November Steps

Photo: Tony van Muyden

Choreographer: Jiří Kylián

Toru Takemitsu’s music, used in Jiří Kylián’s ‘November Steps’, was first performed by the New York Philharmonic in 1967 on the occasion of the orchestra’s 125th anniversary. The composition is for biwa, the Japanese traditional short-necked flute, shakuhichi, the Japanese bamboo flute, and orchestra. The music rustles like the wind in a bamboo grove. While creating this composition, Takemitsu took notes that might just as well have been notes by Kylián on his ballet 'November Steps'.

The ballet follows the music’s punctuations, without – in keeping with its aural counterpart – massing to any unity. Like the musical accompaniment to the Japanese Noh drama, in this ballet there is neither climax nor set rhythm. Simply the establishment of the pervading mood – here it is like the title suggests autumnal – in which choreography follows the composer’s lead.