Aerowaves is a hub for dance discovery in Europe. Each year the Aerowaves network selects 20 of the most promising emerging choreographers, promotes their work, and creates performance opportunities with Aerowaves' Partners.
Apply to Aerowaves and get a chance to have your work programmed by the partners of the network, whether or not you are selected as Aerowaves artists. Around 100 performance opportunities are guaranteed by the partners and supported by Aerowaves each year.
Applications are now open and will close at midnight on 12 September 2017.
Should you be selected as one of the Aerowaves Twenty, your work will be promoted by Aerowaves via its website for one year by an artist profile, with images, video and calendar all in one place.
You may be selected to perform your work at our Spring Forward Festival. We guarantee to programme at least 15 of the current Aerowaves Twenty artists in the festival each year.
Aerowaves is a hub for dance discovery in Europe. Each year the Aerowaves network selects 20 of the most promising emerging choreographers, promotes their work, and creates performance opportunities with Aerowaves' Partners. Apply to Aerowaves and get a chance to have your work programmed by the partners of the network, whether or not you are selected as Aerowaves artists. Around 100 performance opportunities are guaranteed by the partners and supported by Aerowaves each year.
Applications open at 9am on 1 June 2016 and close at midnight on 12 September 2016.
Should you be selected as one of the Aerowaves Twenty, your work will be promoted by Aerowaves via its website for one year by an artist profile, with images, video and calendar all in one place. You may be selected to perform your work at our Spring Forward Festival. We guarantee to programme at least 10 of the current Aerowaves Twenty artists in the festival each year.
Eligibility criteria:
• You must be resident in Europe to apply
• You may apply with only one work per year
• The work you are submitting must have been made in geographical Europe
• Your work must be 15-40 minutes in length
• Your work should be easily included in a double or triple bill and have simple technical requirements
• Work by postgraduate students is eligible, but not work by undergraduates
• You must fill in the Aerowaves application form correctly, upload your video to Vimeo, providing us with the link and the password if necessary and send us the original video file by We Transfer
• Previous Aerowaves applicants, successful or unsuccessful, may apply again - but you cannot apply with the same work twice Should artists be programmed by Aerowaves partners, they will be paid an agreed fee plus travel, accommodation, and per diem.
Dance festivals create intimate, hyperlocal communities where dancers exchange creative processes, pedagogies, finished work, and ideas. NowMeta-academyconnects these communities to each other, and opens them to YOU at HOME or on the road.
IDOCDE (International Documentation of Contemporary Dance Education) organises the 2nd IDOCDE SYMPOSIUM on contemporary dance and its teaching methods at the ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival 2014.
teach me (not)! There are many ways information is being relayed in contemporary dance education settings. Questions around the roles of the dance teacher, the learner and the material arise once opening the thoughts towards this process.
Themed „teach me (not)!“, the 2nd IDOCDE Symposium thus aims to investigate horizontal - or non-hierarchical - learning, use of language and current practices in contemporary dance education and related fields and to look further into the question: How do we teach?
The symposium welcomes everyone interested in contemporary dance and related fields and invites to share teaching practices, questions & ideas around the current teaching of the art form.
1.Sharecreative and critical perspectives. Select choreographers, improvisors, theorists, and pedagogues from the festivals will upload videos of their process, engage in interviews, and participate in google+ hangouts with other artists and members of the Meta-academy community (the first 5 to join the hangout).
2.Movetogether online. Join a google+ hangout and experiment with dance professionals as they try translating their creative practices to the online space.
3.Createinternet-specific work. You’ll be instructed on using some of the best online (free) creative tools to create your own internet-based videos, word clouds, mashups, and more.
4.Joina global community of dancers. When you’re making, talking and learning together, chances are you’ll make friends.
Here’s howyou join.
Create a user profile onwww.dance-tech.netand join the meta-academy group
You’ll get an email with further instructions on how to join our google+ circle so that you can participate in hangouts. You will need to have a Google Plus account.
Back in summer 2011 I pitched the idea of working with Dartington Hall Trust’s Archive Collection to create a web application that would encourage an online audience to engage with the archive creatively. A year on, and with the help of filmmaker Alice Powell, web developer Luke Shumard and composer Ólafur Arnalds, Archived’it is finally here!
We’ve been working with a silent black and white piece of archive footage titled ‘Dance on Steps’ (1934). The film features the enchanting dance and mime student Teda de Moor performing angular and bound movement, swaying back and forth as she progresses up constructed stairs on a stage. Cutting in at just under a minute we set ourselves the task of giving ‘Dance on Steps’ a new lease of life.
