Edition: U.S. / Global

DANCE: THIS WEEK; Supple Turns Slightly Surreal

Published: March 7, 2004

IN Jiri Kylian's ''Claude Pascal,'' four dancers in Edwardian dress brandish a fan, a tennis racket, a ball and a walking stick while discoursing intermittently on subjects like constipation and immortality. Then they abruptly disappear through revolving mirrored doors, giving way to the slow, knotty acrobatics of a couple, he in tights and bare-chested, she in a corseted leotard.

Mr. Kylian, who was born in Czechoslovakia and created an international reputation for the Nederlands Dans Theater during his 25 years as its artistic director, is fond of such quirky juxtapositions and doesn't much like to explain them. ''The moment there is a living dancer onstage, there is drama, feeling, emotion,'' said the soft-spoken and courteous Mr. Kylian, 56, from The Hague, where the troupe is based. ''You can make up your own mind what it's all about.''

On Tuesday, the company -- now run by Anders Hellstrom -- will make its first New York appearance since 1999 and show audiences what Mr. Kylian has been up to since he stepped down as director that year. (He now holds the title of artistic adviser and remains the company's chief choreographer.) It will present two programs at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, featuring four American premieres of Mr. Kylian's most recent works, including ''Claude Pascal,'' as well as one of his most famous early pieces, ''Symphony of Psalms,'' from 1978. (The program will also include the American premiere of Johan Ingers's ''Walking Mad.'')

Mr. Kylian's choreography is marked by fluidity and suppleness of movement, but the newer works show that over the last few years he has moved away from the lyrical, semi-narrative forms of his earlier works toward a more abstract, somewhat surreal idiom. (He has also moved away from classical scores; all the new works are set to minimal compositions by Dirk Haubrich.) His pieces nonetheless retain a characteristic emotional intensity and beauty that has probably allowed him to seduce more nondance goers into paying attention to the stage than any other choreographer around.

Mr. Kylian's vocabulary has always drawn on his ballet training (he went to the Royal Ballet School and danced with the Stuttgart Ballet before joining Nederlands Dans Theater), but he also incorporates the less ethereal, physically rooted aspects of other dance forms. His dancers can appear touchingly human and vulnerable even within the sleek lines of an ensemble piece like ''Symphony of Psalms.''

Mr Kylian describes this work, which has always remained in the company's repertory, as an ambassador for the troupe, but he confesses to being more interested in his recent pieces. ''It's like having children,'' he said. ''You are always more focused on the newborn, discovering what qualities it has.''


Nederlands Dans Theater

Brooklyn Academy of Music. Tuesday-Wednesday, Friday-next Sunday.

Photos: Members of the Nederlands Dans Theater performing Jiri Kylian's 1978 work ''Symphony of Psalms.'' (Photographs by Joris-Jan Bos)