Dear friends,

Yes, I have decided to have a website made. A website which 
will give a fair account of some aspects of my life and my works.
And yes, I am also painfully aware of the fact, that whatever 
we do or make is doomed to disappearance, and that our 
"Planet Earth" will be burnt to ashes and then frozen to death 
and finally it will become a totally insignificant dwarf within 
the universe. 
And if some beings from distant galaxies will by chance 
stumble over it, they will find nothing - nothing at all - no 
trace of Mozart, Shakespeare, Leonardo or you... But maybe 
precisely because of this knowledge, I find it important to 
"live in the moment" and to share my experiences with you.

Why this website..? I wanted to have this website made - not in 
order to glorify my achievements or in order to build myself a 
grave stone. No, I wanted you to have the best and the most 
original information to your disposal, as I see many misleading 
statements and much misinformation concerning my work,
scattered throughout the "digital world". 
So here it is: I have tried to keep all these informations simple 
and easily understandable. But paradoxically this proved to be 
quite complicated. I have tried to supply you with the basic 
information concerning my work and the work of the people
who worked closely with me and who have made it all possible...
and there were many... You will find their names and their 
functions in this website. You will be able to see photos and 
videos of many of these people...
But here I must apologize: the people, who are on these photos 
or videos are not always the people with whom I have created 
these works. There are several reasons for this:

1) Sometimes there are no photos or videos of the original casts. 
    But maybe you have them in your possession, in which case 
    I would be grateful if you would contact me.
2) On occasions, the videos of the original cast are of such poor
    quality, that showing them would do no service to the dancers
    or to myself.
3) In several cases I have decided to show later versions of my
    choreographies, because they represent my better 
    understanding of these works.

So in fact I apologize to all the dancers, who feel that they are 
not sufficiently represented within the choice of photographic
or video - material...
But rest assured, that I did my best to give a fair and well balanced 
account of the time we have spent together - time of discovery 
and creation, which might have helped some of us to find a 
certain value and purpose in our lives...

Jiří Kylián - The Hague - May 2012