I taught myself Teda de Moor’s movement, played around with reacting to it as if she were in the studio with me then created my own choreographic response. Alice filmed the material in a green room then incorporated my response into the original footage.
How it works
The HTML5 web application allows the user to create their own version of ‘Dance on Steps’ using the remixed content. Using a + interface concept, Archived'it has been created purely from open source technology. Ólafur’s music will automatically attach itself to your film; so it’s up to you how much of the track you use.
The idea is once arranged to your liking, save and share!
One response to digitised archive
Jaron Lanier states in his inspired book ‘You Are Not A Gadget’ (2011)
“Ironically, advertising is now singled out as the only form of expression meriting genuine commercial protection in the new world to come. Any other form of expression is to be remashed, anonymized, and decontextualized to the point of meaninglessness”
I’d like to think with Archived’it we have been able to find one way of ‘remashing’ with meaning. We have taken a piece of incomplete archive footage, the author lost to time, and deconstructed/re-imagined the 55 seconds of content into an artistic statement that has not only been informed by the past but responds to a digital future.
Posted by Scott Martin on February 21, 2013 at 10:35pm
Both WDA members and non-members are invited to submit proposals for presenting dance works in performance, presenting scholarly research, holding a panel discussion, conducting a class, or leading choreographic labs.
With Evolve + Involve: Dance as a Moving Question… as the focal point of the event, WDA-A encourages broad investigations into the following questions: How is dance evolving in the 21st century? How are we as artists, educators, and researchers engaged with these emerging developments? With whom and how will we be involved as new practices emerge? How might these new engagements and involvements open further questions for dance’s future? With these questions in mind, we urge participants to propose new possibilities for the many different modes of presenting, experiencing, producing, and teaching dance. Proposals need not be limited to or by the Conference and Festival’s theme, which should be considered as a catalyst for discussion rather than a restraint.
World Dance Alliance – Americas (WDA-A) is delighted to announce our 2013 Conference and Festival will be held July 29 – August 4, 2013 at the Scotiabank Dance Centre in beautiful Vancouver, BC, Canada. This event is hosted by WDA-A in conjunction with the 2013 Dance Critics Association Conference with support from Texas Woman’s University Department of Dance, University of Wisconsin-Madison Dance Department, and the Dance Centre.
from 12th to 16th November Núria Font Audiovisual tools for dance: dance video, creation process, documentation from 11.30 to 15.00
Barcelona-based video maker and curator. Director of cultural projects related to video, videodance and electronic arts.: http://www.nu2s.org/eng/index.php
Fees
from 12 to 16 November - 170,00 €
* 10 % discount for associates to professional dance associations
RESIDENCY PROGRAM 2012/2013 at K3 – Zentrum für Choreographie | Tanzplan Hamburg
Deadline: September 15, 2011
For the sixth time K3 – Zentrum für Choreographie | Tanzplan Hamburg is offering an eight-month residency to three emerging choreographers. The applicants should have already created their own artistic works. Duration of the residency is August 2012 to April 2013. The residency includes amongst others, a monthly grant, a production budget as well as a qualifying course program.
It´s also open for international choreographers.
For further information about the residency program and the required application material, please visitwww.k3-hamburg.deRead more…
In While We Were Holding It Together, a tribute to the power of the imagination, Ivana Müller subjects notions of body and mind, and the relationship between the two, to a closer inspection. This results in a poetic, humoristic and philosophical production that draws the audience into Müller’s clear logic. While We Were Holding It Together creates images in becoming, always changing, depending on who is looking. Is it a rock band on tour? A picnic in the forest? A hotel room in Bangkok? We look, imagine and re-invent while searching for what is hidden and for what we want to see.
Created in 2006, the piece has been shown more than 70 times in festivals and venues in Europe, the United States and Asia. In 2007, While We Were Holding It Together won two prizes at Impulse Festival (DE). The jury of this internationally renowned festival awarded the performance with the first prize for the best off-theater production as well as the prize of the Goethe Institute.
The piece was also nominated for the 2007 VSCD mime-prize, which is the annual prize of the collaboration of Dutch theaters and concert halls for the best show of the year in the category of physical theater.
The piece exists in the original English version and, since November 2008, also in a French version.
