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Steps ahead

A young Czech choreographer looks beyond the classics

By Brooke Edge
For The Prague Post
November 28th, 2007 issue

Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST
It pays to play hooky from hockey. Though disappointing his coach father, Tomáš Rychetský has brought a fluid athleticism to his choreography.
Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST
Seeing Tomáš Rychetský offstage, most people probably wouldn’t peg him as a member of the National Theater Ballet. His long, spiky hair and sculpted facial hair (which must demand a good deal of upkeep) don’t scream ballet.
Yet Rychetský, 29, stands out in Prague’s dance scene precisely for breaking convention and escaping definition. The works he’s choreographed and presented at the National Theater — notably his gut-wrenchingly gorgeous “Zlomené sny” (Broken Dreams) in last spring’s Miniatures and his commissioned contribution to this season’s Czech Ballet Symphony – push the boundaries of traditional ballet, while captivating and enchanting audiences with their seemingly contradictory roots of primal urges and delicate human frailty.
Raised in the town of Jihlava, Rychetský took a circuitous path to his current career in ballet.
At the age of 11, he had to break the news to his father that he wanted to give up hockey — the sport his father had coached him in throughout his childhood — for dance.  
“It was really hard for my father,” Rychetský recalls. His family, never too interested in the arts, took some time to adjust to the idea.  
“I started out being interested in breakdancing, street style,” he says. To hone that skill he enrolled in contemporary dance lessons, then began experimenting with ballet. At 18, he moved to Prague to study dance at the Prague Conservatory. It was a late start for a dancer, Rychetský admits, but his years of hockey training had resulted in a fit physique and a mind used to intense concentration.
At the Conservatory, Rychetský first tried his hand at choreography. It wasn’t a burst of inspiration — all students were obligated to do so. But the practice stuck, and began to be as important to Rychetský as performing. He moved on to the (now-defunct) Prague Chamber Ballet, then four seasons ago joined the National Theater Ballet.
“I’m here, but it’s really hard sometimes to [dance] classical ballet,” he says with a sigh. His initial love of contemporary dance is still where his heart resides, but that infatuation is well-matched in the National Theatre Ballet’s artistic director, Petr Zuska, no slave to classical convention himself. At both the Prague Chamber Ballet and the National Theatre Ballet, Rychetský has performed in numerous works by Zuska.
A modern bent
Zuska’s most recent endorsement of Rychetský’s untraditional take on ballet came in his request that the young choreographer create one of only two original pieces for Czech Ballet Symphony. In that program, Rychetský’s “The Unsaid Silent” shares the stage with works by Zuska and world-renowned Czech choreographer Jiří Kylián.  
“It was a really big challenge for me,” says Rychetský. “I had a big responsibility. It was the first piece I made for a big company, and the premiere was in a big theater.”  
The result is an impressive work featuring three women seemingly trapped in two rooms on stage. Their alternating intense and languid movements within these spaces generate an ambiance rife with interpretation as to what’s really going on beneath the surface — as is the case with many Rychetský creations.  
“For ‘Unsaid Silent’ I have a story, but it’s from my life…when I lost my heart,” he says. His depiction of an onstage internal argument (it’s a fight between “yes and no,” he explains, where “something has to win at the end”) has left many viewers guessing at different meanings. More than a few people, he says, have asked if it was about suicide.  
Interpretations of his work that deviate from the initial concept don’t bother him. In fact, quite the opposite; Rychetský says they please him, because he’s created something others can reflect upon.
“I think that his choreographies are very melancholic and introvert[ed], with a big accent on accuracy and cleanness,” says Natalie Benyovszká, a former classmate of Rychetský’s from the Conservatory and current colleague dancing for the National Theater.
Rychetský remains tirelessly active in the modern dance scene as well. He and David Stránský, a friend from home who now dances at Laterna Magika, founded TODAnce Company, an open association of professional dancers made up largely of other artists from the former Prague Chamber Ballet.  
His day job spent with classical ballet “was the reason for me to make a small company and do what I want,” Rychetský explains. The company tours around the Czech Republic (and recently went to Moscow) as part of  Rychetský’s efforts to build up modern dance skills and interest in his home country.  
“It’s really hard here — there’s no real modern company,” he says. “Maybe sometimes I want to make some [larger company], but it’s very hard with the money.” Plus, he adds, the audience isn’t quite there yet. “When we have Swan Lake, we have a full house” at the National Theater, he notes. The crowds are noticeably smaller for contemporary works like Zuska’s Solo for Three, which premiered in May.
Ondřej Kotrč, TODAnce’s manager, agrees that “the level of this kind of art here is not that competitive with the works abroad. But I think that there was really big progress during [the] last 10-15 years. And there are a few interesting individuals who are creating remarkable works, and could be compared with recognized European  authors. I believe Tom Rychetský is one of those people.”
As he builds upon his potential in the ballet and modern worlds, Rychetský is excited about yet another new attempt to bring his indefinable brand of dance to audiences in Prague. Going from the gilded salons of the National Theater to the crumbling halls of Palác Akropolis, he will stage his new work “Morir de Cerveza” (“The Beer Death”) at the rock emporium on Dec. 10. Echoing what took him nearly two decades ago from hockey to breakdancing and finally to ballet, he grins and says of his latest production simply this: “It’s fun.”

Brooke Edge can be reached at tempo@praguepost.com


Other articles in Tempo (28/11/2007):

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