This film, directed by Olga Malířová, traces the life and work of one of the world’s foremost choreographers, Jiří Kylián, but is at the same time far more than just a conventional documentary. Rather it is an exquisitely sequenced portrayal of the rich artistic rapport between Kylián and his muse, the wonderful dancer Sabine Kupferberg. The pair pace and dance and are filmed on the sand hills, across the shoreline and into the sea along the north coast of The Netherlands.
The resonance of imagery in the film’s setting is extraordinary—the sands of time, an ocean of love, a game of chess at a picnic on the beach, a choreographer with a megaphone and a dancer whose stiletto heels keep subsiding into the sand, a wild couple frantically exchanging coats, who wear hats but cannot always keep their hats on, who stride towards each other from afar but miss the meeting, who struggle to climb a sandhill but can only slide backwards down the slope, who grow older but remember their past all the more clearly for that, who share their personal stories of exile and immigration, of upbringing in an orphanage, in an essay of time and tide, set against murmurations of seabirds—gliding gulls and migrating godwits. The scenography is as beautiful as any I’ve seen, or expect to see.
The film encompasses wider themes of loyalty and betrayal at both national and personal levels, of loss and love, of ageing and fulfilment and fate, and the rapture in the very reality of being alive, while keeping close to memories of those who have passed. There are almost unbearably poignant scenes of Kylián being invited back to his homeland after some years of enforced exile. The film points to the power and web of politics that marked so much of life in 20th century Europe.
Early in his career Kylián was in the company of John Cranko in Stuttgart; it’s worth noting that John Neumeier also gained his early career opportunities with Cranko. How fertile that legacy has proved. From their earliest dance collaboration the mutual inspiration passing between Jiri and Sabine resulted in a torrent of choreography over decades (too numerous to list all the titles here—easy for you to check Jiří Kylián‘s stylish website for that wealth of information).
Excerpts from the archive of Jiří Kylián’s choreographies are interwoven into the film, but only make you wish you could see each of the complete works. It has to be an unmatched achievement in world dance that Kylián not only put Nederlands Dans Theater on the world map but also formed a second company, NDT2, for dancers others might consider too young, then a third company, ND3, for dancers others might consider too old.
Back in 1980s Kylián ventured into outback Australia to search for the significance in Aboriginal people’s dance practice. The resulting film, Road to the Stamping Ground, stays in the memory of all who saw it.
This new film, screened here as the world premiere, also acts as a memory trigger for us of Kylián‘s powerful Soldatenmis, to Martinu’s Mass for the Unknown Soldier—memorably performed in 1990s by Royal New Zealand Ballet then under the direction of the late Matz Skoog. That proved one of the strongest works in their repertoire over decades. Also memorable was the visit of NDT to the International New Zealand Festival of Arts when they performed the moving Requiem, to Mozart’s incomparable music. A work like that can help someone who might be stuck in grief.
Local readers who may have missed the single film screening here can purchase online streaming access for the next two weeks. Sad to report viewing from outside New Zealand is not possible. That must incentivise festival programmers elsewhere to book it for their schedules. The only weak point about the film is that its title does not alert viewers to its subject. There should at least be a sub-title—Jiri Kylián, master choreographer.
16 July 2026. St.James Theatre, Wellington reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
This triple bill showcases the impressive versatility of Royal New Zealand Ballet dancers. Within a 90 minute time-frame, they perform Frederick Ashton’s Birthday Offering, a 70 year old work of highly demanding classical style, imported from England; Sarah Foster-Sproull’s Ultra Folly, a clever and quirky home-grown piece commissioned by the Company in 2020; and Andrea Schermoly’s Stand to Reason, a searingly powerful dramatic work, also an RNZB commission in 2018, from a South African choreographer but on a New Zealand subject. A number of the dancers perform in every work, revealing the wide range of their artistic and technical skills, as well as the heroic stamina demanded of them. There’s not a weak moment in the entire performance.
The much-esteemed Matz Skoog, former artistic director of RNZB, has died recently and this season is dedicated to his memory. Matz often spoke of the challenge an artistic director faces in assembling a triple bill. (It’s much ‘easier’ to stage a single complete work—start with Act One, continue on till you reach Act Four and then stop). So, what to commission and what to re-stage? to combine with what, the old and the new, the tried and the true? then in what sequence? (get this wrong and you can spoil the evening). Beauty, poetry, drama/comedy, abstract, narrative/traditional, modernist, political? and all within a credible budget. The choices made reveal the true measure of an artistic director, and with this program Ty King-Wall proves equal to the challenge.
