Car Men

The Elegance Series is a collection of breathtaking Ballet performances from internationally renowned houses with well-loved Dance Stars. They feature productions by the greatest choreographers that we know today and of course the legacy of the legendary Marius Petipa. Exactly 20 years separate Jirˇí Kylián’s solo Silent Cries and his black-and-white fi lm, Car Men, made in 2006 in collaboration with the Dutch fi lmmaker, Boris Paval Conen. What unites the two works is the sheer expressiveness of the dance on the one hand, and the distinctive facial gestures and body language of the dancer Sabine Kupferberg on the other. Kupferberg is the one who pulls the strings in Car Men, victim and plotter in equal measure, prepared at all times to stand up to life’s problems – as well as to her three co-actors Escamillo, Don José and Micaëla – with humour and enigmatic wit. And so at the end of Kylián’s unusual, slapstick-like tragicomedy, she simply abandons her three colleagues, self-assured and incorrigible – just like her role model Carmen.