Concept, direction: Ivana Müller
Performance: Katja Dreyer/Sarah van Lamsweerde/ Albane Aubry, Pere Faura/Ricardo Santana/ Arnaud Cabias, Karen Røise Kielland/ Hester van Hasselt/Anne Lenglet, Stefan Rokebrand/Jobst Schnibbe/ Geert Vaes/ Sébastien Chatelier, Jefta van Dinther/Bill Aitchison/ Julien Fallée – Ferré
Text : Ivana Müller, Bill Aitchison, Katja Dreyer, Pere Faura, Karen Røise Kielland, Stefan Rokebrand, Jefta Dinther. Artistic advice : Bill Aitchison Sound design : Steve Heather Light design & technics : Martin Kaffarnik
While We Were Holding It Together is produced by LISA and I’M’COMPANY, in co-production with Sophiensaele Berlin (DE), Productiehuis Rotterdam / Rotterdamse Schouwburg (NL), Dubbelspel (30CC and STUK Kunstencentrum Leuven, BE).
This project is financially supported by the Nederlands Fonds voor de Podiumkunsten and the Mondriaan Stichting.
Ivana Müller is a choreographer, artist and author of texts. She grew up in Croatia but most of her life lived and worked as a foreigner.
Müller’s dance and theatre performances, installations, text works, video-lectures, audio pieces, guided tours and web works have been presented in venues and festivals such as Rotterdamse Schouwburg, STUK Leuven, brut Vienna, Frascati Theater Amsterdam, Kampnagel Hamburg, La Villette Paris, Wiener Festwochen, Theatertreffen Berlin, DTW New York, National Museum of Singapore, Saddler’s Wells London, Springdance Festival Utrecht, HAU Berlin, Centre nationale de danse Paris, Kaaitheater Brussels (for a more extensive list of works and venues please look at the page WORKS).
Some of the recurring subjects in Müller’s work are body and it’s representation, self-invention, place of imaginary and imagination, notion of authorship and the relationship between performer and spectator.
In 2007 Müller received the Charlotte Koehler Prize from the Prins Bernhard Funds (NL) for her œuvre, as well as Impulse Festival and Goethe Institute Prize for her piece While We Were Holding It Together.
Ivana Müller is one of the founding members of LISA (2004 – 2009), a collaborative production and discursive platform based in Amsterdam.
Ivana Müller lives in Paris and Amsterdam and works internationally.
References
Maaike Bleeker: Thinking Through Theatre Published in Deleuze and Performance. Edited by Laura Cull, Edinburgh University Press, 2009
Maaike Bleeker. “You Better Think!. Het denk-theater van Ivana Müller en Carly Wijsz/Ryszart Turbiasz” in: Theater Topics 2: De Maker als onderzoeker. Edited by Maaike Bleeker, Lucia van Heteren, Chiel Kattenbelt and Kees Vuyk. Amsterdam University Press, 2006
Jörg Huber/Gesa Zimer/Simon Zumsteg: Archipele des Imaginären Institut für Theorie(ith) und Voldemeer AG, Zürich Springer-Verlag Wien New York, 2009
World premiere: 17.-19.10.2008 @ 19:30 Dom im Berg, Graz
In 1 poor and one 0 BADco. returns to the scene of the first film ever shot – Workers Leaving The Lumiere Factory: the factory gates. The first moving images ever made show workers leaving their workplace. The movement of the workforce from the place of industrial work into the world of film: the starting point for the problematic relationship between cinema and the portrayal of work.
From its outset cinema tended to leave the manual labor out of the picture, focusing rather on atomized stories of individual workers once they have left their workplace: their romances, their transgressions, their destinies in the course of world events. Cinema starts where work ends.
Starting from these initial images, 1 poor and one 0 sets about exploring the multiple ways of leaving the work behind. What happens when you get tired? When is the work we devote ourselves to exhausted? What comes after work? More work? What happens when there is no more work? What is the complicity between the history of contemporary dance and the history of post-industrialization?
1 poor and one 0 is a twofold performance: while the performers develop the manifold forms of dissolution of the working subject before the audience, the audience is slowly drawn into a process of transformation: from the popular medium of cinema to the political theater of populism. Theater exhausted in moving images, images exhausted in the theater of movement. A change of perspective.
Directors: Tomislav Medak & Goran Sergej Pristaš Authors and performers: Pravdan Devlahović, Ivana Ivković, Aleksandra Janeva Imfeld, Ana Kreitmeyer, Tomislav Medak, Goran Sergej Pristaš, Nikolina Pristaš, Zrinka Užbinec Dramaturgy: Ivana Ivković Stage: Slaven Tolj Costume design: Silvio Vujičić Video: Ana Hušman Light design: Alan Vukelić Sound design: Ivan Marušić-Klif Sound technician: Jasmin Dasović
Company manager: Lovro Rumiha
Inspired by the work of Auguste and Lois Lumiere, Samuel Beckett, Vlado Kristl, Jean-Luc Godard and Harun Farocki.