Birthday Offering is a period piece from 1956 but even then was styled after a much earlier period of ballet’s classicism. Seven couples at a celebration perform défilés in several directions, then six of the women dance filigree solos, each styled with a hint of contrasting personality between them. The technical demands of these solos are intense but to the credit of each performer they are danced with great assurance, grace and meticulous timing. The male partners stand as pillars across the back of the stage for what seems like ages, but that’s the choreography so you can’t go changing it in Wellington. The lead couple, Mayu Tanigaito and Laurynas Véjalis give their exquisite pas de deux a deeply affecting quality, using port de bras in such a loving way that humanises the formal classicism of the movements involved. A pity that the Glazounov recording seems so muddy and uncelebratory—even though Robert Irving, arguably the best ballet conductor of his time, was involved in scoring the arrangements. (I once heard Irving conduct Ravel’s Tzigane at New York City Ballet, where in some kind of alchemy he merged the composition and choreography into one). Birthday Offering, staged here by England’s Royal Ballet, is meticulously faithful to the original. For some in our audience this will have been their favourite work of the evening.
Ultra Folly, first commissioned here in 2018, was recently performed in London when RNZB was invited to participate the International Draft Works (IDW) season (see my earlier review on On Dancing…). Foster-Sproull has two couples in a bright and quirky commoedic play on manners, dancing with spoof and sauce, delivered with impeccable timing.
It’s a far cry in style from the driving passion in the music, La Folie d’Espagne & Variations from 17th century chamber music here played by Jordi Savall and Hesperion XX1.
The IDW project is a heartening demonstration of how international co-operation in ballet is possible, and one wishes there could be more of that since ballet is not a sports code requiring one team to win and the other to lose. All are winners. Eight companies were invited to participate, so a source of pride for us all that RNZB was included. For some in our audience this will have been their favourite work of the evening.
Then comes the knockout—Stand to Reason. This is a powerful tribute to the courage and struggles in the pioneering suffragette movement led here by Kate Sheppard. Take your right to vote for granted by all means, don’t waste it, find a politician you can trust (good luck) but never forget that New Zealand led the world in that path to universal suffrage. Schermoly’s work has driven movement, with design and lighting faultlessly integrated, to the superbly motivating music of Marin Marais (such good dance music that baroque composers have left for choreographers of later generations to explore). Rarely is the theme of any dance work so intensely stitched in to every move by every dancer —here in the large cast, solely female. The solo created specially for Kirby Selchow is danced with stunning strength and commitment, and one can only salute and remember that. How good would it be to make a film of this work.
I cannot help but be reminded of Soldatenmis, by Jiří Kylián, one of the world’s leading choreographers programmed here in the 1990s by Matz Skoog. That had a large cast, solely male, unless a female (Joan of Arc) had to step up at the last minute to replace an injured player, as did, most memorably, happen here in both of the seasons Skoog staged.
(Local readers, take note of the film in the current Documentary Film Festival—Return to the Strange Land, by and about Kylian—a single screening only, Sunday 27 July, at The Roxy, in a small theatre, inexplicably not yet sold out twice over).
A young audience member quietly said after seeing this work—’That’s the first ballet I’ve seen that doesn’t sexualise a woman waiting and waiting for some man to come and put his hands around her waist and twirl her round and round on the spot. It reminds me of karate. That was amazing.’
For some in the audience this will have been their favourite work of the evening. Count me in.
A conversation between Kirby Selchow and Jennifer Shennan on the International Draft Works program held in April 2026, Linbury Theatre, London
The Royal New Zealand Ballet was one of the nine companies invited to take part in the Royal Ballet UK’s International Draft Works in an April 2026 season at Linbury Theatre, London. The initiative for this project—to assemble draft or new works from emerging choreographers within select companies, for shared performances and following workshops—was first proposed back in 2020 when Amanda Skoog was on the staff at Royal Ballet UK. The project back then had to be cancelled at the very last minute due to Covid lockdowns. Now these six years later, it has been revived by the Royal Ballet and is back on track. Dancers are nothing if not resilient.
The participating companies were Northern Ballet, Ballet d’Jérri (from Jersey Island), Royal Danish Ballet, the National Ballet of Japan, Paris Opera Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, the Royal Ballet, Norwegian National Ballet, and Royal New Zealand Ballet. That’s quite a line-up, bringing together citizens of what I like to think of as the country called Ballet. It may not be geographically defined by national boundaries, but nonetheless shares so many connections between key players, teachers, choreographers, as to earn them passports to an international community. The world could do with more of those.
