The Kylián Research Project ONE OF A KIND

The Kylián Research Project

Jiří Kylián, Friederike Lampert, Désirée Staverman (Eds.) Table of Contents

Foreword by Samuel Wuersten 7 Introduction by Jiří Kylián 9 Introducing One Of A Kind – The Kylián Research Project by Friederike Lampert and Désirée Staverman 13 The Research Team 19

Dance & Age NDT 3 Last Speech by Jiří Kylián 27 Far Too Close by Jiří Kylián 29 Expression of the Body at Different Ages by Friederike Lampert and Désirée Staverman 35 Youth Mania. Ageing (or not) with or without Botox by Malte Friedrich 43 The Ageing Process from a Medical Point of View by Anandi Felter 49

Dance & Voice Creating a Third Dimension – Podium interview with Jiří Kylián 61 Experimenting with Dance and Voice by Friederike Lampert and Désirée Staverman 69 Report by an Overtone Singer by Borg Diem Groeneveld 79 The Naked Art Forms: Voice, Movement and Physicality by Vincent Meelberg 87

Dance & Music Experiencing the Interaction between Dance and Music by Friederike Lampert and Désirée Staverman 99 Glued Together: Dance and Music by Friederike Lampert 105 Organisation and Inspiration: Personal Reflections on Collaborations between Dancers and Musicians by Jan-Bas Bollen 113

ONE OF A KIND Dance & Visual Technology Editing Moving Images by Friederike Lampert and Désirée Staverman 125 THE KYLIÁN RESEARCH PROJECT Some Thoughts on Dance Film by David Hinton 133 New Perspectives on Dance – Podium interviews with Edited by Jiří Kylián, Friederike Lampert and Jiří Kylián, Michael Schumacher, Jason Akira Somma, Sabine Kupferberg, Désirée Staverman for Codarts Rotterdam Boris Paval Conen, Ed Wubbe and David Hinton 145 Choreographing the Dialogue between Performance and Camerawork © 2014 Codarts Rotterdam in Fred Astaire’s and Gene Kelly’s Hollywood Musical Films ISBN 978-90-821951-0-1 by Anna Henckel-Donnersmarck 159

Codarts Rotterdam Kruisplein 26 Dance & Design Dancers as Architects by Friederike Lampert and Désirée Staverman 171 3012 CC Rotterdam Discussing Dance and Design – Podium interview with The Netherlands Jiří Kylián, Michael Schumacher, Sjoerd Vreugdenhil, Ascon de Nijs and Erika Turunen 179 Cover photo: Serge Ligtenberg Tuning the Body. On World Exhibitions and Atmosphere English language editor: Nickolas Woods by Nathalie Bredella 187 Photography: Joke Schot, Wijnand Schouten (Dance & Music, Dance & Visual Technology), Joris-Jan Bos (page 12 and 173) Credits 195 Graphic design: 75B, Rotterdam Printing: Veenman+, Rotterdam

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Foreword

When we approached Jiří Kylián several years ago to see if he would be interested in leading a research project for Codarts Rotterdam, he was very reluctant to consider the idea. He explained that he did not feel comfortable with the notion of research within the context of formal dance education. “Not my cup of tea,” he said.

As we kept bringing up the subject, pointing out the importance and necessity of highly accomplished artists taking on the challenge of contributing to the discussion of artistic research within professional dance education, Jiří slowly started seeing where we were coming from. In his ever-evolving creative process, artistic research had become so second nature to him that he found it almost superfluous to recognise it as such. Taking on an active role in sharing his insight and creative experiences with young, aspiring dance artists almost felt like imposing himself on them. Nothing could have been further from the truth, of course, as Jiří discovered soon enough once the cycle of projects had started in September 2010. Supported by associate researchers Dr. Friederike Lampert and Dr. Désirée Staverman as well as artistic partners Michael Schumacher and Sabine Kupferberg, Jiří led the way on a journey of discovery from the point of view of dance and choreography. Topics such as the human body’s expression at different ages, voice, music, stage design and architecture, costume, film and video art as well as lighting have been addressed along the way.

One very lucky generation of students at Codarts has been able to benefit from this opportunity first hand while others have been following the project through the Internet. Future generations will be able to draw insights from this unique experience thanks to the extensive documentation that has been published, part of which you are now holding in your hands.

Jiří Kylián has provided the dance programme at Codarts Rotterdam with invaluable input: reaching out to a new generation of dance artists by means of this research project has triggered many thoughts and discussions among our student population and teaching faculty. As a research professor, Jiří has fulfilled his role to the highest expectations simply by being what he truly is: one of the world’s most fascinating and gifted choreographers.

Samuel Wuersten, Director of dance at Codarts Rotterdam and member of the executive board

7 Dear friends,

The introduction you are about to read is not aimed at any method of t­eaching or any institution in particular. It merely states some of my c­onvictions concerning the delicate balance between teaching and learning.

Although I have never considered myself a teacher, I accepted this lecture- ship at Codarts because of one simple idea: if I give you nothing, you will have nothing to throw away. This would be a pity, as throwing something away is just as important as keeping something; a good balance is essen- tial for life. I know that this sounds like a joke, and of course to a certain extent it is, but we should realise that jokes have a serious side to them too. Sometimes jokes and seriousness are two sides of the same coin…. They’re certainly not just a laughing matter. Teaching and learning is the very es- sence of our society. If we didn’t stimulate and foster this process carefully, our world would not be able to renew itself and would ultimately collapse.