Coproducers: Steirischer Herbst, University of Zagreb – Student center – Theatre &TD
Supported by: Zagreb City Council for Education, Culture and Sport; Ministry of Culture of Republic of Croatia
First the body. No. First the place. No. First both. Now either. Now the other. Sick of the either try the other. Sick of it back sick of the either. So on. Somehow on. Till sick of both. Throw up and go. Where neither. Till sick of there. Throw up and back. The body again. Where none. The place again. Where none. Try again. Fail again. Better again. Or better worse. Fail worse again. Still worse again. Till sick for good. Throw up for good. Go for good. Where neither for good. Good and all. – Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho, 1983
Little by little we are replaced … by uninterrupted chain of images, enslaving one another, each image at its place, as each of us, at our place, in the chain of events on which we have lost all power. – Dziga Vertov Group, Here And Elsewhere, 1972
This circulation of value in the cinema-spectator nexus is itself productive of value because looking is a form of labor.
– Johnathan Beller, Cinema, Capital of the 20th Century, 1994
The first camera in the history of cinema was pointed at a factory, but a century later it can be said that film is hardly drawn to the factory and is even repelled by it. Films about work or workers have not become one of the main genres, and the space in front of the factory has remained on the sidelines. Most narrative films take place in that part of life where work has been left behind… In the Lumière film of 1895 it is possible to discover that the workers were assembled behind the gates and surged out at the camera operator’s command. Before the film direction stepped in to condense the subject, it was the industrial order which synchronized the lives of the many individuals.
– Harun Farocki, Workers Leaving the Factory, 2001
Interview with vana Ivković and Tomislav Medak at the Balkan Dance Platform 2009, Novi Sad, Serbia
DANCE DESIGNER is a powerful new software program for Choreographers. The intent was tocreate software that would save choreographers time and help with all steps ofthe creative process, including supporting choreographers in documenting theirIntellectual Property. This new technology offers a completechoreography package that assists with the creation, pre-visualization,documentation, communication and rehearsal process for all styles of dance. Ithas the ability to save and organize elaborate, multi-layeredproductions in a single digital file and allowschoreographers to share creative information easily with their dancers andproduction teams.
Please contact me for more information or go to http://www.ChoreoPro.comand sign up for a Free Trial. I can also arrange a special online demo foryou. We are in the process of spreading the word about this unique newtechnology. I hope you will share this information with yourfriends and colleagues.
Here's your chance to take part in the creative process of Movement of the People Dance Company. Please join us in our online global survey!
We are looking to compile information for an upcoming piece of choreography. The two question survey is for women of all ages from all corners of the globe, and takes no more than 5 minutes to complete. Answers will be kept completely confidential. This piece is intended to be both an exploration of womanhood and a therapeutic process for all of those involved.
If you are unable to access the link above please go to our website: www.movementofthepeopledance.com and click on the tab titled "CREATE with the PEOPLE."
Please also feel free to forward this information to other women who might be interested in participating. Thank you in advance for your participation in our creative endeavors.
*Survey available in Portuguese and Spanish **Survey will be available in French, shortly...
Posted by body pixel on September 17, 2009 at 2:00pm
Dancer and choreographer Maja Drobac could be with certainty described as multi-talented artist... she expresses herself, parallel with dance, in the fields of photography and writing, too...
She is a world traveller and culture explorer that really enjoys to dance between cultures…Maja Drobac is a graduated dancer from Amsterdamse Hoogelschoole voor de Kunsten (Theaterschool in Amsterdam) since 2005. She did her stage for one year with Magpie Music and Dance company, an improvisation company based in Amsterdam. She has presented ‘Satu’ (a dance video) as her first independent project as part of Magpie Company.
