I am both Christian and a Dancer John Sebastian Bach s Matthew Passion has deeply moved me. Bach s musical incarnation of the Passion in both its general and personal aspects created the need in me to fi nd a choreographic equivalent. I am both Christian and a dancer. My whole life, all my thoughts and feelings are dance, and choreography is my real language. That is why I have attempted to express my own religious convictions and experiences in choreographic terms and to organize them in artistic form. In my entire career as a choreographer, I have never known a period in which I enjoyed such complete harmony with the dancers, as I have enjoyed throughout the creation of the St. Matthew Passion. It was a period of learning from one another, of experiencing instinctively together the emotion of text and music, of positive cooperation and concentration. Even if this ballet had never got beyond rehearsals and had never been performed, the process of its creation will remain the most profound experience of my working life. John Neumeier One s imagination can feast on this ballet and its implications, one can become personally involved, but it is diffi cult if not impossible to imagine any other company performing it. It is the unique expression of this man and this company he has forged. Dance Magazine