In essence, teaching means the passing on of knowledge. It represents autho­ rity, tradition, dignity and respect, but it should also stand for openness. It should embrace new influences and innovation and stimulate fantasy, adventure and creativity, and it should always promote and encourage controversial discussions.

I have met very generous teachers who spend a great deal of time and energy addressing the specific needs and problems of individual students. Students should try to absorb as much material as is given to them but they should never do so without examining it critically: there are too many examples of teachers either being massively misused by dubious politicians or simply manipulating people’s opinions themselves.

Teachers should never be afraid of the unknown, they should never be afraid of uncomfortable questions from their students nor should they fear the fact that their answer to awkward questions might be, “I don’t know.” On the contrary, I’m sure admitting not knowing something would make them better, more trusted teachers. The traditional roles of teachers and students have changed drastically. Regardless of the current situation, I am sure that teachers who are unable to learn from their students are doomed to failure and vice-versa.

All the knowledge teachers have accumulated from their teachers, and from their teachers’ teachers, should be passed on to students in a simple, inclu- sive manner so that they may use it freely in the expression of their natural curiosity, creativity and fantasy. Teaching should be a journey of adventure and discovery. Good teachers give you confidence, frustrated teachers take it away. There are millions of examples of both cases.

Even after the three-year period of my lectureship, I still don’t consider myself a teacher; I have simply tried to share some of my knowledge with you. After all the complex issues we have discussed, I want to share two very simple ideas with you: firstly, be free when teaching and feel free in your learning process; secondly, have only one goal in mind, to stimulate each other in order to learn and move forward.

Jiří Kylián

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Introducing One Of A Kind The Kylián Research Project by Friederike Lampert and Désirée Staverman

Let’s go back to May 1998 when Nederlands Dans For One Of A Kind, Kylián invited and assembled an Theater performs Jiří Kylián’s choreography One Of A inter­national team of artists from different disciplines Kind for the first time. Two of the press reviews were in order to create an original work of art. The team as follows: comprised a Japanese architect, an Australian com- poser, a lighting designer from Germany, a costume designer as well as a cellist from the Netherlands, and, last but not least, the international NDT group itself. The “Nederlands Dans Theater is not only a architect Atsushi Kitagawara was responsible for stage group that is able to reach large audiences, design while Michael Simon was in charge of lighting, it is also a research centre into the exchange Joke Visser and Yoshiki Hishinuma for costumes, but as between the arts. […] One Of A Kind is a Kylián pointed out in an interview shortly before the 1 first performance, the starting point was the music, and message from the maternity room of dance.” vocal music in particular: “I love v­ocal music because, Ariejan Korteweg in de Volkskrant like dance, it is the only form of human music that can be made without an instrument.”

“One Of A Kind is a rare work of art where The composer Brett Dean developed a soundscape inspired by musical styles as diverse as sixteenth century there is a total unity between the l­ighting, a cappella polyphony, avant-garde music by John Cage, the décor, the music and the dance. Inuit singing and overtone chanting by Tibetan monks. Everything, including the cello, has its The resulting composition also used African percussion proper place on stage.”2 as well as birdsong from Dean’s native Australia. The Patricia Boccadoro in Culturekiosque cellist on stage was Pieter Wispelwey, who played the lament from Benjamin Britten’s first cello suite.

In many ways, we can see the ballet One Of A Kind as the blueprint for the lectureship that Kylián started in October 2010 at Codarts Rotterdam. The three-year lectureship involved interdisciplinary, practice-led research as well as exploration of a wide range of topics related to dance and choreography. Supported by asso­ ciate researchers Dr. Friederike Lampert and Dr. Désirée Staverman, Kylián worked with artists and experts from different disciplines on a series of specific themes: Dance and Age, Dance and Voice, Dance and Music, Dance and Film, and Dance and Design (Light, Costume, Architecture). Students from various departments at Codarts Rotterdam participated in the project-related workshops led by Kylián and Michael Schumacher as well as other experienced teachers. Kylián said: “My pre­dominant interest was to show the students the wider world, which is closely related to dance and choreo­graphy, and to look at the world of art in a free way, without any preconceived ideas.” He therefore One Of A Kind, photo by Joris-Jan Bos set up experiments in which dance is coupled with another art form or topic in order to discover meaning in the inter­action of the two. Each topic was based on

