hague...
The pressure was enormous: everybody who had anything to say 
on the political, cultural or "royal" scene in the Netherlands 
was present. And exactly at this moment, I became forty, an age, 
which many people will experience as difficult. My body and 
my mind were not tuned for this event. 
Nevertheless, I have managed to create a one hour long piece 
entitled “St. Joris rijdt uit“ But the task was overwhelming. 
I needed something, which would bring me down to Earth, 
something, which would remind me of simple things, of things 
that mattered to me when I was a teenager, things which I 
totally believed in. This need of mine gave the birth to this
work which I named "Evening Songs". Creating it actually 
became a therapeutic  activity for me... Yes, I know that we 
can now do Face Book, Twitter, Chitter and Glitter with the 
Pope, Barack Obama or just about anyone on Earth...

	
	
You might have 20 000 friends on your Face Book, but do 
you have 3 real ones? And I know that there will be 1000 
new things which the next generation will embrace, and which 
even you will not be able to understand. And all this is 
probably very good! You might have relatives, friends, 
idols or lovers - but it is you who decides how to relate 
to them... You are the one, whose ideals count, you are the 
one, whose ideals were shaped when you were a teenager!
My simple message is: Try to listen to your own voice, 
your voice from the time in which you have tried to 
understand the world for the very first time..!
I know that it is easy to dive into the “world of anonymity”, 
the world by which we are totally surrounded, but it is also 
not bad to remind ourselves that there are some basic values, 
the values which bring people together, the values which have a 
common denominator, and values almost everybody can relate to.

                    Jiří Kylián - The Hague, Februari 23, 2013