I spoke with Kirby Selchow, one of the four RNZB dancers involved (the others were Ana Gallardo Lobaina, Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson and Kihiro Kusukami).They performed Ultra Folly, choreographed by Sarah Foster-Sproull, to the music of La Folia, recorded by Jordi Savall with Hesperion XXI. (The same work will also form part of the triple bill to be performed mid-year in a New Zealand national tour).
Kirby was intrigued when I showed her the baroque dance notation of Folies d’Espagne, choreographed in 1704 by Louis Pécour, to music by Jean-Baptise Lully—which in turn had inspired the choreography of Ultra Folly. Kirby hopes some day to learn that original dance, and is game to take on playing the castanets that will also entail. Another item that caught her eye as we were sitting in the dance library at The Long Hall was the seminar booklet given to me by Charles Mudry, formerly guest ballet-master at RNZB back in Matz Skoog’s era. The impeccably prepared notes of his gradated series of classes from first to fifth year of ballet training was an eye-opener to Kirby as she began to devour it. ‘Of course you can borrow the book Kirby—that’s why Charles bothered to write it down in the first place’).
RNZB had performed at the Linbury Theatre back in 2015 when on tour with Francesco Ventriglia as director, with A Midsummer Night’s Dream as well as a triple bill, on a tour to Italy, and UK including Scotland… so it was something of déjà vu for Kirby to be performing there again. She was thrilled to be involved and enjoyed stimulating interactions with the dancers of other companies. On a tour of Royal Ballet studios she by happy chance sighted her close colleague New Zealander Loughlan Prior, formerly with RNZB, choreographing on fellow-Australian dancer Steven McRae (see A Resilient Man—a documentary worth watching).
Participating dancers in International Draft Works were also invited to watch Alchemies, a triple bill of works by Wayne McGregor—further resonance there, since Kirby had been cast in a leading role in McGregor’s Infra, which RNZB performed here in 2024. (I had reviewed that program for Dance Europe, so it proved another bonus that the Opera House bookshop had the current issue of Dance Europe on display, this one with my review of RNZB in Alice Topp’s Macbeth from earlier this year. Big world, small world, in that country called Ballet.
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Kirby was born in Perth in 1992. Ballet, jazz and tap classes in young childhood was followed by vocational training in a secondary school of the performing arts, then five years at Australian Ballet School in Melbourne. Upon graduation, Ethan Stiefel offered her a contract with RNZB which she joined in 2014. She has been here ever since and is now a leading soloist in the Company.
Kirby’s latest challenge was to be cast as Banquo in Alice Topp’s Macbeth. A female Banquo? Well, why not. Are there not some females in high places in politics, who have the ear if not the trust of the King, at least until things start to go horribly wrong? I did not see her perform in that role but Ian Lochhead of Christchurch was most impressed by her interpretation, saying he was convinced by a female Banquo from her first appearance, as though Shakespeare had written it so.
Kirby has long been a stand-out member of RNZB, and she remains one to watch for her technical strengths and dramatic mastery of character. The role of her dreams would be Manon, and you can believe that.
Matz Skoog was instrumental in strengthening and developing the art and profession of dance in New Zealand during his term as Artistic Director of Royal New Zealand Ballet (1996–2001). His wife, New Zealander Amanda Skoog, was General Manager (2006–2015) and Matz was at times ballet master or rehearsal director during that term as well. There is a fine tribute to him on RNZB website.
A major interview in 2022 in the Dance Legends series hosted by English dance critic Ismene Brown (on Youtube) covers Matz’ childhood vocational training at the Royal Swedish Ballet school, his studies at the Kirov Ballet in St.Petersburg, his performing career with RSB then with English National Ballet (ENB), with Nederlands Dans Theater, Rambert Dance Company, and in several projects with Rudolf Nureyev and with Mary Skeaping. Following his term with RNZB, he was Artistic Director back at ENB from 2001–2005.
In New Zealand Matz took on management challenges with a sense of adventure while masking the hard work entailed. He always acknowledged a team effort, giving generous credit to John Page and then Sue Paterson as General Managers, and Kit Toogood as Chair of the Board. The shift to a permanent home in purpose-renovated premises of the St.James Theatre marked a milestone, and the move to direct Government funding, away from the previous Arts Council application-based funding, enabled a new era in the company’s long-term planning.
It is clear that his European training and experiences had given Matz a secure understanding of how dance heritage could contribute in contemporary times, without holding on to old history for its own sake and in this he was a both/and not an either/or man. He had no time for the ‘Control & Command’ management of some world ballet companies or schools, adopting instead an ‘Engage and Encourage’ approach in his own style of directing. He dropped the Company’s rankings of Principal, Soloist, etc., preferring to encourage the dancers to develop their individual qualities and strengths. He always wanted virtuosity to serve expression, not vice versa, and lamented that extremes of technique often replaced the poetry of alignment and épaulement.