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theoretical reflection and prac­tical experience: a one- Not all the discussions and lectures we had through- day symposium featuring guest speakers and artists out the project are published in this book. It also goes introduced the topic; this was then followed by one or without saying that, with more time, further, deeper, two workshops delving deeper into the theme by ob- research could have been conducted into the chosen Excursion: serving and experiencing Kylián’s choreo­graphic input topics. The photography and texts we have included in into one of the topics, or by workshops led by invited the book are therefore intended to stimulate awareness Interdisciplinary Art artists; finally, at the end of each workshop, a feedback and provide inspiration. by Désirée Staverman round provided a platform for participants to discuss their experiences and new-found knowledge. The overall aim of the book is to share the journey of the Jiří Kylián Research Project. This journey, which was Finding an appropriate format for communicating dance designed to bring research and education together, has practice was a key aspect of the research process. Books in fact added a new dimension to the Codarts educa- and written texts can hardly articulate the art of dance, so tional programme in that students are now made aware how is it possible to document knowledge that is based of the interdisciplinary aspects of dance and how to on experience? The approach taken brought together use these aspects in their individual work. In this sense, Many artists, particularly in the Romantic era and the From the detailed introduction to Der gelbe Klang, different documentation tools and perspectives, which the book can also be used as a textbook and as support early twentieth century, have searched for links between it is clear that Kandinsky aimed to combine a range meant the research could be seen from various angles, for further reflection. The book is also dedicated to the the arts. Or, to put it more emphatically, they were of artistic elements such as colour, light and dance appreciated by different senses, and viewed in various broad public interested in Kylián’s work and the art of dreaming about the ultimate Gesamtwerk or total work with art forms such as the spoken word and music formats (images, films, interview texts, quotations, reports dance in general. of art. This isn’t the time or the place to discuss Richard (Bühnengesamtkunstwerk) in order to reach what he and expert articles). A camera team was enlisted not only Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk that inspired many artists called “the spiritual in art”. He explained his motivation to follow and document the process but also to produce from different disciplines, but, if you will allow me a in various articles, arguing that, in his opinion, the differ- a specific view of it. Barbara van den Bogaard’s film com- Notes: small digression, I would like to use a Wassily Kandinsky ences between these artistic means are only external: pany UmaMedia produced short films you can see using 1. Ariejan Korteweg, De Volkskrant, 8 may 1998. painting to give one example of how artists can create 2. Patricia Boccadoro, Culturekiosque, 6 february 1999. interactive printing via the Layar App. The films provide a remarkable links between different disciplines. “On the last inner base, the resources are entirely equal: very important perspective on the research, i.e. moving the outer differences are wiped out by the last goal and pictures, which are far more relevant for dance. Another Impression III (Konzert), 1911 the inner identity is exposed.” layer of documentation is a website that was set up at the beginning of the project (oneofakind.codarts.nl). This painting is rather well known and you might recog- (DE: “Im letzten innerlichen Grunde sind diese Mittel nise its creator, Wassily Kandinsky, the artist known as vollkommen gleich: das Letzte Ziel löscht die äusseren the founder of Germany’s Der blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) Verschiedenheiten und enblösst die innere Identität.”) group. Less well known, however, is the story behind it. In 1911, Kandinsky heard some piano compositions by Unfortunately, Der gelbe Klang never came to fruition Arnold Schoenberg at a concert. He had never heard during Kandinsky’s life, as plans for a first performance the composer’s music before but was impressed and had to be cancelled due to the start of the First World started this painting, which is actually one of his first War. Nevertheless, it remains a fascinating project and is abstract works, the same night. The impact of the event a good example of a interdisciplinary work of art. was stronger than it may otherwise have been as, at the time of the concert, both artists were at a turning point in their careers.

A close friendship developed between them that resulted in an extended and very interesting corre- spondence. They generally shared the same artistic ideals and were very like-minded, which proved very layar app stimulating for both. Two interesting projects resulted in addition to their 1912 co-operation for the Der blaue The book has additional features you can access using the Layar App. If you Reiter exposition and almanac, both of which were press the button on your smartphone or tablet you will open up digital extras experimental pieces for the theatre: Die glückliche Hand that are hidden behind the pages of the book. The smart phone icon will tell (EN: The Hand of Fate) by Schoenberg and Der gelbe you which pages have short films behind them. How does it work? Download Klang (EN: The Yellow Sound) by Kandinsky. the free Layar App for iPhone or Android or, if you already have Layar, update it to the latest version (from the iPhone App Store or Android Play Store). Go to one of the pages with the smartphone icon, open the Layar App and hold your smartphone or tablet over the page so that the whole page is in the picture, press on “Scan”, stay focused on the whole page and wait until the short film appears on the screen of your device.

All short films are archived at Codarts and can also be viewed at oneofakind.codarts.nl.

One Of A Kind

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Wassily Kandinsky Impression III (Konzert) 1911, inspired by the music of Arnold Schoenberg GMS 78 Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München

One Of A Kind The Research Team

Jiří Kylián Jiří Kylián (born in Czechoslovakia He also created Nederlands In the summer of 2006, he created in 1947) started his dance career at Dans Theater III, a company for a film entitled Car Men with the the age of nine at the School of the “older” dancers, in 1991. After an director Boris Paval Conen and in National Ballet in Prague. In 1962, extraordinary record of service, he 2013 another film Between Entrance he was accepted as a student at handed over artistic leadership of and Exit with the same director. It the Prague Conservatory. He left Nederlands Dans Theater in 1999 was choreographed on location in Prague when he received a scholar- but remained associated the com- open brown coal mines in the Czech ship for the Royal Ballet School in pany as house choreographer. He Republic. He has received many London in 1967. After completing has created more than 100 ballets, international awards and honours in his scholarship, he went to the 72 of which were for Nederlands the course of his career including the Stuttgart Ballet led by John Cranko Dans Theater. His work is performed Officer of the Royal Dutch Order of where he made his debut as a all over the world by more than 80 Orange-Nassau, an honorary doctor- choreographer with Paradox for the companies and schools. He has not ate from the Juilliard School in New Noverre Gesellschaft. After making only made works for Nederlands York, three Nijinsky Awards in Monte three ballets for Nederlands Dans Dans Theatre but also for the Carlo (best choreographer, company Theater (Viewers, Stoolgame and La Stuttgart Ballet, the Paris Opéra, and work), Benois de la Danse in Cathédrale Engloutie), he became Swedish television and the Tokyo Moscow and Berlin, an Honorary artistic director of the company in Ballet. He has worked with many Medal from the President of the 1975. In 1978, he put Nederlands creative personalities of interna- Czech Republic and the Chevalier du Dans Theater on the international tional stature, among them the Légion d’Honneur in France. map with Sinfonietta. That same composers Arne Nordheim (Ariadne, year, together with Carel Birnie, he 1997) and Tōru Takemitsu (Dream jirikylian.com founded Nederlands Dans Theater II, Time, 1983) and the designers Walter which gave – and still gives – young Nobbe (Sinfonietta, 1978), Bill Katz dancers the opportunity to develop (Symphony of Psalms, 1978), John their skills and talents, and which Macfarlane (Forgotten Land, 1980), functions as a breeding ground for Michael Simon (Stepping Stones, young talent. 1998), Atsushi Kitagawara (One Of A Kind, 1998) and Susumu Shingu (Toss of a Dice, 2005).

