November Steps
The Japanese culture interested me ever since I came across
the music of Toru Takemitsu. His music, although it was
written 9.423 kilometers away from where I was, it felt
very close to my heart. It spoke to me in a language which I
understood in a clarity I never heard before. The first time
I have used his music (“Ring” and “Valeria”) was for one of
my early choreographic efforts in 1972. The piece was called
“Der Stumme Orfeus” in English “The Voiceless Orpheus”.
The idea was good - the choreography not..!
Later I was introduced to Takemitsu’s masterpice “November
Steps”. It is written for a european style orchestra and two
Japanese traditional instruments: Biwa and Shakuhachi.
In our talks, Toru Takemitsu made me understand that all his
attempts to merge the European and the Japanese styles of
music was simply impossible - no matter how hard he tried...
It was premiered in New York in 1967, conducted by Seiji Ozawa.
The instrumentalists were: Kinshi Tsuruta - Biwa and Katsuya
Yokoyama - Shakuhachi. It resulted in a composition which
started with an orchestral section, followed by a “cadenza”
of the two instrumentalists, which gave them much space for
improvisation, followed by the final orchestral section.
10 years after its very successful premiere I gave Takemitsu’s
music a physical shape. My way of approaching the music was
mostly intuitive. The shear conviction and beauty of the
composition, and the extremely passionate improvisation of
the two soloists, influenced every building stone of my
choreography...
It resulted in perhaps my most abstract choreography to date.
But although it might be perceived as such, it was created
with much passion which ultimately gave the “abstraction” a
human face. I am unable now to retrace all the emotions which
went through our hearts and brains while we have created
“November Steps”, but surely this experience left many
emotional tattoos on all of us...
When we showed “November Steps” at the Metropolitan Opera
House for the first time, the original soloists of the world
premiere, Mme. Tsuruta and Mr. Yokoyama accompanied us.
This was of course a great privilege for us, but also a substantial
worry. The main problem lied in the fact, that I didn’t take into
account that these incredible artists were given the liberty of
improvisation and that the improvisations on the recording which
I have used for my choreography was at least 12 years old...
Needless to say: the first rehearsal with the dancers and these
wonderful musicians, was a disaster. After this experience,
Mme. Tsuruta and Mr. Yokoyama,(who in the meantime were
promoted to “National Treasures” in Japan), went to their
hotel rooms and practiced their improvisations so that they
would sound the way they sounded at the premiere 12 years ago.
We have accepted their effort with thanks and gratitude.
The premiere was very successful. This remarkable presentation
of “November Steps” at the Metropolitan Opera House had only
one flaw! I have asked the two Japanese musicians to take bow
with all the dancers at the end of the performance. They were
dressed in beautiful black kimonos and wore the traditional
japanese footwear, which we might call “thongs”. The only problem
is that these “thongs” were made for walking forwards only and
not for walking backwards. But whenever we take bows on stage
we walk forward as well as backward. And it was precisely this
walk backwards which caused a very unfortunate embarrassment
to Mme. Tsuruta, but also great amusement to a filled auditorium
of the MET.
As Mme. Tsuruta walked backwards from the “footlights” of the
stage, she lost control of her footwear, and to her horror she
was pulled back by the row of dancers, who held her hands, only
wearing her socks, while her “thongs” stayed lying on the white
stage totally footless and abandoned...
The audience roared with laughter, and we were all relieved
that such very important and strenuous undertaking finished
with such a wonderful joke...
Jiří Kylián - The Hague, December 4th, 2012