Matz found a deep rapport in Russell Kerr whose choreographic vision and output he greatly respected. He explains in the Legends interview why he and Russell found the old divide between ‘Classical’ and ‘Contemporary’ no longer necessary or helpful for dancers today, insisting that ‘Excellence’ was the only goal. This was borne out in the broadened repertoire of new works Matz commissioned from New Zealand choreographers—not only Russell Kerr but also Douglas Wright, Michael Parmenter, Shona McCullagh, and from Eric Languet. Many Company dancers were encouraged to make work for emerging choreographic seasons.
The indelibly powerful Soldatenmis, by Jiri Kylian, to Martinu’s Mass for an Unknown Soldier, proved one of the strongest works the company ever performed. The cast requires all the company’s male dancers in full muster, a kind of resonance with the haka taparahi of Maori tradition. [When one of the male dancers was injured, Matz cast the petite and wonderful Pieter Symonds as replacement, which brought echoes of Elizabeth 1, or Joan of Arc, to the stage. In a later return season, again an injured male dancer was replaced, this time by Laura Saxon-Jones, who proved memorable in the role.]
Matz himself was an inspiring teacher but also invited his long-standing friend and colleague Charles Mudry for teaching residencies at RNZB. (They both understood why a dance critic might want to study the forging of dancers in daily class in the studio rather than rely solely on fleeting performances in the theatre so, lucky me, I was invited to watch those masterclasses every day for a month. Mudry might be the best ballet master in Europe, certainly the most musical, so, even luckier me, I later watched him teach at Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen—different dancers, same gem of a class, meticulous attention to every gesture and every note of music, immaculately prepared, luminously communicated. We watched RDB perform Neumeier’s heart-rending ballet The Little Mermaid, but when I asked Charles which choreographer in any time or place had moved him most, his reply was instant—‘Pina Bausch of course’.) Charles and Matz were as brothers.
Other highlights of Matz’ term, all illustrated on RNZB’s website, included the national Tutus on Tour programmes which re-traced the countrywide itineraries of the Company’s early years under founding director Poul Gnatt in 1950s. The powerful Dracula gave stellar roles to leading dancers Ou Lu and Pieter Symonds, and audiences cried for more. The spirited season of Ihi FreNZy combined the Maori cultural group, Te Mātārae i Orehu, as Act One, with Mark Baldwin’s choreography to a set of songs by Split Enz, as Act Two. The project had involved a stay on the marae in Rotorua for the whole company which was an impressive step in the development of bi-cultural awareness and respect in a dance context. In the resulting performance, at the end of a forceful first act, Te Mātārae’s leader moved forward with careful steps of takahia to place a kiwi feather downstage centre just as the curtain fell. It was a small gesture but a poignant one, birds of a feather (it was probably swept up in the curtain hem, it might be still there for all we know) but in the combined haka of all Te Mātārae and RNZB at the final curtain call, you couldn’t tell by the end of the tour which dancer was from which troupe. (I see Shannon Dawson and Geordan Wilcox among them yet).
Matz continued to stay in touch with many dancers and colleagues years after he had worked with them, and remained ready to offer help and advice in his later years as coach and mentor.
The Legends interview includes an excerpt from Swansong by Christopher Bruce in which Matz had created the role of The Interrogator, in a chilling portrayal of the psychological torture to which many individuals are subjected in a range of political and social situations. He is mesmerising in the role. (I watched it on the day that the cause of Navalny’s death was revealed to the world—and the day that Obama spoke to oppose ICE and in support of protestors in Minneapolis. The theme of a choreography like Swansong is, unfortunately, always contemporary).
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I penned five different paragraphs to begin this obituary but deleted them all, since a cv full of dates and place names can’t begin to do justice to the ready smile and twinkling eye, the wit, friendship and optimism in the man. He was lively, spirited, and so generously ready to help. He respected the work of others and would tell them as much, making the world a better place. He coached Baroque dance in The Long Hall, intrigued that we were working from centuries-old dance notations, and coaxed a 400-year-old sarabande from a bud into a bloom. How can he be dead?
Matz’ last ‘letter to the world’ that he emailed to friends and colleagues only a fortnight before he died was poignant, honest, gracious, grateful, heartbreaking but not heart-broken, and still managed to carry the hallmark humour he was renowned for. In it he accepted the inevitable, but also quoted from Peter Pan, the brilliant ballet he had commissioned for RNZB from Russell Kerr—‘I do believe in fairies, I do believe in fairies.’ We could have replied ‘You don’t need to believe in fairies. They exist’ as Matz is now one of the spirit people hovering to remind us of all that he did, and to remember him for a long time to come.