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Dr. Friederike Lampert Dr. Désirée Staverman Friederike Lampert (born in Désirée Staverman (born in Hengelo, since 1988. The research for her 2006 the Master of Music programme at Erlangen, Germany in 1968). She the Netherlands in 1954) studied doctoral thesis The Stage Music of Codarts since 2007. She was on the studied ballet at the Frankfurt the violoncello in Amsterdam and Alphons Diepenbrock: Conception, editorial board for the Donemus edi- University of Music and Performing musicology at Utrecht University. composition, performance focused tion of compositions by the Dutch Arts followed by Applied Theatre She worked for several years as both on the revival of Greek Tragedy composer Diepenbrock and was Studies at the Justus Liebig a violoncello teacher and a music on stage and the combination of working on the thematic catalogue University Giessen. From 1988 to publicist. She has been teaching spoken voice and music in early of this composer. She also organises 2002, she worked as a professional music and cultural history in various twentieth-century stage music. She conferences for the Royal Society for dancer (including Amanda Miller’s departments at Codarts Rotterdam has been research supervisor for Music History of The Netherlands. Pretty Ugly Dance Company) and from 2002 to 2006 she worked as a research assistant in the Department for Performance Studies and taught dance theory and practice. Her doctoral thesis Improvisation in Artistic Dance was awarded the Tanzwissenschaftspreis NRW (a dance science award in North Rhine-Westphalia) in 2006. Since September 2007, she has mainly been teaching dance theory and practice. She organises conferences on dance studies and is artistic direc- tor of the K3 Youth Club at the K3 – Centre for Choreography | Tanzplan Hamburg at Kampnagel. From 2008 to 2010, she worked as a research assistant with Tanzplan Deutschland before becoming an associate researcher for Jiří Kylián’s professor- ship at Codarts Rotterdam.

Michael Schumacher Michael Schumacher is a perform- ing artist with roots in classical and modern dance. He has been a member of several groundbreaking UmaMedia dance companies, including Ballet Owned by Barbara van den Bogaard Frankfurt, Twyla Tharp Dance, Feld and Gerbert Toes, UmaMedia is a Ballet, Pretty Ugly Dance Company company that specialises in visual and Magpie Music Dance Company. storytelling. They were asked to Working as dancer, choreographer, produce several short films for the and teacher, he has developed a One Of A Kind research project. unique approach to the discipline of It became clear when filming the improvisation. He has collaborated first topic, Dance and Age, that the with many pioneering musicians camera offered a new way of making including the percussionist Han research processes in the perform- Bennink, the violinist Mary Oliver, ing arts world visible. The camera and the cellist/composer Alex then became the research eye for the Waterman. He currently lives in entire project and helped explain, Amsterdam and conducts work- in visual terms, the research, the shops in movement analysis and experiences of those involved and improvisation worldwide. the insights gained.

20 21 Sabine Kupferberg Sabine Kupferberg (born in Michael Schumacher. In 1993, she Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1951) took received the Prize of Merit from her first ballet classes at the school Stichting Dansersfonds ‘79 founda- attached to the city’s municipal tion. A year later, the Netherlands theatre. In 1968, she went on to public broadcaster NOS produced Stuttgart to complete her dance a television documentary about education and subsequently joined her achievements that was shown John Cranko’s famed troupe the nationwide. In February 1998, Stuttgart Ballett. She danced the another public broadcaster in the company’s entire repertoire, includ- Netherlands, the NPS, broadcast a ing choreographies by John Cranko, separate documentary about her Kenneth MacMillan and Glen Tetley. called Sabine Kupferberg, Woman of It was in Stuttgart that she met Jiří Thousand Faces, a film made by the Kylián as he was starting to put his German film producer Reiner Moritz. first choreographic ideas in prac- In October 1998, she received the tice and in 1975 they both joined Dutch Golden Theatre Dance Prize Nederlands Dans Theater. During awarded by the Dutch association of this period, she not only danced theatres and concert halls (VSCD). almost every Kylián work but also worked and created with a large number of other choreographers including Hans van Manen, William Forsythe, Mats Ek, Christopher Bruce, Maurice Béjart, Nacho Duato and Ohad Naharin. She was one of the original members of Nederlands Dans Theater III (a company espe- cially created for dancers aged over forty) after it was created in 1991 and again had the opportunity to work with renowned choreogra- phers. She worked with Mats Ek on his 2003 production Tulips, and in 2003 and 2004 she worked closely with the American theatre director Robert Wilson on his production 2 Lips and Dancers and Space. In 2006, she played the main role in the dance film Car-Men, which received several international awards (the Prix Italia, the Golden Prague and many others). She recently took part in the celebrated production Last Touch First by Jiří Kylián and

