loscorderos is a Spanish company selected by modul-dance in 2012 to develop the piece ULTRA_innocence. We interviewed Pablo Molinero during their residency at Graner, in Barcelona.
More modul-dance videos on Numeridanse.tv.
moduldance (46)
Tânia Carvalho is from Portugal and was proposed for the modul-dance project by HELLERAU-European Center for the Arts in Dresden. In the framework of the project she created Icosahedron, an impressive piece for 20 dancers.
More modul-dance videos on Numeridanse.tv.
My experience with modul-dance began in 2010 at the first meeting held at the Maison de la Danse in Lyon. A group of about forty dance artists and professionals gathered there to get acquainted with each other. As opposed to what often happens, modul-dance endowed itself with the means to create a “true network” by inviting all these people to meet. Occasions rarely arise to create strong ties between structures and artists, and modul-dance came to allow just that.
What immediately struck my interest was the European dimension of this project. My company is based in two countries: Switzerland and France, and my work is deeply marked by this artistic “double life”. In each project I ask myself how these two countries, these two cultures, these two artistic worlds will influence my work. Even if they are neighbours, the politics, codes and ways of thinking of these countries differ, and this has enriched my artistic research. For example, Je pense comme une fille enlève sa robe is a piece that reflects on prostitution since this activity is legal in Switzerland and forbidden in France. In my research, I have met prostituted persons and worked in associations in both countries to understand how their practice is influenced by the political and cultural context of the countries where they live. Consequently, far from being provocative, this piece simply poses some questions and shows how the body and ways of thinking are highly subjective.
Dance has this “magical power” of conveying questions, emotions or sensations through the body, and of transmitting this body language beyond frontiers. For me, module-dance is the only network, as far as I know, which sets itself in this perspective of communication and exchange across countries, and that endows itself with the means required to do so... it is a great opportunity to form part of it and this is what has interested me the most.
I’ve been able to take advantage of the three modules:
- Production: at the ADC in Geneva. This theatre has the tremendous virtue of programming certain pieces for a long stay. I’ve been lucky enough to dance ten evenings in a row, allowing me to build a solid piece. In each successive performance I took the liberty of trying out new things: I changed a movement here and there, prolonged some scenes and eliminated others, listened to the audience’s feedback and if certain aspects seemed interesting to me, I worked further on them... at night! I worked under excellent conditions with a financial support that was of great help in this respect.
- Residency: at the Maison de la Danse in Lyon. I was working on a project that arose at the CulturesFrance residency “Villa Médicis-Hors les murs”, which I did in Tokyo. I met two Japanese dancers there and we were quickly struck by the difference between the professional situation of Japanese and European dance artists. For example, at that time they were working on a piece presented in a theatre with about 400 seats, and each dancer had the obligation to sell 35 tickets. Not only were the dancers unpaid, but they also had to reimburse the theatre for the tickets that went unsold! Conversely, they were amazed to learn that I was paid simply for doing research for 4 months in Japan. Despite their difficult financial situation, I was struck by the dynamic spirit of the Japanese dancers –who are sometimes much more active than some of their European counterparts–, combining personal projects, daily dance courses, creations, performances and side jobs. That made me want to create a project on these exchanges and on these cultural differences. We set to work on the creation of this piece in Lyon. When Airi and Kazuma saw the words “Maison de la Danse” at the entrance, they couldn’t get over their surprise: how could such a big building be devoted solely to dance? That residency was very enriching and very pleasant, especially thanks to the two Japanese dancers who, just the opposite of the French artists, raved about everything: they loved to dance in the big beautiful studio that was made available to us and to be able to use it for as many hours as we wished. They were surprised to receive per diems for our meals and delighted that we were provided accommodation which, on top of it all, was located right in front of the Maison de la Danse. That was in May 2011, just after the big earthquake, which we talked about a lot during the 7 days of the residency, and thanks to these people I came to understand a great deal of things about Japanese culture. Deproduction is performed in English and it is a piece that has been very well received by the public. It presents on stage, in a tone infused with humour, the experiences that the three of us had between Tokyo and Lyon.
- Presentation: at Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona. We have presented Je pense comme une fille enlève sa robe. It was the first time that I performed this piece in Spain and the audience was very receptive. After the performance, several people stayed on to ask me some questions. It was highly enriching to be able to talk about prostitution and the different relationships with the body, with people who live in a different country with a different system. These exchanges and reflections make it possible to give the piece a dimension that extends beyond the stage and this is a part of dance that interests me very much. We ended up by spending the evening with this Spanish audience, dancing and drinking sangria until late!
My latest experience with modul-dance took place in Tilburg this autumn on the occasion of the annual modul-dance conference. I found that it was extremely important that artists of different generations and partners were able to meet again in order to strengthen our ties. We got the chance to get to know one another better and to make new acquaintances. I thought it was fantastic to be able to exchange ideas about the good and bad aspects of our reciprocal experiences and to share them with partners during those three days. I consider it important that artists can take part in the development of this network in order to keep it from becoming a “show market” like so many others that exist today. I appreciate the fact that modul-dance seeks to create a true space-time continuum that allows artists and professionals to look for ideas together with a view to improving the operation of the network.
Victor Hugo said “Expression has its frontiers, thought has none”, and this is precisely the experience that I would like to continue to enjoy in modul-dance... a “ping-pong” of art, ideas, experiences, shows and artists bouncing back and forth between all these countries.
