Petite Mort

Visual surprises abound in this tantalizing contemporary ballet that blends a classical sensibility with a bold, modern wit. The choreography includes six men, six women, and six fencing foils. The foils are, in many ways, the men's real dancing partners, and sometimes turn out to be more stubborn and willful than a human partner. Jiří Kylián also makes playful use of black baroque dresses, which seem to exist both separately from the dancers and molded to their bodies. 

A Czech native, Kylián—“one of the most influential choreographers of the last thirty years” (The New York Times)—originally created this piece for the 1991 Salzburg Festival to mark the second centenary of the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Kylián set his work to two of Mozart’s most popular piano concertos (Nos. 21 and 23), and the gorgeous, slow movements of these concertos serve as a counterpoint to the onstage jousting and coupling.