22 Dance & Age NDT 3 Last Speech

Good evening, friends. I would like to welcome you to this special evening. I’m sure you’re asking yourselves what this evening is all about. There is a reason for it, of course. There’s a reason why all these dancers are standing with me on stage to say hello to you. It’s a special evening in which we’d like to celebrate 15 years of NDT 3, a very special company that was founded all those years ago and was fortunate to be able to work with some of the world’s greatest choreographers and theatre-makers: Hans van Manen, William Forsythe, Mats Ek, Robert Wilson, Maurice Bejart, to name only a view. The company has created 53 ballets and travelled the world. It has been to 31 countries and worked with 25 choreo­graphers. It has been to Iceland, Korea, the United States, Russia, Australia, China, Brazil, Japan and many other countries. It has been proved that there is a great interest around the world in seeing these people perform.

As I said at the outset of this company’s life, older people, dancers who are past their forties, have special tales to tell and we should listen in. Dance isn’t just about performing as many pirouettes and fouettés as possible and jumping as high as we can; it is about something else. It is about experience, about sharing one’s life experience and feelings with the public.

I would like to thank all those wonderful people, all the choreographers, the designers, the people who worked the lights, the technicians and c­ostume makers, all the people who have shared these fantastic years with us. Obviously, I am saying all this because NDT 3 will stop existing in its present form by the 30th of this month. You will not see NDT 3 for at least two years in this constellation. The company has projects in the future. We hope these projects will be well funded financially and will take off in the most glorious way, but we still have to wait and see if this happens.

The strange thing is that we always see young dancers and think how won- derfully energetic and dynamic they are, what fantastic technique they have and so forth, but we don’t realise that somebody like Iván Pérez will do a few pirouettes as a younger man, then he suddenly reaches 40, then 50, then 60, and maybe he will have experienced some interesting things along the way that he would also like to share with you. I think he should be given the opportunity to do that.

I don’t think NDT 3 should rely solely on sponsors in the future. I would like to thank you, our sponsors, for the financial support you have given in the past, are giving now and will give in the future, but I think NDT 3 projects for older dancers should be funded by public money. I think they should be given the opportunity to keep their dreams alive and to bring their fantasies and crea- tive ideas to life, just as young dancers do. This is why I am standing here, to You can learn many things but you cannot tell you this and to ask you for your support in this endeavour.

learn experience. You have to live it. About this evening… after I have finished my glorious speech, we will start with a film, as I thought it might be interesting for you to see what has You have to live through it. And you should happened in the 15 years of NDT 3. After the film, we will see NDT 1 in Bella live as intensely as possible in order to have Figura, then NDT 2 in Chapeau and finally NDT 3 in Birthday. I wish you a something to remember when you grow old. wonderful evening. Enjoy yourselves! Jiří Kylián Jiří Kylián, 2006

27 Far Too Close

We are constantly in motion. We never stop moving. Even when just sitting down, Our mind, our feelings, fantasy, thoughts, and even our body is constantly on the move from one landscape to another. We are in a permanent changing room. The word “movement” carries much symbolism and meaning. It is directly connected to the words “distance”, “time”, “far”, “close” and many others. Our emotional world is closely linked to movement: in many languages, there is a direct connection between the two words “motion” and “emotion” – we move and we are moved. It is obvious that moving closer to something means moving further away from something else. This simple fact is a fundamental question we should ask ourselves whenever we decide “to make a move”. As dancers on stage, or as anybody moving through life, we should ask ourselves, “Are we moving in order to come closer to something, to enter a new space and experience, or in order to move away from something, in order to forget?” Are we moving in order to create future memories, or just to forget the ones we have experienced? In our curious journey through life, often we arrive “far too close” to one thing, so that we cannot see it in its complete form, and maybe “far too far” from the other to be able to see it in any detail. In any case, all our moves (emotional or physical) leave deep wrinkles in our hearts. They are like the lines in the sand of a zen garden in which only our spiritual fantasy grows – or like the furrows of a fertile field in which our food grows, which enables us to make zen gardens, which in turn inspires us to build fertile fields to feed us, which enable us to create zen gardens that inspire us… forever.

Jiří Kylián, June 2003

29 Working on the Dance and Age part of my lectureship was a fine experience for all participants, including myself. We had a number of dancers to work with, aged roughly between 9 and 70. They all had to perform the same choreography to the Beatles song Yesterday. The result was astounding and very, very moving. Jiří Kylián As artistic director of Nederlands Dans Theater for 24 years, I was often confronted with the terrible task of having to say good- bye to many wonderful dancers after they’d worked with me for 10-15 years, during which time they’d become truly great artists. It had to be done as these dancers had simply become too old to satisfy the physical demands of the company’s repertoire. Over time, I found this totally unacceptable and I realised that the departure of these very experienced dancers was a terrible waste. It felt natural to me to create a company like NDT 3 to use the wealth of experience and When you work with younger dancers, wisdom these dancers possessed, and to see you feel more like a teacher. When them perform it on stage. you work with older dancers, you’re

Jiří Kylián more like a colleague and you have to respect their biographies. Your task is to give them the opportunity to create a repertoire that respects the experience they have accumulated and allows them to stand on stage with a sense of dignity compatible with their age. You give them the opportunity to express all the experience they have gathered. In short, they are the starting point. This simple fact was immediately understood by many of my colleagues. Many choreographers of international stature supported the idea and contributed to NDT 3’s unique repertoire. There were pieces by Hans van Manen, Mats Ek, William Forsythe, Maurice Béjart, Robert Wilson, Michael Schumacher, Carolyn Carlson and Christopher Bruce and many others. The company consisted of only four people but their spirit took them to all the continents on the planet. The creation of the company was inspired by very simple but very significant idea from Pablo Picasso: ‘It takes a very long time to become young.’

