About the work
"Avant-Garde" is a triple bill by the Ballet of the National Theatre (Czech National Ballet) in Prague, which premiered on 12 March 2026. The triptych brings together Jiří Kylián's masterpiece "27'52"" and two newly created works: Robert Bondara's "4 Seasons" and Marco Goecke's "Lovebirds". Although created independently, the three pieces share a focus on the passage of time and the fragility of life. Critics ranked the evening among the strongest dance triptychs the company had presented in years.
Plot
"27'52"" (2002) is dedicated to Gerald Tibbs, a former dancer of Nederlands Dans Theater; its title and duration refer to his date of birth (20 July 1952). Kylián's piece is a meditation on time and its relativity. Robert Bondara's "4 Seasons" is inspired by Max Richter's recomposition of Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons"; using paper elements in the set and costumes, Bondara symbolises human fragility and the marks left by time. The evening closes with "Lovebirds" by the German choreographer Marco Goecke, known for his highly expressive, physically intense style; created especially for this programme, the piece combines music by the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů with songs by James Brown.
Cultural significance
The evening pairs Jiří Kylián, one of the most formative choreographers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with two distinctive contemporary voices – the Polish choreographer Robert Bondara and Marco Goecke, one of the most idiosyncratic figures of German dance theatre. Programmatically, "Avant-Garde" combines repertoire stewardship with the commissioning of new choreography, underlining the Prague National Theatre Ballet's ambition to link international top-tier choreography with premieres. The shared theme of time and transience lends inner coherence to a stylistically heterogeneous evening.