Picture: © Dorothée Thébert
Leja Jurišić talks about Ballet of Revolt during this interview done in October 2012.
Art has always been a response to the return or repressed unconscious elements at individual and social level. Every crisis should be a reminder to us of the importance of thinking about the future. A crisis almost always results from earlier failures to deal with an emerging problem or to anticipate a likely eventuality. In retrospect, we often recognize that the crisis in history was perfectly preventable, but we have to show it again and again and again!
More modul-dance videos on Numeridanse.tv.
In 2012 MOM/ELVIVERO proposed Lucy Suggate and Sonia Gómez to collaborate in an artistic project. Dance Pals was the first phase of their work together within the Carte Blanche programme in the framework of the modul-dance project, invited by Dansehallerne (Copenhagen) and Graner (Barcelona). The inquisitive middle is a production of the TNT Festival (Terrassa), Sonia Gómez-Lucy Suggate and MOM/ELVIVERO. With the collaboration of Dansehallerne (Copenhagen), Graner and Sâlmon< Festival (Barcelona). Lucy Suggate is supported by Arts Coucil of England.
This interview was done by Graner during their Carte Blanche residency in Barcelona (April 2013).More modul-dance videos on Numeridanse.tv.The Loose Collective was selected for the modul-dance project after being proposed by Tanzquartier Wien. Here, an interview with two of its members, talking about the process of creation of The Old Testament According to The Loose Collective.
More modul-dance videos on Numeridanse.tv.
Developing our piece Pausing within the context of modul-dance has been a significant experience for us. As in our work, we are always interested in sharing voices through collaboration, we found this context of modul-dance somehow corresponding to this desire - a group of dance houses collaborating in order to bring forward an idea and allow creation to emerge.
Specifically for us, during the creation we went through the residencies in the Duncan Center in Athens and Graner in Barcelona- places which without the frame of modul-dance would be difficult to get to. The two houses were extremely inspiring and rich for the work - the space in Duncan center as well as its amazing surrounding and atmosphere which Penelope nurtures had an essential impact on the process. Also the possibility to meet other artists and share like our meeting with the other residents at that time - Marcos and Pablo has been super inspiring and simply joyful.
The time in May 2012 in Graner has been just before our premiere and we felt we had to "wrap up the piece". Time was short but exactly this constraint of time allowed a concentrated and focused time of radical decisions when the piece finally got its shape - it was the 4th version of the piece already- and its structure today remained the "Barcelona version" after a tour of around 20 shows by now.
In terms of coproduction, we were supported by Hellerau in Dresden which also hosted us for shows in October. Again a very different house allowed the piece to evolve and adjust itself to the beautiful space of Nancy Spero in the theater. Last April we were invited to show the piece in Toulouse, during a modul-dance reunion which has been interesting for us - for the directors of the dance houses to see the work finalized more than a year after the first encounter in Barcelona and many shows.
It has been an interesting experience to be a part of this frame of modul dance, a different feeling than the "regular one" of independent houses supporting the piece. Somehow this feeling of connection and network feels like a new way that should be explored further. There is great potential in this way as a mode of functioning, a mode that can support more the contemporary dance field as it is today, than the so called standard mode of function of theater/festival and artist.
Picture: © Emmanuelle Bayart
In 2011 I was privileged to be selected by modul-dance to create the performance Slipping Through My Fingers which premiered at Dansens Hus in Stockholm in September 2012.
In this project I deepened my collaboration with three dancers I have worked with for some years now; Katarina Eriksson, Moa Westerlund and Aleksandra Sende, but I also introduced a new dancer to the group; Elizaveta Penkova.
By my side was also Jukka Rintamäki, the composer I have worked closely together with for the last nine years. This time we were happy to invite Johan Skugge, a composer collaborating with Jukka. The duo performed live on stage, playing lap steel guitar and piano, combined with pre-recorded sound.
Slipping Through My Fingers by Helena Franzén (trailer 3min) from Helena Franzén on Vimeo.
Being a modul-dance artist enabled me to - for the first time - work together with my dancers and musicians outside Sweden creating the piece. The possibility of making new contacts with other artists and of course meeting a new audience is very valuable and supported me to grow as a chorographer.
My collaborators in the different “modules” has so far been two residencies at deVIR/ CAPa in Faro, Duncan Dance Research Center and presentation at Dansens Hus, Stockholm and Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona.
In Faro we started off the creative process. It was a great experience to begin the work in a new surrounding. This week in March we somehow got the chance to meet each other from scratch, since we were all there together under the same circumstances. We became our own masters of our time and the space. We realized how important the atmosphere of the space is and how it affects the qualities of the movements: the quiet, grey light created a strong, contrast to the intense light on the outside. This was a source of inspiration for the light design that I passed on to my light designer, Markus Granqvist. The calm surrounding and the friendly atmosphere in Faro made our group tighter and made us work very concentrated. Jukka Rintamäki found some new sounds on his lap steel guitar and recorded some improvisations that we also used later in the piece, the sounds transformed during the process and got deconstructed and manipulated many times during the process.