Jiří Kylián

Dieuwertje Derksen and Sebastian Spahn Expression of the Body at Different Ages by Friederike Lampert and Désirée Staverman

Ton Lutgerink and Martinette Janmaat Jiří Kylián in a podium discussion with Sabine Kupferberg, Michael Schumacher, Gérard Lemaître and David Krugel

Jiří Kylián had his finger on the pulse when he founded The company was closed for financial reasons in 2006 NDT 3, a company for experienced dancers aged older after years of successful touring. A few years later, than 40, in 1991. In contrast with the general view that the dance and academic worlds became increasingly dance careers are short, he worshipped the qualities of interested in ageing and in rethinking the aesthetics of It’s like not running for the bus seasoned dancers. The new company performed works dance, and ageing as a dancer moved to the centre of by renowned choreographers all around the world and theoretical discussions and research, all of which proved anymore. I just don’t do it. In this justified its existence. Kylián recognised the need to how Kylián had set the debate with NDT 3. How does age dance, the younger ones turn, but redefine technique and the aesthetics of age and experi- affect aesthetics in dance? What does this mean for per- ence. With a lifetime of expertise as well as unique gifts, formers and choreographers? How do people perceive I thought, ‘I’m not going to do NDT 3 dancers performed masterpieces of subtlety and very young and older dancers on stage? What differences that because I’ll probably fall.’ refinement. are there between young and older dancers? I don’t take risks. I don’t run for the bus, I wait for the next one. Martinette Janmaat (dancer aged 60+)

Jamie Hendriks and Beau Delwel 35 The following one-week workshop involved four gene­ Rehearsing the piece in the studio was an uncommon rations of dancers who worked together for three hours situation for all participants. Everyone was aware of the each day. The four generations were two children aged fact they were part of a cross-generational group in 13, a group of 20 fourth-year students from the Codarts which each participant was practising the steps while at Bachelor of Dance degree programme (the students the same time observing each other. Everyone learned worked in pairs with one couple representing the group the same choreography, finding their own way of execut- in the lecture demonstration), two dancers aged around ing the steps. The youngest couple found it easy to copy 50 and an older couple aged around 70. The aim of the the steps and express them with innocence and purity. workshop, which was steered by Jiří Kylián, Michael The dance students, at the height of their physical ability, Schumacher and Sabine Kupferberg, was to create performed the choreography with great dynamism and awareness among young people of the influence of age energy. In the performance by the middle-aged couple and experience on expression as well as to show how (Kupferberg and Schumacher), it was possible to observe expression is different in each phase of life. an expression of experience and ageing combined with a very sensitive, smooth and musical execution of move- In the first session, Schumacher invited the participants ment. Martinette Janmaat and Ton Lutgerink, the elder to formulate their thoughts on the content of the sym- couple, needed to adapt some steps they were no longer posium. Kylián then asked them how it was possible to able to do (e.g. bending at the knees) but the timing remain young while ageing, at the same time pointing remained the same. In performing the movements, their out the importance of self-development and focus in expression was delicate and fine. They didn’t take risks; order to make personal choices rather than sticking to their movements were subtle and performed using the models. Kylián chose the song Yesterday by The Beatles expertise they had acquired in a lifetime of dancing. They (performed live by singer Tim Van Peteghem and guitar- knew how to deal with ageing bodies, compensating the ist Zoltàn Polgàr) as the music for the short choreogra- loss of technique with expression. phy that was to be developed during the week. The presentation of the short choreography by four gen-

Marta Mazzoleni and Michal Szymanski Kylián, Schumacher and Kupferberg developed the cho- erations of dancers, the first research project carried out reography in the studio, focusing on the interaction with as part of Jiří Kylián’s professorship at Codarts Rotterdam, a chair and the dancers’ clothing. Movements and body took place on 24 November 2010. In an animated discus- poses were initiated by unusual use of the chair and the sion following the lecture demonstration, the approxi- As part of the One Of A Kind professorship at Codarts For a broader view, theatre scientist and teacher at jacket, skirt and blouse. The entangled interaction of mately 200 students and teachers present were surprised Rotterdam, Jiří Kylián gave dance students an oppor­ Codarts’s dance department Hilke Diemer gave a lively female and male dancers was often an amusing reminder by the difference in expression of the various couples. tunity to reflect on these questions in a project entitled presentation on her research into dance in Sudan, the of real-life relationships. The students who took part in the project were explicit “Expression of the body at different ages”. The exchange intention being to provide an example of the signifi- about how much they had learned from working with between dancers of different ages, Codarts dance cance of dance in a non-Western culture. Sociologist the oldest couple, dancers who were willing to share students and scholars began with a symposium on 15 Malte Friedrich from the Institut für soziologische their lifelong experience with them. Kylián’s experiment November 2010 that set out the central theme – the Meinungsforschung in Berlin then broached the topic of served to broaden the appreciation of age among par- expression of the human body in various age phases. youth mania in Western society, asking why we all want ticipants and observers alike. They witnessed the ability Professor Kylián, the dancers Sabine Kupferberg and to be young. His raw take on today’s youth-obsessed of dancers over 70 to express themselves in a detailed, Michael Schumacher, former dancers Ton Lutgerink society sparked a major response from the students, convincing way, and in doing so producing a wider and Martinette Janmaat as well as a group of Codarts an indication of how much food for thought he had aesthetic and a re-evaluation of the competencies of age. s­tudents opened the session by speaking about their given the young dancers. Medical practitioner and views on ageing in the dance world. The subsequent dancer Anandi Felter explained the impact of the ageing discussion focused on the need to respect age while at process, particularly for dancers, from a medical point the same time developing one’s personality and breaking of view and dance scientist and associate researcher at away from tradition to follow one’s own path. Codarts Friederike Lampert concluded the symposium with a presentation on the age-related experiments in Kontakthof by the choreographer Pina Bausch. The influ- ence of society’s perception of age on the aesthetics of dance and choreography, a key question in this research project, was clear in this varied opening session.