One can only send heartfelt and deepest sympathies to his wife Amanda, and sons Sam and Louis, in the untimely loss of such a loved husband and father—and to his many worldwide friends and colleagues who respected and appreciated him immeasurably, none more so than in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Haere rā, e hoa mā, haere haere atu. Kua hinga te tõtara i te wao nui a Tāne. (Farewell, dear friend, go now. A tōtara tree has fallen in the great forest of Tāne).
Sources: Amanda Skoog, RNZB, Anne Rowse, Keith McEwing, Ismene Brown, Daniel Belton, Lily Bones
Numerous illustrations of works mentioned are in A Time to Dance Jennifer Shennan [Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2003], and Royal New Zealand Ballet at 60 Jennifer Shennan & Anne Rowse (eds) [Victoria University Press, 2013]. A digital version of both titles is also available.
Sir Jon Trimmer, dancer extraordinaire and leading artist of the Royal New Zealand Ballet for decades, died in October 2023. Yesterday a Tribute to the man and artist was presented in Wellington to a capacity audience at the Opera House. Guest of Honour was Jacqui, Lady Trimmer, also a dancer with RNZB, who was at Jon’s side throughout his 60 year performance career
The event was designed and prepared by Turid Revfeim, former dancer with Company, and more recently artistic director of her independent Ballet Collective Aotearoa.
We were reminded of the extraordinary range of Jonty’s roles in spoken tributes, photo images, film excerpts of him dancing, and live performances by current members of RNZB. Jon had danced in all the classics—(his favourite was Albrecht, and we also saw film of him as the visionary poet in Les Sylphides). In dramatic roles there were so many favourites but let’s mention Friar Lawrence and Duke of Verona in Christopher Hampson’s Romeo and Juliet; the debauched King in André Prokovsky’s Königsmark; Dr Coppélius in Russell Kerr’s Coppélia; the stunning Swan in Bernard Hourseau’s Carmina Burana; a compelling toa/warrior in Gaylene Sciascia’s Moko; the enigmatic Man in Ashley Killar’s No Exit; and the poignant Leopold in Gray Veredon’s Wolfgang Amadeus—in a duet-minuet with the inimitable Eric Languet. In comedy roles Jon relished Stepmother in Cinderella, Pantalone in Veredon’s The Servant of Two Masters, The Matron in Gary Harris’ The Nutcracker, and goofing through the title role in Harris’ Don Quixote.
All those memories are worth gold, but it’s apparent to anyone who thinks about it that Gray Veredon was/is New Zealand’s exceptional choreographer with a unique imagination, style and sensibility. Jon was 41 when he first danced the outrageously wonderful solo as The Entertainer in Veredon’s Ragtime Dance Company. No one on the planet ever did or could match that performing. At age 80 Veredon is still active on the international choreographic stage, with recent successes in Warsaw and Venice, and now in Mexico. How fine and fitting it would be for RNZB to re-stage some of his stellar works—perhaps Firebird and Tell Me A Tale for starters.
In 2006 Peter Coates directed and produced a wonderful documentary of Jon’s career from which excerpts were screened. How wonderful to see and hear Russell Kerr in such good voice analysing Jon’s talents. The film will be a valuable resource for years to come.
Tributes were received from former artistic directors of RNZB—Harry Haythorne (by proxy from Mark Keyworth), Ashley Killar, Patricia Rianne, Gary Harris, Matz Skoog, Ethan Stiefel and Francesco Ventriglia—and were read by Anne Rowse, former director of New Zealand School of Dance.
Breathing stopped when Helen Moulder started a cameo from her poignant play, Meeting Karpovsky, that she and Jon performed many times. How could she do that with half the cast missing? But suddenly there was Kim Broad who quietly appeared from the shadows in a miraculous summoning of Jon’s presence. That was the true moment of theatre in the whole event.
The next Russell Kerr Lecture in Ballet & Related Arts, the sixth in the annual series, to be held in Wellington on Sunday 25 February 2024, will be all about Jon Trimmer. Turid Revfeim is the main presenter, with a number of other contributors, and we will also screen the complete Coates’ documentary. For those readers able and interested to attend, please email jennifershennan@xtra.co.nz for an invitation.
We are already thinking ahead that 2025’s lecture will be on Gray Veredon. Perhaps the year after that might be Eric Languet?