In April I had a week of residency in Athens, at The Isadora & Raymond Duncan Dance Research Center. This time I went on my own. It was a very intense week and I had the time to rehearse the solo I created for myself that was a part of Slipping Through My Fingers. I also had the great opportunity to give two classes to professional dancers and got to meet some of the local dancers and choreographers. The last day of my stay I presented a part of the solo work and talked generally about my work in an open showing. It’s very important to continue the discussions about the working conditions in the dance field and how we can survive in the profession.
Dansens Hus in Stockholm was my partner of production and presentation and offered a very generous period in their rehearsal studio and also a longer time on stage, preparing for the premiere. Their support was genuine and important.
Slipping Through My Fingers opened in 28th September, and I was very happy to receive a very positive feedback from both the press and the audience at Dansens Hus.
In November we took part of the SÂLMON< festival at Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona. This was a great experience to us all. It was my first time to perform in the south of Europe and we got a very good feeling coming from the audience. My work is probably different from the work that is created outside Scandinavia in the sense that it’s visually strong and maybe more quiet in the expression. It would have been interesting to have a talk with the audience afterwards and actually discuss the work and listen to the reactions and raise even more thoughts about what is defining us as choreographers. Do we have some recognizable qualities because of our nationality that define us as artists? Do I belong to some Scandinavian tradition in my way of creating and in my aesthetic choices? All those questions actually have grown during my experience with modul-dance.
I’m very happy to hear that the collaboration within modul-dance continues also after the year has finished, that I am still a modul-dance artist and can continue to network and work on new contacts. One year is very short to develop a network and I’m looking forward to seeing all modul-dance people soon again!
Modul-dance offers selected dance artists the time, space and economic structure to develop their work. Modul-dance has decided that the creative processes they encourage artists to embark on consists of four chapters; research, residency, production and last presentation. Each chapter with it’s own structure and economics surrounding them.
I didn’t get to do all modules within modul-dance, but none the less, I kept the form that was suggested to me to create within. The piece The Mob developed through modul-dance is called BABY IT’S YOU NOT ME. Having only premiered the piece less than a month ago, I will try to sit here and contemplate my experiences.
Trailer for Baby it's you not me from The Mob on Vimeo.
Since modul-dance has been in my life since spring 2012, I start to think; which one of all the million feelings and thoughts I’ve had in the last two and half years do I want to write about? Professional life: opportunities to work and get to places and meet people I haven’t met before, laughing, crying, work in new contexts. Private life: travelling, eating food I’m not used to eating, breathing unfamiliar air, missing home, laughing, crying, making love, missing my bed and friends + having loads of Skype dates.
How did I experience being a part of modul-dance?
What is my life now?
What was it before modul-dance?
Did modul-dance shape the piece I developed?
I will use the module titles suggested by modul-dance below to represent a timeline and map of fragments of my mind from summer 2012 to the present.
I wrote within these suggested modules to guide both me and you through this brief attempt to write about creating BABY IT’S ME NOT YOU, modul-dance, life and dancing.
Ok, lets go!
1. Research
MONSTER AND THE MONSTROUS. A big unknown. Stockholm, Poznań, Maribor.
New collaborators. Black metal. The monstrosity of the norm. The SHADOWS of our minds. What we can’t speak about. THE WHITE MALE = SCARY! Christianity really made things complicated for our bodies and us.
2. Residency
Let’s embody all the above-mentioned Lyon, Dresden! We have so many answers to all our questions now! Lets make make make play play play. Gold is a fancy colour.
3. Production
What the f**k am I doing? Copenhagen. What is monstrosity anyways? And who thought it was a good idea to do a dance performance based on that anyways? Oh my goddess! This is brilliant. I’m nervous now. I feel like puking. Everyone else in the team is awesome. Nobody understands me.
MONSTER MONSTER MONSTER.
4. Presentation
Are you a monster?
Is it in your nature to never succeed?
Do you have difficulties communicating with others?
Is your form constantly changing?
Is it true that you live in the shadows?
BABY IT’S YOU NOT ME is a search for the monster, a performance that materializes on stage, in the imagination of the audience and in the exchange between those two. Through an exploration of recognizable movements and inundating live music, the choreography and performance structures dissect the qualities and aspects of monsters and the monstrous. The audience is thus invited to spend some time with the undefinable and the nameless.
BABY IT’S YOU NOT ME is also a concert. In a simple, blunt yet playful way it unfolds through speech, dance and music that stays short of expectations.
Functioning as a fluent symbiotic trio, performers Emma-Cecilia Ajanki and Piet Gitz-Johansen along with saxophone player Otis Sandsjö move through elements of sound, light and body in a way that affects, confuses and blurs the experience of the audience.
Studio footage of a new work-in-progress by Itamar Serussi entitled Frost. Filmed in Bassano and London, 2013. Itamar Serussi - choreography & dance
In May 2011, the Slovenian artist Jasmina Križaj wrote the following article for a modul-dance newsletter regarding her experience in the framework of the project.
Working period: from 04/04/2011 - 15/04/2011
Where: in Poznan, Poland - Art Stations Foundation
Who: Anja Bornsek, Cristina Planas Leitao, Jasmina Križaj and Tarras Some
Into the Out
Being in Poland was the first time for all of us. Have to admit I didn't know what to expect. There was a chance that it will feel like home and there is also very strong and in my opinion still somehow "fresh" historical memory. In some way it did feel like home.
After a long time I didn't feel like stranger while walking through the streets of another country.
