‘I must have done something right!’: dance master Jiří Kylián on his festival, fierce critics and the Ministry of Silly Walks

At 78, the great choreographer is enjoying a career-spanning celebration in Oslo. He reflects on his leap from dance to visual art and why he feels snubbed by Britain

A gang of young dancers, their black costumes offset by colourful hats, cascade down the sloping roof of Oslo’s opera house for a jubilant routine to a Prince song by the waterfront. The building’s huge glass facade has become an unlikely stage for sculptures, digitally scanned from dancers’ bodies, positioned as if they are plunging into the building like the nearby bathers in the fjord. Inside, there’s an eclectic bill of ballets including one inspired by a painting from the Edvard Munch museum next door. In the wings of the theatre is an installation drawing on the Buddhist Zen symbol ensō. The studio space is screening short films veering from slapstick to the profound.

But this sprawling festival, spanning more than two weeks and then partially touring, has a singular focus. These are all works by Jiří Kylián, the Czech choreographer-cum-renaissance man, who in one pre-show discussion declares himself “the happiest boy in the world”. There has never been such a celebration of his work and, he suggests with wry self-effacement, there will probably never be another.

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