Presented in 1995 at the Netherlands Dans Theater, Jiří Kylián's work Bella Figura investigates the complexity of the human body and the poetry of movement through stylized choreography. The original cast includes nine dancers accompanied by a haunting baroque soundtrack by GB Pergolesi, Alessandro Marcello, Antonia Vivaldi and Giuseppe Torelli with neo-baroque contributions by Lukas Foss. Joke Visser's androgynous costumes are complemented by nudity from the waist up for the male and female dancers. Ultimately, Bella Figura constitutes the culmination of influences from Kylián's upbringing in communist Czechoslovakia and the pervasive gender inequalities of the 1990s. Born in 1947 in Prague, Kylián spent his formative years behind the “Iron Curtain” of communism. A year after his birth, the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia and established a communist government, which tore the country apart by spreading censorship, poverty and violence. After several uprisings, a new communist leader, Alexander Dubcek, came to power and began to loosen the cruel hegemony that existed under the Soviet Union (“Researching: Falling Angels,” 2007). Dubcek started the so-called “Prague Spring” with the aim of spreading a more humane version of communism. However, the flourishing era of hope did not last long. On August 21, 1968, Soviet tanks invaded Prague, overthrowing Dubcek and thus taking control of the city (Wagner, 2008, p. 1). The communist regime, with its suffocating conformism and lack of personal freedom, contaminated Kylián's education. As Kylián describes, "The only colors I remember from my youth are gray, brown, and black. And I don't just mean the visual colors; they were also the colors of my feelings. The grim uniformity that was imposed on us... . . middle of paper ...up and inherent similarity. Gender models are successfully erased: men can be feminine and women can be masculine, dancers become asexual bodies on stage, celebrated for their complexity and beauty regardless. of gender Developed in the context of an era in which gender equality struggled to be realized, Bella Figura constructs its own version of gender equality through the homogeneous application of nudity Bella Figura, heavily influenced by Kylián's upbringing in Communist and omnipresent Czechoslovakia about the gender inequalities of the 1990s, it exists as a vast enigma that explores the complexities of the modern body while erasing the gender divide. The work never fully resolves, choosing instead to leave the work ambiguous and porous in resolution for the audience to decide. for themselves how to interpret the paradoxes it presents.