Stepping Stones

In the summer of 1980, I initiated the organisation of a 
festival in which many dancers, storytellers, musicians and 
spiritual leaders from various parts of Northern Territory of 
Australia took part. It actually became the biggest Aboriginal 
gathering ever held. This experience left a very deep impression 
on me. In fact,it left an everlasting mark on what I am, or what 
I do, for the rest of my life….One of the strangest things, which 
I should actually understand perfectly well, is the fact, that 
the Aboriginals of Australia attach such great importance to 
“Dance” - In order to find out more about this phenomenon, 
I asked an elderly man the probably most stupid question 
anyone could ever ask: ….”Why is ‘Dance’ so important for 
you…?” His answer was simple and devastating: “It is 
because my father taught me how to dance, and because 
I have to pass it on and teach it to my son”. This man saw 
himself as a tiny link in the endless chain of evolution. 
Somehow he understood his place and his responsibility, 
to pass on the heritage that was entrusted on him by his 
ancestors, to the next generation. He knew, that he was 
an  important “Link”, (no matter how small) between the 
past and the future. He understood his task to ensure the 
prevalence of the culture of his tribe in the times to come….

These, and many other thoughts were in my mind while 
I was creating “Stepping Stones”.

I have created “Stepping Stones” in 1991 for the Stuttgart 
Ballet as a reverence to tradition and heritage. In this case 
to the idiom of “Classical dance”.

I have great respect for cultural achievements of the past.
So we all carry our cultural baggage, which sometimes restricts 
our movement, and sometimes serves us as a “Stepping stone”, 
enabling us to move between “what was” and “what will be”. 
The dancers of “Stepping Stones” dance with miniature copies 
of sculptures whose origin ranges from the prehistoric time to 
the time of Brancusi – They all are carefully watched by statues 
of Egyptian cats, who sit on the stage quietly and wisely and 
whose blind eyes have witnessed some 3000 years of the 
evolution of “homo sapiens”.

                    Jiří Kylián