We spend most of our time in the studio, which by the way, felt like a big privilege. It is a great theater/studio space, with beautiful made of red bricks back wall for great photos or video. The fact that the studio is in a shopping mall, gave us kind of perverse feeling. We are used to work far from so called normal human life, especially commercial one. But it is special when at and consumerism meet. I like the fact that somebody who doesn't reach so after art words but prefers commercial entertainment suddenly has both in one space. Maybe that changes people's perception about art. That it is not something just for privileged, that it is not something separated from our daily life, but it is actually like itself.
I was also giving technique classes of Flying Low. Have to say that I was very surprised by the speed and precision of working of Polish dancers. Really appreciate I could share my knowledge with them.
The work we did was very simple. But as they say "Less is more" was valuable also this time. The simplicity of the approach to the topic of Nervous System opened so many new chapters. Going deeper and deeper on physical, mental, philosophical and even emotional and spiritual level enrich and reveled many new possibilities but of course in the same time raised many new doubts and question. But I have to say those first two weeks of research were very productive and a good starting point and also a good take off for future research.
In the end I would just like to mention the generosity of the Art Stations Foundation team. Thank you very much!
Text written after an hour of shaking:
I feel like Leonardo DiCaprio in What's eating Gilbert Grape. With restless body. Swallowed back muscles like a puffy dove. Lying on the floor I feel the big mass of my heart. The weight of my heart. Its greatness and also whole its heaviness. I started fearing I could break the muscles/fibers that are attaching it to the sternum, if I continue shaking. I feared I would break my heart.
Wish to experience a slow motion fall. Maybe my legs don't shake, cause I believe that shaky legs represent weakness? So many tiny habits just in the fingers and those. Jazz took me. Then left me. Then allowed me to compose an e-mail. I sorted my mind. It eased my anger and have. Left leg and kidneys stayed as they are-exhausted, sucked, lonely, uncooperative.
Constant thought, every recognition has to be understood, constant trying to do, to try, to experience. Trying not to try. How are we spending our thoughts? Do we move because of discomfort, because of the pleasure that follows after releasing this discomfort?
Picture: © Saša Kuzjak
Conceiving and creating a new work is like capturing the detailed minutiae of a dream, except it’s in the future… I don’t think we surrender ourselves to the wild plains of our imagination enough. Art is about creating an elemental experience of life, which the audience is invited to participate in along with the performers.
Within modul-dance, I’ve had research modules at Art Station Foundation in Poznań, Poland and at Plesna Izba in Maribor, Slovenia; and residencies in CSC Bassano del Grappa, Italy and CDC Toulouse in France.
In Poland, in March 2013, I spent half of my time in Poznań, writing, working alone in the studio, chatting to other artists and spending time with an enthusiastic ethnography student from Adam Mickiewicz University, listening to polish lore and folk stories; and the second half in Warsaw, dwarfed by the wind-chilled, wide grey boulevards, and felt the constant shadow of Stalin’s Palace of Science and Culture, absorbing the vibrations (and -8 degrees celsius temperatures) of this multi war surviving “phoenix city”.
In May I travelled to Bassano del Grappa, where I worked alone for the first 5 days of the residency, which I often find difficult to do, particularly as I don't usually choreograph for my own body.
I spent a lot of time reading and writing, and being in another place without the everyday burdens, really helped. Roberto arranged a trip up the mountains for me, led by a young academic fountain of knowledge, Sebastiano Crestani, to see some ancient etchings. Unfortunately the Alpine rain cancelled our hike, and instead we went to Padua, where I saw an exhibition on the ancient Veneti people and an amazing 6 mt wooden horse made in 1466.
For the second week I invited Justine Cooper to join me, a performer with whom I already developed some ideas. We shared some ideas with a wonderfully engaged and generous audience there before we left. We also got to sit in on a rehearsal of an all male choir, singing old Italian and Alpine folk songs, a real treat to watch a committed group of mean aged 30-80 singing like angels!
My 4 day trip to Maribor (Plesna Izba) in June was planned to coincide with the annual FolkArt Festival, which is a bit like the dance version of Eurovision in it’s presentational format. Mojca had arranged front row seats for the 3 nights, and I sat there, blown away by these massive ensembles of predominantly amateur dancers (some pretty hefty guys) doing amazingly complex things, passionate about preserving their national dances. I got a private lesson from Vaska, a Slovenian dance historian, choreographer and choreologist of folk dances from the regions. It was here in Maribor where my attention began to focus more towards the crazy music of the Balkans.
My final 2-week residency took place in Toulouse in December 2013, and this time I brought along 5 dancers. It was the first time for us all to be together, and we spent the entire 2 weeks working in the studio. The facilities at the CDC were wonderful, in that we spent most of the time dancing, eating and talking, which resulted in a sense of ease in our environment and explorations. This ease allowed me to go places artistically I’d never been before. Newer, darker, funnier, stranger places. We had some visits from school children who sometimes joined in the warm ups and university students with whom we shared and discussed small segments of our work.
