Moving Still 

"Moving still" is an installation consisting of eight life-size 
sculptures of dancers who were scanned 3-dimensionally. 
I have asked these dancers, with whom I worked for many 
years, if they would participate in this project and whether 
they would be willing to be scanned nude in 3D, printed in 
life-size and publicly exhibited.

The dancers are Lorraine Blouin, Cora Bos Kroese, Valentina 
Scaglia, Shirley Esseboom, David Krügel, Ken Ossola, Stefan 
Żeromski and Michael Schumacher.

I would also like to mention that in the realization of this 
project, Patrick Marin (former dancer of NDT) is my assistant 
for this project and that he accompanied me on every step 
of the process and also my manager Carmen Thomas who 
helped me realizing it with great care and understanding. 
Finally I wish to mention Kateřina Hanáčková, who became the 
driving force behind the physical realization of the sculptures, 
their presentation in Prague and the major organizer of two 
performances at the National Theatre connected to this event.

The project:

Since years I am fascinated with movement in general and 
moving inside or outside of a space in particular. The life-size 
3D prints of these dancers should be situated either inside of 
the big windows or outside - or they should be caught just in 
the midst of their flight through the windows with their bodies 
cut in half - one part inside and the other outside. 

I started working on this project in October 2021 in the middle 
of the pandemic. At that time we were not allowed to move 
anywhere. That is why I gave my work the title "Moving still". 
It is an installation of motionless sculptures flying through 
space between life and death. Their bodies are marked with 
cuts and wounds...

I am a choreographer since many years and movement has 
obviously always preoccupied me. But working on this project, 
I have realized that neither a living dancer nor his static 3D 
print ever stands still. Nothing ever stands still...

But movement and stillness in choreography was not the only 
inspiration for this project. I was equally inspired by the 
sculptures of the deceased people of Pompeii who died in 
October 79 AD when mount Vesuvius erupted. This tragedy 
happened 1974 years ago and still today these motionless 
sculptures move us deeply.

Jiří Kylián - Den Haag, January, 2024