OVERVIEW

Sechs Tänze is a playful and ironic grotesque that also reflects the reality of the world in which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s music was created. For this choreography, Jiří Kylián used Mozart’s German Dances (K. 571). The contrast between the seemingly light character of the score and the weight of historical reality became a key source of inspiration for Kylián.

“Two centuries separate us from the time when Mozart wrote his German Dances. It is a historical period profoundly shaped by wars, revolutions, and all kinds of social upheavals. With this in mind, I found it impossible to simply create a series of dance numbers that would merely mirror the composer’s humour and musical brilliance . . .  Although the entertaining side of Mozart’s German Dances is widely appreciated, they should not be perceived only as burlesque. Their humour should serve as a means of pointing to the relativity of our values,” said Jiří Kylián.

Sechs Tänze was created in 1986 for the Dutch company Nederlands Dans Theater I, where Kylián served as artistic director. The choreography is composed of six short, absurd scenes without a fixed plot or logical continuity. Their “nonsense,” however, is not an end in itself—it reflects a world in which humour functions as a defence against chaos and tension. The work’s grotesque character is further enhanced by costumes and props, including crinolines, period wigs, and an apple. These evoke an idealised image of the Mozart era, deliberately distorted through exaggeration and irony.