With Tundra I wanted to explore a familiar concept/myth/truth, depending on one’s beliefs, to reveal the poetry of “heaven and hell” and the instability and abysses that exists within us all and in everyday life. I wanted to somehow work with the potential of an unseen world, and feeling the breath of “the ideal”, without wanting to impose any sort of didactic notions on the work. But I am drawn to thinking about reason and logic being overcome by internal and external forces. By that I’m talking about intuition and the connection between our own instinct and a greater external force outside of our control and indeed understanding. Not wanting to sound too esoteric or ethereal, Tundra is a world that’s cosmically misaligned, where time and space lose their boundaries, inhabited by characters who are confronted by fear -of themselves, their existence, their actions and of the unknown, but ultimately they want to break through those barriers to a higher plane. I’ve been thinking about the cyclical nature of time, and how, historically, we can see patterns emerging, where at certain times everything goes into a state of flux and volatility. It looks like we’re in that state right now, and it is a time of insecurity, change and we have witnessed the exposure of a huge amount of human suffering and darkness. I'm endlessly interested in talking and exploring human nature but in particular our chaos, and struggle with desire and death. I enjoy delving into seemingly banal moments, which our mind and imagination has the capacity to make extraordinarily beautiful or horrific.
I like to allow the spectator to receive his own interpretation of each moment for her/himself, and to allow the mind to organize it in it’s own way. It’s an innate process that we naturally do anyway, so it’s not that any special intellectual treatment or analysis is required. But the aim is to allow the arrangement of all of the components of our creation to have an individual effect or Gestalt in the eye of each spectator.
Each piece of work requires a specific language, a movement one, a visual one, a musical one and sometimes a spoken one. And so for me the “sequence of steps” has to take a secondary position to the people who are actually doing them. An intelligent performer requires much more to keep her/himself stimulated than just repetition. And so that’s when the work becomes much more interesting when the performers are also creators and bringing themselves to it. I was really buzzed by the performers that I worked with on Tundra, which demanded a mutual act of searching from us all. They really brought themselves, their experience, memories and, most importantly, their imaginations into the room. The characters are emerged from them, which felt more truthful, than imposing mannerisms and alien stories on them. The performers are paramount to the work- they are the ones that distil, embody and deliver the energy to the audience, and I have been very fortunate to work with some really wonderful artists.
Tundra premiered at the Dublin Dance Festival in May 2014 and was packed up after it’s successful 4 -show run. What next? There’s a new work on the way in 2015, there’ll always be a new work. But it can be exhausting always creating new work for just a handful of performances, and hoping a DVD will magically enable a longer life for it or garner interest in the next new work.
As I Iook back on my modul-dance experience, and attempt to measure the result my participation has had on the work, there are of course lots of interesting and fruitful moments that come to mind, many of which I mentioned earlier. But I also wonder about how the participating artists affect the partners and modul-dance as an organization. This remains a mystery to me. And although it was an enriching experience to develop the piece in new, unfamiliar places, the question of "what next" will not leave my mind.
Picture: © Ros Kavanagh
Emma Martin has been named by the Tanz Magazine as 1 of the 3 Hoffnungstraeger ("bearers of hope") 2014 in its yearbook. Read here the whole article in German.
Since the premiere of Tundra last May, the reviews of the project have been excellent. Read here some of them.
How did the following aspects affected my work:
General:
What has affected my work more than anything in modul-dance could be summed up with the word "tailoring".
As I have joined modul-dance a little less than 2 years ago my main topic (apart from my project proposal) was how to tailor this opportunity to my real needs. I suspect modul-dance as a supporting network is introduced differently to different artists depending on their own home venue by which they were suggested and the role and the production conditions of that venue. In short, an interesting realization was that artists adopt the kind of approach to this opportunity that is suggested or presented by the home-venue. I am mentioning this as my situation was a bit different – suggested by Plesna Izba Maribor as my motherboard organization, yet based in Germany, in Frankfurt at the time of being introduced to the network.
This presented me with an interesting insight at the very beginning, starting to understand that although modul-dance is an umbrella for independent dance artists, with a concrete proposal and a fixed system of nominating, awarding membership and supporting the production of their work, it is also an experiment, experiencing it much more alive when understanding it as proposals and suggestions, trials, showings, gathering and exchanging rather than rules and regulations, requirements and criteria.
Development / Modular system:
Personally I have struggled with understanding the scope and the concrete possibilities the network can offer. Although very suggestive with its name, modular system was something that seemed to me a “solution” to something. It sounded as if there was an estimation of the then current productions and residencies and perhaps an observation that the artists lack a clearer vision or articulation of their process, therefore a modular system could be something to give a little push or present a suggestion/advancement of their methods and processes. It would simultaneously help the productions houses themselves to get more suitingly involved. It seemed as an encouragement to deepen one's interest and work and go pass the one-month processes where things are rushed and squeezed in. That is how I perceived it at the beginning. In that regard I must say that “insisting” on one project for 2 years proved to be very fruitful in defying the normal time-conditioned production modes. However, I had some issues with it; extending a project over two years, with a residency in every 5-6 months affects the continuity heavily. My personal practice already incorporates involvement with a specific project for longer period of time, so sustaining the focus and engagement with the subject is not a problem. The purely practical level, hardware of it however is – the project grows and changes thorugh time and the venues cannot always meet these new requirements of one's development. I found myself often compelled by the conditions to rigidly insist on my initial proposal, when in fact the phases of research or residencies brought about new, more suitable pathways to pursue, demanding different conditions than speculated at the beginning.