Michael Schumacher and Sabine Kupferberg

36 37 Participating Codarts students: Ravid Arbabanel Clarissa Bragna Beau Delwel (Havo/vwo for Music and Dance) Dieuwertje Derksen Daphne Dudovich Sayaka Haruna Jamie Hendriks (Havo/vwo for Music and Dance) Sayo Homma Sonoko Kamimura Keonjoong Kim Marta Mazzoleni Ilse Orozco Allesandro Sebastiani Sebastian Spahn Michal Szymanski Theresia Wallberg If you choose a career in Beau Delwel dance, do it differently, Tim Van Peteghem (singer) Zoltàn Polgàr (guitarist) share it differently. Michael Schumacher (dancer aged 50+) Guests: Martinette Janmaat Sabine Kupferberg Ton Lutgerink Michael Schumacher

More to explore

Short film: Dance & Age You can learn many things Questions: – How do trends inbut society you influence can’t the learnperception experience. of ageing? – How does ageingYou affect have the body?to live it, live through it. – How does ageingYou affect should personality? live intensely to have – Why and how do choreographers work with older dancers? – What is the aestheticsomething difference in theto performancesremember of young when and older dancers? you grow old. Literature: Christoph Faircloth, Aging Bodies: Images and Everyday Experience, Walnut Creek, New York, Oxford: Alta Mira pr, 2003.Jiri Kylian Jacky Lansley, Fergus Early: The Wise Body: Conversations with Experienced Dancers, Bristol, Chicago: Intellect, 2011. Elisabeth Schwaiger, Ageing, Gender, Embodiment and Dance: Finding a Balance, New York: Palgrave, 2011. Aagje Swinnen, John A. Stotesbury, Aging, Performance, and Stardom: Doing Age on the Stage of Consumerist Culture, London: LIT Verlag, 2012. Virpi Ylänne, Representing Ageing: Images and Identities, New York: Pelgrave, 2012.

38 Michael Schumacher 39 I’ve been around for a while but seldom experienced so much opening-up and sharing as Michael and Jiří did in the work process. It releases so much tension. We are all insecure and it is important to do this. It’s rare for people to understand the importance of opening up, sharing, and avoiding the authority game. Sabine Kupferberg (dancer aged 50+)

Sabine Kupferberg and Michael Schumacher Youth Mania. Ageing (or not) with or without Botox by Malte Friedrich

Madonna does it, Meg Ryan does it, It isn’t all about looks, however. in society: they had a voice in matters Gwyneth Paltrow will soon do it and Many people also base their be- affecting the entire group (whether Mickey Rourke has been doing it haviour, attitude and style on what clan, family or community) and their for a long time. They’re not the only they think is youthful. The social experience and knowledge were an ones. Thousands of people of differ- construction of age has turned important source of information and ent ages are using the same wonder youth into an ideal and a point of advice. Idealising age for its tranquilli- drug, Botox, to remove wrinkles reference. The aim is to stay young ty, experience and wisdom facilitated from their faces. It’s an easy way to as long as possible – in one’s own its integration into the social fabric. paralyse the skin with a neurotoxic head, in one’s approach to the world substance and arrest the ageing and in one’s self-representation. It’s In industrial and digital societies, process temporarily. Injection with a paradoxical situation because the particularly Europe and North nerve poison is one of many offers population in the Western world is America, the traditional tasks promising a younger-looking body. actually getting older. and appreciation of old age have In addition to Botox and cosmetic to a large extent disappeared. surgery, there are creams, fitness The current obsession with youth Communities have become societies programmes and muscle-building is so rampant we could forget that whose elders are no longer automat- products, even clothes that alter longing for youthfulness has been ically advisors or decision-makers your shape. But the goal is always with us for a very long time. The while extended families have largely the same – to appear to others (but wish for (eternal) youth is an integral been replaced by small or nuclear primarily to yourself) as if you aren’t part at least of European cultural families. Generations of families only your actual age. history: it can be seen, for example, tend to live together until members in the figure of Hebe, the ancient of the younger generation have goddess of youth who had the been reared and can provide for power to rejuvenate elderly people; themselves, which means that the or in the legend of the Holy Grail, status of elderly people is no longer which promised immortality; or in determined by a social and spatial the story of the Jungbrunnen, a foun- obligation to others. Their role in tain that restored youthfulness to the family unit becomes unclear and those who visited it and which was is different in every family. Many immortalised in a painting by Lucas elderly people naturally accept fam- Cranach the Elder from 1546. Today’s ily responsibilities, such as tempo- situation is not too different from rarily caring for grandchildren, but the past, but there are some charac- they no longer always live in the teristics that justify our speaking of same house as their grandchildren. a specific and unique situation. The The spatial and social bond isn’t main difference between now and necessarily a close one and elderly then is less in the intensity of the people can’t always rely on the care desire for youth and more in youth’s they need at home. Age therefore unique position as the sole ideal. becomes a problem. It also loses its reputation for being able to fulfil a range of tasks across different age The loss of old age as an ideal groups and life situations. Up until not too long ago, getting older was indeed considered un- If the basic family framework has desirable, as it came with the risk of changed then so has the relation- degeneration as well as other restric- ship between parents and children. tions and burdens, even though it The hierarchy between them was was accepted socially. Law, conven- called into question no later than the tion and tradition, for example, em- 1960s while various forms of anti- phasised the position of elders in a authoritarian or symbiotic education community and assigned them a role are testament to the dissolution of