Performance ‘Squirrels on the loose’ with contemporary dancers Darija Dozdor and Ognjen Vucinic was her first independent project made for theatre stage. She is studying Bharatanatyam (Classical Indian Dance) since 2005. This summer Maja presented two dance pieces: Spirit (prone to change) with Studio for Contemporary Dance and solo work Vipassana.I also had an opportunity to see her dancing Bharatanatyam… Hence, I find her artworkz, experiences and attitude to be very moving…
First you were trained in contemporary dance, and then in soft Chinese martial art Taiji Quan, afterwards you picked up Bharatanatyam dance, instead of Wu Dang martial art… obviously you’re dancing between two cultures…MD: They say if nothing goes right, you have no other choice but to turn left. I believe some of us are just wired by the polarities of the differences. Which makes me not an exception.I know that all styles interfere your imagination and creativity, but I’m curious… when you are choreographing do you make difference in a sense of, you know, doing a piece which is more based on Western or Eastern approach?MD: If I am asked to do a pure form of contemporary dance for example, of course I will have my focus on western techniques… yet I don’t believe one can ever deny or escape his relieved experience. Even with conscious switch in mind and body, and focus on pure technique, there is always that something that makes us who we are, self special and unique… and if some people recognize it in me as pieces of West and East… than maybe that’s what it is. I never really thought of it, nor am I thinking about it when I am choreographing.
Usually I have an idea, and different ways of expressing it are just different paths I have crossed or am crossing at the moment. I mean, we all are East and West, North and South… and all the connections in between. I don’t feel green bamboos are more East than Christmas tree, though one can recognise it like that. Or if I jump around like a kangaroo, that action will make me Southern and being all dressed in white will make me Northern. Still… there are certain forms of dance, and/or movement that are characteristic for certain parts of the world. But to be honest, unless I am specifically asked to make a difference, I myself don’t make a difference in the choreography… I only use the movement if it means something to me. Or if the body can express something meaningful by it.
Maja Drobac in ‘Squirrels on the loose’, photo by: D. Gavran (c)
How would you describe your working processes when you are dancing as solo performer and when you do choreographies for other dancers?MD: It is a totally different approach. There are different ways of choreographing, and I am not sure I am an expert in any. I just go with the flow, and where my personal drive takes me. Doing a solo is the hardest, yet easy to think the easiest task to accomplish. You can play with yourself, and there is nobody to control you or say they can’t do what you ask for.At the same time, I find it very hard to observe myself. To choose what is better or more interesting to use as a movement. In this sense, I think my true heart will always be an improviser. I can feel myself in body only if I improvise. For the rest, if the material is set, then it is very much textual. I choreograph it in sentences. So that I can be sure I know what I am saying. I make very clear choices about where my dots, or comas, or exclamation marks are.Working with other dancers, on the other hand, is like taking a trip to an unknown country. It is so much an observation directed method than just clear choreography. If there is a right click in between a dancer and me… then I just allow that dancer to do what ever he/she wants, and I just try to make photos of the moments I find most intriguing, and we put it together in a sentence. I find it very hard when I am asked to choreograph and transfer the material to the dancers. It’s just that my body is very different from other bodies and it is very hard to find two bodies with the same experience. It may work nicely in a very technically based company, but it would also require the choreographer to be trained in the same technique, or at least have the time to introduce dancers with his/her body quality.
Could you describe a little bit days you have spent in India while learning Bharatanatyam…MD: The first time I came to India it was entering not just another continent and different culture, it was like a discovering a complete new universe. I lived in Gurukulam, at the top of the hill, where most of the time we didn’t even have the basic facilities like water or electricity… some times there was not even food enough.At the same time, classes were very much intense and demanded abnormal discipline for someone who has never done Bharatanatyam in her life, and who all of a sudden had to dance shoulder to shoulder with dancers doing it all their lives. I had to wear only Indian clothes (saris or churidars), eat with my hands (rice three times a day), wash my saris hitting them on the stone at the back of our house and then just splashing them with little bit of water… We were not allowed to talk with boys alone, not allowed to leave the campus walls without special approval, our days were very determined by the schedule and the will of our gurus. Not to mention being locked on the first floor from 9pm till 4.30am.
It is funny to notice, but nothing I experienced before in my life could help me go though this military training, except classical ballet. Movement was something that was so much part of their daily life, and so far away from anything I have ever experienced in my body, so after a while I started noticing some similarities with ballet. There is a clear structure, and if you don’t know your body well, you can get easily hurt or lost in your own movements.Later I have joined a school in Bangalore, which was something totally different. My guru lives in the city and although Bharatanatyam is a very traditional and disciplined art, and you can see it in the class or on the stage, life in the city was much easier than on the hill. Though, life in the hill after a while became closer to my inner self from the life I led in the city. But living both was maybe the cocktail of who I am today.Anyway… it was not easy the first time, there were times I was so ready to pack my bag and run back to Europe. It took me long to accept India.