I have envisioned my proposal with three people at the begining; I have then started a research phase alone, continued with a residency with two other persons, the next one with only one, ending with another research phase where I was working with a group of local dancers. An obvious break in continuity here was due to many reasons – the conditions and possibilities of the hosting venues, the misalignment of the time schedules with the performers I have invited to work with and similar. Although not leading me to the desired outcome, each of the opportunities was still a step forward, expanding and enriching my proposal. Tensions between the aforementioned factors resulted too often in a compromise I had to reach within myself to progress instead of an act of balancing.
Speaking of different phases (research, residency for example), as much as it seems like a good model, it hasn't proved to work well for me. A matrix how a process is unwinding comes across as a valuable suggestion, yet it is something individual, very specific in each case. As it may be beneficial for a group of partners supporting an individual artist to bring about a full-fledged production, I found the modular system a bit over emphasized as it had little correspondence with the phases my project would have undergone otherwise, more organically I assume. On the other hand, it has worked wonders to be practicing such adaptability – using conditions to serve you and not the other way around or simply looking for the best in every opportunity. To conclude on the modular system, I have found myself to start considering the needs of my project and design necessary stages a bit late in my “modul-dance time”, focusing more on how to meet the ends – my needs and venues' offers. So after a year and a half of residencies I am only now at the stage where I'm clear with what is absolutely necessary for the project to be realized and what is less urgent and can be compromised.
Community of artists / Network of trust and colalboration:
Another point I would like to comment on is the community of artists. I have to say it was something I would have wished for more opportunities to engage with others. Meeting people at conferences made sense for me when the format was flexible enough to allow both – a presentation, performance as well an insight into individual's ways of working. I have been inspired by so many artists, connected with few and will for sure keep in touch with them in the future. It has been of great help to meet the rest of 50 something artists and exchange a bit on our development during the modul-dance support. This was the eye opener on how to use or benefit even more from the network, how to “tailor” it individually as I mentioned before. It seemed to me a bit like hearing the testimonies of other's “rules of the game” they have created for themselves.
Also very important was connecting to the programers or let's say everybody else involved that are not the supported artists, from different environments. It was definitely “insider's” information in sense that I got to learn how production is approached to and tackled. What is the venues' approach, values, requirements and criteria, how they treat the audience, and similar for sure expanded my own understanding and influenced not only my future management skills, but artistic approach to some degree as well – be it opening it up to new factors considered in what contributes to dance-making, be it becoming more protective and appreciative of my own artistic visions and beliefs.
However, not only community of artists, but the whole modul-dance community is something I did not expect to start to feel part of. Having heard negative experience of the past generations, jokingly naming it a "market for the programmers", I had my doubts of course, left a bit confused about what to expect. In retrospective, believing one only gets what one expects, I did get confusion, but also and most importantly got the support to develop my work. Both through time & space enabling 'em to work as well as developing skills needed for independent dance maker to create and expand. Although the premiere is not on the horizon yet, I can see already the development of my work and the side-effects of it on a broader scale – how I communciate and integrate in my current environment. All these changes and opportunities were however possible only through a good personal contact I had with each of the partner, mostly finding a common interest and therefore a good connection purely on a personal level, engaging in a chit chat, sychornizing energetically more than any kind of pre-concieved plan and aimed for connection.
The only thing left to add is that this experience has vastly influenced my “positioning” in the most broad sense of the word, to even think of it as a part of my vocabulary when reflecting on my work, it had been testing the range of my permeability – how, when and for what purpose am I exposing my artistic process intentionally or unintentionally and it added sparks to the already ignited desire of mine to have a future opportunity to be part of a tighter artistic community, where the flow of exchange is the motor, curiosity the fuel and integration and support the destination.
Picture: © Zoe Alibert
Conceiving and creating a new work is like capturing the detailed minutiae of a dream, except it’s in the future… I don’t think we surrender ourselves to the wild plains of our imagination enough. Art is about creating an elemental experience of life, which the audience is invited to participate in along with the performers.
Within modul-dance, I’ve had research modules at Art Station Foundation in Poznań, Poland and at Plesna Izba in Maribor, Slovenia; and residencies in CSC Bassano del Grappa, Italy and CDC Toulouse in France.
In Poland, in March 2013, I spent half of my time in Poznań, writing, working alone in the studio, chatting to other artists and spending time with an enthusiastic ethnography student from Adam Mickiewicz University, listening to polish lore and folk stories; and the second half in Warsaw, dwarfed by the wind-chilled, wide grey boulevards, and felt the constant shadow of Stalin’s Palace of Science and Culture, absorbing the vibrations (and -8 degrees celsius temperatures) of this multi war surviving “phoenix city”.
In May I travelled to Bassano del Grappa, where I worked alone for the first 5 days of the residency, which I often find difficult to do, particularly as I don't usually choreograph for my own body.
I spent a lot of time reading and writing, and being in another place without the everyday burdens, really helped. Roberto arranged a trip up the mountains for me, led by a young academic fountain of knowledge, Sebastiano Crestani, to see some ancient etchings. Unfortunately the Alpine rain cancelled our hike, and instead we went to Padua, where I saw an exhibition on the ancient Veneti people and an amazing 6 mt wooden horse made in 1466.
For the second week I invited Justine Cooper to join me, a performer with whom I already developed some ideas. We shared some ideas with a wonderfully engaged and generous audience there before we left. We also got to sit in on a rehearsal of an all male choir, singing old Italian and Alpine folk songs, a real treat to watch a committed group of mean aged 30-80 singing like angels!
