Stamping ground

Photo: Sven Ulsa

Choreographer: Jiří Kylián

Jiří Kylián says he has always had “a particular admiration for Aboriginal dance, because of its beauty, reality, expressiveness, and importance in life and society.” In 1980, he was invited to a gathering called by the tribes in the remaining tribal lands of Northern Australia, the purpose of which was to record whatever remained of it, before it would be lost in the inevitable social changes of the twenty-first century.
This work is one of the consequences of that visit, and of his opportunity to study the extraordinary techniques of Aboriginal dance.

'Stamping Ground' was developed in close collaboration with each individual dancer, making use of their specific personalities and their instincts in relation to time, space, and to each other.