You needed about six months to accept this…MD: Yeah, about six months. And it’s a solid piece of time. I started my studies with three more girls who came from abroad, out of which two were of Indian origin so very well accustomed to Indian culture. But nobody lasted longer than few months. After they left, I really had no other choice but to come closer to India and Indians. I couldn’t talk to anyone, share anything with anyone… nobody understood anything of what I was saying or what I was trying to express. It was in fact, the moment I have started to live India. When She (India) became my only true companion.My ballet teacher who lives in India as well told me once that not everyone can survive India, since She is definitely finding the way how to confront you with the worse and the best in side of yourself on a daily base. After few years there I still haven’t stopped being smacked to my face from time to time with the new realizations of myself, and the world around me.
When did this happen… this complete cultural acceptance?MD: I went to my friend’s house for a month. We had two weeks free from school, but I stayed one month. They just didn’t let me go back. Even when I think about it now, it still stays so clear in my thought. They didn’t speak English, but they were so engaged to teach me Malayalam, the language spoken in Kerala. They spent weeks just talking to me, wanting to know more about my culture, at the same time making me feel part of their Malu culture.I was very much interested about the plants they had in their garden, so my friend’s father presented me with the books on traditional Indian medicine, Ayurveda and Swami Vivekananda’s books. Her mother helped me prepare different kind of herbal medicines for the members of the family; it was a life I never lived before. My day was involved about preparing tea or meals, or helping with the house work, or just being on my own on their roof and learning about Indian medicine, history and spiritualism. It was so simple that it occupied my whole being. They treated me as their own daughter, and I don’t think I have ever felt so much respect and love coming from so much simplicity.Even on the train back to Gurukulam my role was so clear with my friend. I was an older sister returning to school, we were really there to take care of each other. It was the moment when it hit me; the phase of surveillance stopped and living begun.
From performance ‘Kanda’ by Veena Basavarajaiah and Mirra Photo by Maja Drobac (c)
The question of ‘normality’ (whatever it means) rises up…MD: Yes, because of what actually means to be normal in one particular culture?! Something that is perfectly normal in Zagreb could be completely odd for instance in China. I think we have to tend the oddity because it enables us to be more adaptable to different cultures. So many people were asking me to explain them how I felt while I was in India, but each time I would write or speak to them, they would always finished the sentence with the words: “Ok, now tell us how you really feel.” I don’t think we are able to speak out the changes that are happening to us if we are still in the process of changing. If I was really and truly changed, I don’t think I would be the first one to notice.This is how you got drowned into Bharatanatyam completely… not explaining but accepting…MD: Even up to now, I was never explained anything about India. There is a beautiful Japanese saying my first Sansei used to tell me: “Everything I ever learned, I owe to my teacher who never explained me anything.” Indians live their art. It is so much part of their beings. It is of course departing from them as well, especially in the big cities like Bangalore, Bombay, unfortunately even Chennai, though Tamilians are still the most involved with their culture and they are trying to nourish it even today. Young people are trying to approach Western models of life, and there is simply no time anymore for all the rituals and dedication that were done even by their parents on the regular base.My teacher was never explained why Lord Rama holds a bow in his left hand, and arrow in his right. And it can’t be the other way around. She has lived with the statues of Lord Rama all her life… ever since she knows about herself, she knows what Lord Rama is holding in his hands. As well, Bharatanatyam is danced on lyrics. There is a clear story behind which is sung by a singer.
Photo from Bharatanatyam solo by Srikanth Kolari (c)
It became so clear to me that dance is the oldest art form existing. Older even from drawing and maybe even music. Though I believe movement and sound can’t be really separated one from another. People used to get in touch with divinity by moving their bodies. Getting into the trans.After living in a country where first few months I could communicate only by moving my body, I became perceptive to movement and I threw away the dance. Natural constellations exist without us being aware of them. They are ready made choreographies improvised on spot. What we call today instant compositions, are nothing more but becoming aware of the space we are part of. Choreographies exist in space without us making them. But when we do catch them, and transfer them onto the stage… than we are talking about theatre, or art.
Photo: Jogulabhavi Satyava Temple by Maja Drobac (c)
Beside heavy work, what would you highlight in your experience with Indian tradition in the context of dance?MD: I had a privilege to visit quarters indented only for females in Indian tradition. Nobody else is allowed to enter. This is something I will always keep and bear with me. When I’m wearing Sari I’m wearing something that is deeply related to my experiences in India. Something that is part of me now.