My 4 day trip to Maribor (Plesna Izba) in June was planned to coincide with the annual FolkArt Festival, which is a bit like the dance version of Eurovision in it’s presentational format. Mojca had arranged front row seats for the 3 nights, and I sat there, blown away by these massive ensembles of predominantly amateur dancers (some pretty hefty guys) doing amazingly complex things, passionate about preserving their national dances. I got a private lesson from Vaska, a Slovenian dance historian, choreographer and choreologist of folk dances from the regions. It was here in Maribor where my attention began to focus more towards the crazy music of the Balkans.
My final 2-week residency took place in Toulouse in December 2013, and this time I brought along 5 dancers. It was the first time for us all to be together, and we spent the entire 2 weeks working in the studio. The facilities at the CDC were wonderful, in that we spent most of the time dancing, eating and talking, which resulted in a sense of ease in our environment and explorations. This ease allowed me to go places artistically I’d never been before. Newer, darker, funnier, stranger places. We had some visits from school children who sometimes joined in the warm ups and university students with whom we shared and discussed small segments of our work.
With Tundra I wanted to explore a familiar concept/myth/truth, depending on one’s beliefs, to reveal the poetry of “heaven and hell” and the instability and abysses that exists within us all and in everyday life. I wanted to somehow work with the potential of an unseen world, and feeling the breath of “the ideal”, without wanting to impose any sort of didactic notions on the work. But I am drawn to thinking about reason and logic being overcome by internal and external forces. By that I’m talking about intuition and the connection between our own instinct and a greater external force outside of our control and indeed understanding. Not wanting to sound too esoteric or ethereal, Tundra is a world that’s cosmically misaligned, where time and space lose their boundaries, inhabited by characters who are confronted by fear -of themselves, their existence, their actions and of the unknown, but ultimately they want to break through those barriers to a higher plane. I’ve been thinking about the cyclical nature of time, and how, historically, we can see patterns emerging, where at certain times everything goes into a state of flux and volatility. It looks like we’re in that state right now, and it is a time of insecurity, change and we have witnessed the exposure of a huge amount of human suffering and darkness. I'm endlessly interested in talking and exploring human nature but in particular our chaos, and struggle with desire and death. I enjoy delving into seemingly banal moments, which our mind and imagination has the capacity to make extraordinarily beautiful or horrific.
I like to allow the spectator to receive his own interpretation of each moment for her/himself, and to allow the mind to organize it in it’s own way. It’s an innate process that we naturally do anyway, so it’s not that any special intellectual treatment or analysis is required. But the aim is to allow the arrangement of all of the components of our creation to have an individual effect or Gestalt in the eye of each spectator.
Each piece of work requires a specific language, a movement one, a visual one, a musical one and sometimes a spoken one. And so for me the “sequence of steps” has to take a secondary position to the people who are actually doing them. An intelligent performer requires much more to keep her/himself stimulated than just repetition. And so that’s when the work becomes much more interesting when the performers are also creators and bringing themselves to it. I was really buzzed by the performers that I worked with on Tundra, which demanded a mutual act of searching from us all. They really brought themselves, their experience, memories and, most importantly, their imaginations into the room. The characters are emerged from them, which felt more truthful, than imposing mannerisms and alien stories on them. The performers are paramount to the work- they are the ones that distil, embody and deliver the energy to the audience, and I have been very fortunate to work with some really wonderful artists.
Tundra premiered at the Dublin Dance Festival in May 2014 and was packed up after it’s successful 4 -show run. What next? There’s a new work on the way in 2015, there’ll always be a new work. But it can be exhausting always creating new work for just a handful of performances, and hoping a DVD will magically enable a longer life for it or garner interest in the next new work.
As I Iook back on my modul-dance experience, and attempt to measure the result my participation has had on the work, there are of course lots of interesting and fruitful moments that come to mind, many of which I mentioned earlier. But I also wonder about how the participating artists affect the partners and modul-dance as an organization. This remains a mystery to me. And although it was an enriching experience to develop the piece in new, unfamiliar places, the question of "what next" will not leave my mind.
Picture: © Ros Kavanagh
I was recommended by Plesna Izba Maribor as one of the modul-dance artists in 2012. They also promised to be the main producers of the performance and cover the premiere, so all I needed to get on board were at least three partners. I was seducing them in Barcelona and gave it all to catch their attention, which was not easy. It felt like I was a product on sale and they are buying. There was no big interest but in the end I got what I wanted; three research spaces/residencies, one in Portugal, one in Denmark and one in Slovenia. They offered working space, accommodation, travel costs and per diems, so all the basic needs were covered and I could focus on work, away from trivial obligations in my home town. Therefore going abroad seemed very beneficial for developing work and growing as an artist and as a human being.
New environment was refreshing and revitalising. Being in touch with a new culture opened up curiosity and senses, which was also helpful in the creative process because we were more alert for details. In Faro, Portugal we (Luka and me) were totally motivated for work out and discipline. We were waking up at around six in the morning to meditate, rehearsed through the day and went to run in the evening – across town, by the coast, pass the palm trees. It did not correspond with the laid back nature typical for the warm south but we were so grateful for the big, bright studio and the Mediterranean winds were giving us strength. In Copenhagen we rehearsed in a black box, after the theatre closed the season, so pretty cut off from events and other artists, which influenced the nature of our material. We produced something minimal, slow and intimate, which was really useful for us later on because I got pregnant before the premiere and we had to throw out all the dynamic material and forget about big movements.
