Version studio, with no light, no set et no costume, presented during  "La Fabrique" : workshops, repertory, video installation and posters  with the Ballet de l'Opéra de Lyon on 10 December 2016 at the CN D in  Pantin.

Question to Yorgos Loukos, Director of the Ballet de l'Opéra de Lyon (2014).

What is your aim in showing Heart’s Labyrinth by Jiří Kylián, a piece from 1984?
When I was deciding on the programme, I immediately thought of this  little-known piece, a very strange ballet that Kylián himself had  removed from his repertoire for years because it was tied to a tragedy in his company, which I won’t go into here. For thirty years, I’ve been  thinking that it was time to show this work again, with his consent. And, as always with Kylián, this dance is extraordinarily fluid, with  simple yet sophisticated movements with a purity that we rarely see  elsewhere.
Performing a Kylián piece makes real sense, especially these days when troupes are handed over to choreographers who use them  to show their works but who have no knowledge of the rest of the repertoire. It’s strange to see that, in the theatre, directors stage  Ibsen and Tchekhov, but in dance, repertoire is under-appreciated. I always wonder, what would become of the history of dance it weren’t for a company like the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon and a few others, though  there are not many of us left.

Source: program of the Biennale de la danse - Lyon 2014

The world-renowned choreographer Jiří Kylián (Czechoslovakia, 1947) has been artistic director and house choreographer for of Nederlands Dans Theater for more than thirty years. Throughout his career Kylián created 75 choreographies for NDT. The piece  "Mémoires d’Oubliettes" marked the end of his work for NDT in 2009. Since then his creative focus has shifted to more small scale projects. Kylián created various other pieces for companies worldwide such as the Stuttgart Ballet, the Paris Opéra, the Munich Bayerisches Staatsballett and the Tokyo Ballet. Kylián received many prestigious, international awards and honours.

Jiří Kylián started his dance career at the age of nine, at the School of the National Ballet in Prague. In 1962 he was accepted as a student at the Prague Conservatory. He left Prague in 1967 when he received a scholarship for the Royal Ballet School in London.  Then he left for the Stuttgart Ballet led by John Cranko, where he made his debut as a choreographer with Paradox for the Noverre Gesellschaft. After having created three ballets for NDT ("Viewers", "Stoolgame" and "La Cathédrale Engloutie"), he became the company’s artistic director in 1975 together with Hans Knill. During the 1978 Charleston Festival in the United States  Kylián put NDT on the international map with Sinfonietta (Leoš Janácek). That year he and Carel Birnie founded NDT 2, which was – and is – meant to offer young dancers the opportunity to develop their skills and talents. In 1991 he initiated NDT 3; a company that created opportunities for ‘older’ dancers. NDT stood out as the first company worldwide that showed the three dimensions of a dancer´s life. After an extraordinary record of service Kylián handed over the artistic leadership in 1999, but remained associated to the dance company as house choreographer until 2009.

Source: Nederlands Dance Theater 's website

More information: ndt.nl/en/home.html

Since 2001, the National Center for Dance (CND) has been making recordings of its shows and educational programming and has created resources from these filmed performances (interviews, danced conferences, meetings with artists, demonstrations, major lessons, symposia specialized, thematic arrangements, etc.).

As early as 1969, when arriving at the head of the “Opéra Nouveau de Lyon”, Louis Erlo gave a key place to dance. For the first time, an opera house outside of Paris consecrated to its ballet company entire events devoted to dance.
Ever since, it has never stopped opening up to every kind of source, be it a stream or a river, close or far, harmonious or stormy. But, whatever the case, always talented. Right from the start, the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon has lived out this vivifying opening to the world, with its first directors, the Italian Vittorio Biagi, then the Yugoslav Milko Speremblek and the New-Zealander Gray Veredon, who were all in the neo-classical, Béjartian movement of the times. 

But, as of 1985, it was Françoise Adret who gave the company a resolutely plural turn. “Mère Adret” as her dancers affectionately called her, had an eye, the gift of the gab and a large address book. Above all, Française had travelled widely and her mission was to give the troop a national and international dimension. She built up a repertory based on a twofold spectrum: great international choreographers who were still little demanded, (and not the least of them, including Jiří Kylián, Mats Ek, Nacho Duato or William Forsythe) and an opportunity given to “young French dance” (Mathilde Monnier, Maryse Delente, or Angelin Preljocaj)… In any troop, there are moments of grace. But, in Lyon, a lightning bolt was to change the course of history. In 1985, no one imagined that a magical doll (Maguy Marin’s Snow White) would provide the company with a world tour, with no fewer than three trips to the USA in just 1987… Three years later, Lyon did it again by creating the famous rereading of Romeo and Juliet by Angelin Prejlocaj. This was a fresh challenge (and, for the choreographer, his first important commission), and another memorable piece. The die was now cast …
When, in 1991, the Greek ballet-master and director Yorkos Loukos replaced Françoise Adret, the trend was set and has continued to thrive until today, with an extremely open-minded “choreographic” palette. Maguy Marin, who had become resident choreographer, set off even more sparks when, in 1993, she inaugurated the new Opéra de Lyon with an offbeat version of Coppélia set in a popular bar in the suburbs of Lyon. With turnings-back towards the history of dance, views of the contemporary scene, visions of what it will be tomorrow, a plurality of styles, the ages of the choreographers, their origins, and backgrounds, the strength of the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon comes from the very absence of any particularity, except if it is the highly diverse repertory as sought out by Yorgos Loukos. It goes without saying that it attracts the public (who love novelty) and today’s young dancers, who like and are used to changes of style. Even the teachers are in constant motion, changing every month, so as to avoid any routine.

Today, the company has a repertory of 117 pieces, over half of which are creations. A list of the choreographers who have worked in Lyon is a reminder of the importance of the pioneers of new French dance (Mathilde Monnier, Jean-Claude Gallotta) and its young cousins (from Jérôme Bel to Christian Rizzo, Alain Buffard or Rachid Ouramdane). It also means meeting the guiding lights of modern American dance (Trisha Brown, Merce Cunningham, Lucinda Childs), from post-classic energy (William Forsythe, Benjamin Millepied) to the "next wave" (such as Otto Ramstad). It means exploring Belgian musicality (de Keersmaeker) Swedish theatricality (Mats Ek), Czech lyricism (Jiří Kylián), or Israeli power (Ohad Naharin, Emanuel Gat). It means getting used to seeing new talents (Tania Carvalho, Alessandro Sciarroni, Marina Mascarell..). It means… being at the confluences of a dance that has never been so open to the world.

Source: Opéra de Lyon 's website

More information : opera-lyon.com