From performance ‘Kanda’ by Veena Basavarajaiah and Mirra Photo by Maja Drobac (c)
You have spent a month in the jungle in Ands, how did that experience change the way you perceive things?MD: I didn’t care about anything but elemental things like keeping the fire up, finding food for today, washing the pots and so. Most of my time was spent while sitting on the ground, underneath the tree, looking at the performance by facing the nature. There is no similar way of seeing things, no similar way of sitting or moving, even if you are picking the same spot over and over again, because every time something else will happen. Heraclites wrote: “You can’t enter the same river twice”. It is rather fascinating when you realise that is so true.
From ‘Escalator Clause’ choreographed by Veena Basavarajaiah Photo by Maja Drobac (c)
You are very talented for photography and writing, do you plan to work more in these directions?MD: I wouldn’t say I am talented in any form, I just love what I do, and I do what I want. It happens very often that I get overstuffed with certain things if I do only them. I need space, and freedom to explore and change, and be different, and just look at life from different corners. So when I get tired of listening to myself, I start writing so I can read myself. If I dance too much I really need to have a break and grab a camera and go somewhere and just freeze the movements that I find moving so fast when I move against it.It might sound very hippy saying my directions are orientated by the wind… but that is honestly how I feel.
From ‘Escalator Clause’ choreographed by Veena Basavarajaiah Photo by Maja Drobac (c)
As a world traveler give us some advices and several tips for trips, for instance in India or South America jungles…MD: Consult with someone more experienced than me before you go.Thanks a lot, Maja!p.s. Srikanth Kolari often travels with Maja… an amazing photographer who is a part of Asian Motion, Cambodia’s first photography agency… don’t miss this link… amazing photos…(This interview was originaly published on blog Personal Cyber Botanica)
Read more…
Raimund Hoghe is certainly one of the most intriguing dancer and choreographer in contemporary dance these days. I had an opportunity to interview him in May, during Queer Zagreb Festival, where his company performed ‘Boléro Variations’.Raimund Hoghe always pushes the boundaries of dance perception through profound and minimalist way of analyzing thingz. The public and dance experts from Ballettanz Magazine obviously recognized this by giving him The Dancer of the Year Award in male competition for the season 2008.
Raimund Hoghe, photos by Rosa Frank (c)
I really have to mark here that in female competition the same award was given to ex-ballerina Sylvie Guillem. They are both completely different in bodily physics and kinetics, but the result is actually the same. The result is strong and authentic.I already blogged about ‘Boléro Variations’ I saw back at Queer Festival, so I’m letting you to Mr. Raimund Hoghe and his ways of seeing thingz on the stage and in life…
Raimund Hoghe, photo by Rosa Frank (c)
While I was watching your performance ‘Bolero Variations’, I constantly thought about the line: tinny little thingz… You like to ‘dig’ through those hidden moments in our lives… exploring society and its reflection on your own inner landscape… What was the initial trigger that has brought you to this?RH: It’s different from each piece, but I don’t make pieces with big effects, for example. I’m not interested in virtuosity or how people can jump or do incredible things. I’m interested in simplicity, so very simple and the personality of dance. To share with audience the quality of dancers, and there are these very little things; and sometimes maybe you are wondering why it’s interesting?For some people, of course, it’s not interesting, but for many it’s interesting. Like for me, last time when I was here in Zagreb, three years ago in 2006 with ‘Swan Lake, 4 Acts ‘, there was a 3-year old child in the performance. And this child didn’t want to leave the performance in the break, because it was so interested. The child wanted to see the whole story. The mother wrote to me a letter and this child had very interesting comments. It was also a long piece. So, for some adults it’s very boring, for a 3-year child is different. It’s different for each person.
Lorenzo De Brabandere and Raimund Hoghe
Photo from Tanzgeschichten by Rosa Frank (c)
You have spent many years working with Pina Bausch … her pieces have a specific dramaturgy… and the set of dancers in your piece reminded me on some performances you did with Pina… having a strong female character on the stage… Ornella Balestra’s character reminded me on Mechtild Grossman…RH: Yeah, but it’s very different from Pina’s work now, because it’s much more entertain and light, not too long; all dancers are more or less young. So, I’m interested just in strong personality. And now, my works could be compared with early works by Pina, not with her works from today. Because she is working a lot with video now, and older pieces were used in films, too. I don’t use this kind of technology.And, the roads are different, like in Pina’s dance pieces women are women, and man are man. So, women have long hairs, very beautiful colourful dresses moving like women. Man wear white shirts with trousers, like this classical image of man and woman. I’m not really interested in this.