We could take good advantage from the research and residency modules. The time we could afford to try out, think and re-think was precious. We could go to many places inside the creation, shifted ideas and had a chance to shape material that was developed through sharing our fascinations and knowledge. The premiered version of Working Title framed all those different off springs into a distinct composition, determined by fatal decisions concluded in the last faze of creation. Because we let the performance develop rather than forced it into a predetermined shape it got an unpredictable form and content, for which it seems to me, it was made with a force bigger than us humans. This life force was something we wanted to come through in the performance and touch the audience. We did not get much chance to try out the effect on audiences because I was not able to perform any more and after me giving birth we were not able to sell the piece. This is where we were not so successful. It was clear from the beginning that being a modul-dance artist does not promise you a tour but maybe the last two modules could be organized more carefully. Perhaps they could run another selection from all the finished works; meaning all directors of production houses would watch all videos and than they choose some to tour. Otherwise mostly those artist that got support from big production houses that have money get the chance for some re-runs. Probably too many artists accumulate over years for something like that. But in the end does size matter?
There are still ideas to make a new version of our performance and from a solo extend it into a duet. We will see about that after the next funding call. Before that I will dance in a piece called Hunting Season, choreographed by Malin Tomašik, so you better watch out for this one.
Picture: © Saša Huzjak
Interview with Slovenian artist Tina Valentan done in October 2012. In this video, she and her collaborator Luka Martin Škof talk about the project Working Title, where they analyze the relation between a moving body and the gaze.
More modul-dance videos on Numeridanse.tv.
In September 2011, Fearghus Ó Conchúir wrote the following article focused on his experience during the research he developed at Dance Gate Lefkosia Cyprus.
My abiding memory of the research time I spent in Nicosia was of the last evening spent with some of the delegates of the Dance/Body conference on the Turkish side of the city. We followed the academic Stavros Karayanni there to a cafe in a beautiful old square that once a month hosted a ‘pink party’ for gays and lesbians. There, Stavros danced a delicious, friendly belly-dance and I felt in that moment the embodiment of the conference theme: Dance/Body at the Crossroads of Culture.
Here was dancing where politics, gender, sexuality and ethnicity shimmied and swayed. And it felt good to be there.
My time in Nicosia was under the rubric of research module with modul-dance. Having used research at the Art Stations in Poznan and a residency at The Place to help me make my new work Tabernacle, I had originally intended that a research visit to Dance Gate in Nicosia would be part of that process too. It didn’t work out that way but when I was invited to speak at the Dance/Body conference, it made sense to combine it with a period of research there.
While I didn’t have a studio in Nicosia during that time, it didn’t matter. I was recovering from a knee surgery so couldn’t dance. Besides, having come directly from premiering Tabernacle in the Dublin Dance Festival what I needed was time to assimilate and reflect on that process. Doing it in such an stimulating context as the divided city of Nicosia, given that Ireland has its own history of division, helped many thoughts to settle in my head and opened up some new avenues for thinking. Arianna Economou of Dance Gate arranged for me to stay in a house directly on the green line that separates Greek Nicosia from what they call ‘the other side’ or Turkish-occupied Nicosia. Having a checkpoint directly outside my door, hearing the call to prayer from the Turkish mosques, seeing the rubble of bombed buildings and the guns of young soldiers reminded me how fraught the encounter with otherness can be.
And yet I was also delighted to find that the no-man’s land of the green line has created a haven for plant and animal life that has a protected corridor across divided Cyprus. There is space for growth and possibility in the fissures between people.
There were many practical benefits to being in Nicosia too. Because the conference was supported by modul-dance, there was a gathering of the partners there. It was a bonus to be able to meet many of those people to whom I’d scarcely had a chance to talk when we first gathered in Lyon last year. Because I spoke at the conference, I had an opportunity to explain a little more about what motivates my work and it felt that this extra information was useful in letting the partners get to know me. With the partners who are supporting the residencies and tour of Tabernacle in November, it was much more concrete to be able to talk through face-to-face the details that we have discussed by email a dozen times.
It was also inspiring to see the work of fellow modul-dance artist Alexandra Waierstall. The extract from Mapping the Wind that I saw made me want to understand her process and priorities. We’ve only just begun a conversation but it made me realise how keen I am to understand the work of all the MD artists and what a pity it is that the opportunity to do so is limited to these chance crossings. These opportunities for exchange between artists and MD partners are what I hoped would come out of modul-dance but it was luck that made them possible in Nicosia. The research module wasn’t supposed to turn out like that. I had intended to do it in the Spring. But having this time to think after an intense creation process, to be stimulated by the environment and the conference delegates, to meet fellow artists and MD partners was very beneficial.
I look forward to the next phase of modul-dance activity when we undertake residencies and presentations of Tabernacle this November at Mercat de les Flors, Kino Siska and The Place.
English choreographer Ben Duke and his company Lost Dog were proposed by The Place in London for the modul-dance project. Duke talks about It needs horses/Home for broken turns.
More modul-dance videos on Numeridanse.tv.
Interview with Irish choreographer Liz Roche done in Tilburg in October 2012. In the framework of modul-dance she developed Body and Forgetting.
More modul-dance videos on Numeridanse.tv.
