Birth-Day

We all were born on a certain day, and we all celebrate this 
event in a cycle of 365 days. This is the period in which 
nature is born, matures, dies and is reborn again - regardless 
of our existence. We ask questions about why we were born, 
about what was before our birth and what will be after we 
are gone.  But there aren’t - and there will never be - any 
satisfactory answers. Ever since my young age I felt very 
deeply, that our “Birth certificate” is actually our “Death 
sentence”- (“We are born in order to die...” - Francis Bacon).

I have also felt, that parents, whenever they conceive a 
child, they actually die in a metaphoric sense - they gave 
birth to a new life and consequently their own life becomes 
redundant, as they fulfilled their genetic duty. Sometimes,
when our birthdays arrive, we think of the day we were born, 
but maybe also of the day we will die, a day on which we might, 
or might not be reborn again. It is all the same -  the same 
cycle of a year that has just gone by, with buds and fresh 
greens, followed by flowers, heat and sun, full of ripeness 
and fulfilment, the picking of delicious fruit, only to face 
soon the frost - the imaginary symbol of the “End of Time”, 
only to prepare all the forces of nature to be reborn again.

	
	
Between our “Birth day” and our “Death day”, much time 
and energy, filled with creation, desire, love and confusion, 
is spent... and during much of this time we make fools of 
ourselves...

Mozart, whose music I have chosen for this production, 
is the greatest example of someone, whose lifespan was 
painfully limited, but who has nevertheless understood life 
in all its richness, clownery, and madness in that little time 
that was available to him. It is his spirit, and his under-
standing of the fact, that life is no more than a masquerade 
or a “dress rehearsal” for something much more deep and 
meaningful, which has inspired me to make this work.

                    Jiří Kylián