No Sleep till Dawn of Day

The music I chose for this choreography, is a lullaby from 
the Solomon Islands. The name of this song is “Nyuba nunuli”. 
The diverse musical culture of these Islands, close to New 
Guinea, are characterized by the great importance given to 
polyphony. Savo is a small volcanic island of four miles in 
diameter. Unlike the other islands, the traditional music of 
Savo is purely vocal. In this lullaby, a vocalist asks the baby 
not to cry or be afraid, even though she has neither arms to 
carry anything, nor legs to stroll with. It is the song of the 
'snake-woman', a figure of oral literature, also known else-
where in that part of the world.

The islands of the Southern Pacific are some of the most 
remote places on our planet. They hold a key to the under-
standing of our ancestry - places where man is still in close 
touch with his natural surroundings and totally dependent 
on them - places far enough from us to preserve some of 
the essential aspects of human existence - but unfortunately 
also far enough to be abused by experiments with nuclear 
weapons.

This dichotomy - this schizophrenic compulsion to preserve 
and to destroy - seems to be part of the human nature.

                    Jiří Kylián