Ornella Balestra, photo by Rosa Frank (c)
People tend to stuck when they try to use canons of classical dramaturgy in contemporary dance… As dramaturge how do you make this distinction, because your field is dance dramaturgy? You are directly connected with the scene that coined the term Tanz theater…RH: For me, in dramaturgy you have to come from one point to the other and you have to know why. That’s something everybody has to find out. There is no recipe or so. For me it has to be clear how you come from one point to the other, and that you can repeat it easily… this outthinking. The dramaturgy has to be so clear, that you can just jump into the piece.We don’t have long rehearsals before performances. It’s just one day, but people do different things… Maybe one piece is for one night play and then you have one rehearsal. And it is possible, because for me, and also for dancers, the dramaturgy is very clear. You don’t have to think about it. In many dance pieces you see today, they have to sing or think a lot what is coming next. In my work you have to know why you are here.
How would you describe your work with Pina Baush?RH: It was very interesting to work with her. People talk about her and her work in terms of personality and strong person. This is very personal related, but it could be said also for her art form. It was not that sort of work where you present only the feelings.Could you be so kind to describe a little bit your working process… from the beginning till the end…RH: I’m very inspired by music. So, this is the point, when I’m listening the music! I made a piece on Maria Callas, and she sang about all that: If you really listen to the music, the music tells you how to move. And this is what I’m also trying. Then this dramaturgy is coming together, I feel it. I just have to do ‘this next – this next – this next’…In this piece about Callas ‘36, Avenue Georges Mandel’, she wasn’t visible in the first performance. But I had a feeling I missed something and had to think why is this happening and then I put this motif in it as a scene or an aria or something.
Emmanuel Eggermont and Raimund Hoghe, photo by R. Frank (c)
How do your dancers react to these processes because they are all very physical, but seems like there is always a layer of trust?RH: Yeah, the trust. So, that everyone can be exactly what they are. For me, it’s also important that there is no competition between dancers. Everyone is so different, you can’t compare them, each has its own quality. For example Lorenzo (De Brabandere), who was also in ‘Swan Lake, 4 Acts’; and Emmanuel (Eggermont) have really big part in this piece. They cannot be compared. They have very different backgrounds, from education and so. This is important, that there is no competition.It’s interesting how they are bringing different experiences…RH: Yeah, different experiences … like Lorenzo, who wanted to become a football player, and he was underway to football player; and Emmanuel not at all. And Yutaka (Takei), the Japanese dancer – he did also martial arts and he have this background. Nabil (Yahia-Aissa) is a medical doctor and dancer. They all have this different backgrounds.
Charlotte Engelkes and Raimund Hoghe, photo by R. Frank (c)
Yeah, they enriched the performance…RH: Yeah! This is something you might feel when you’re in the audience – different personalities. And it’s important that they respect one another. This is also not so often on the stage.I got the impression that their bodies are not talking differently, not in a sense of different languages, but it’s something in their way of presentation, some thin line that makes them different…RH: Yes. I’m interested in which way they are different, and also to keep this diversity. This is one main point, you have this diversity – not one body, the ideal body.
Raimund Hoghe, photo by Rosa Frank (c)
One of your main drive is music, too. When did you discover this, or was it the sound itself that attracted you, or rhythm, or classic music…RH: …also popular music. It’s very simple. I grew up surrounded mostly by popular music.Which artists inspired you?RH: Oh, there are so many of them. So many movies… For example, Maria Callas inspires me, because she was so aware of the movement. She talked a lot about it. And also Japanese dance, Butoh dancers like Kazuo Ohno, Sankai Juku… I know them well, and this is something I’m very interesting in… I was also very interested in this concept of Bauhaus. This combination of fine arts, dance, theatre…
Raimund Hoghe, photo by Luca Giacomo Schulte (c)
I can relate your work with Butoh, because seems like you have similar aesthetic ground and this ‘less is more’ approach….RH: Yeah, less is more. I’m really into this, thinking about this very often. I’m into artists like Joseph Beuys, Christian Boltanski, Wolfgang Laib and his installations…I know you like Pasolini…RH: …and Pasolini, of course. So, there are many, many artists… from music and literature… I like German and Russian authors. I like a lot Anton Chekhov. But there are also some pieces by Maxim Gorki. In German literature I like Johann Gottfried von Herder, Heinrich von Kleist… Many, many artists…Mr. Hoghe, Thank You Very Much!(Originally published on blog Personal Cyber Botanica: www.lomodeedee.com)Read more…
