Land, the basis and centre of human existence
In comparison to Benjamin Britten, Jiří Kylián sees Sinfonia da Requiem as a work of a more personal than political character. It is always people who determine the political scene; it is likewise people and nature who always turn the wheel of evolution a little further. Britten was born in East Anglia, where the English coastline is slowly being submerged by the sea. Together with a painting by Edvard Munch, the image of land being taken over by the sea was the primary inspiration for the choreography of Forgotten Land. Land, the basis and centre of human existence, eternally subject to metamorphosis and mutation; lands that have borne the imprints of successive generations from ancient times onward; lands in human memory that had to be forgotten due to political struggle; lands destroyed by nature or human negligence; wishful lands which have emerged only in our dreams; lands of promise and illusion.