Jamie Hendriks 43 clear boundaries between parents protestors are raising their voices market and can be seen in all forms using slang, all measures aimed at is strangely excluded merely by the you live, consumer products and life (older) and children (younger). against this final bastion of the old of media. They provide us with a putting age in the background and fact of looking at us. partners) makes it almost impossible Elders’ exact tasks again become un- boys’ network too. Nowadays, it is highly visible notion of how a body pretending time can stand still. to relate them to each other and clear in this scenario. The way they young, fresh employees who count should look. Knowing these images People with no interest in following Attempting to look and be young is balance them out. One way to deal continue to act as role models needs for more than “stale” old members do not represent reality does not this trend have to accept the fact one type of behaviour that sees peo- with the conundrum is to delay life to be negotiated on an individual of staff, as the former are believed to stop us comparing our own bodies, their appearance will be inconsist- ple interact with images rather than choices for as long as possible or, if basis, which is not conducive to a embody the products the company and its imperfections, with them. ent with the desired timelessness people, for example when watching that’s not possible, to act as if they general appreciation of age. wants to create in the future. They are omnipresent, which makes and perfection evident in bodies television or using the Internet. The can be reviewed at any time, in other them the central point of reference transformed by images. They also latest example of this is the use of words lingering in a mental state In summary, whereas seniority was This fixation with youth is becoming in assessing our own appearance, have to endure looking different to mobile telephones that allow users where the opportunities of youth once an important stage in the increasingly apparent in customer and, because they relate to eve- the way one should look, which is – regardless of where they actually abound. This approach is supported age structure and characterised by orientation. Even if most products ryone and everything, it is almost probably why so many people do try are – to immerse themselves in a by the fact that many social ties are special qualities, its role has now be- aren’t focused directly on preserv- impossible to avoid comparisons, if to embody the images we see. After completely different environment organised via formal or informal come superfluous, a key reason why ing youthful-looking bodies, they only because there are people close all, having the perfect look not only and deal exclusively with their own agreements that can be terminated we see old age as a problem and try are nonetheless designed and to us doing it. promises self-esteem and success visual preferences. (e.g. marriages, appointments, prod- to reach it as late as possible. developed for customers imagined but also an experience of what it ucts, friendships or apartments). to have young bodies and spirits. It These sugar-coated images are with feels like to be ideal – another rea- Purchasing a product, adapting Such a mental attitude is linked to the doesn’t matter who actually buys us every day, laughing towards us son why such wishful thinking is as your own body, “improving” it in idealisation of youth. We are all par- Capitalism and the world of work the products, to developers the from house walls, television sets persistent and penetrating as it is. line with images and in doing so ticipants in a competition to remain This lack of appreciation for older customer is young. This orienta- or websites, and they show us an indulging yourself in the cult of the young as long as possible. It’s a com- people isn’t limited to family units; tion is understandable, as products unattainable world that is nonethe- individual (even if everybody else is petition no one can win and in the it is evident in all sections of society. need a constant flow of new, young less our world as it is a visualisation The narcissistic personality doing the same) fits perfectly into meantime we all grow old, sooner or Modernity’s outstanding cultural customers in order to survive. of our own dreams: it is a continu- The quest for youth and beauty a consumer society that offers and later, with or without Botox. feature is an ideology of constant ous loop of idealisation in which using an image for guidance is promises everything to everyone. newness: not only is everything There is even less interest in older our image of a dream world and indicative of a narcissistic personal- Once you start following this logic in a state of perpetual change but people in the advertising world the dream world in the image feed ity type. Narcissism is often under- it isn’t easy to stop. Anyone want- About the author: everything should be in a state of where the focus is purely on people each other. The bodies in the images stood as forms of self-love, but the ing to escape such obliviousness Dr. Malte Friedrich is a sociologist liv- perpetual change, or, better still, aged 40 or less. Only those in this look as though they could defy time. myth of Narcissus means more than to one’s own environment and ing and working in Berlin. His areas should be in a state of constant age bracket are considered to be suf- Whether we like it or not, this is our taking pleasure in your own mirror avoid the self-indulgence of body of research are urban culture, popu- improvement. Anything that was ficiently open to influence for costly own self-created ideal of ourselves image, as it is also about forgetting contouring has to start making lar music, the sound of the city and current or valid a few years ago is advertising campaigns to have an and we can’t ignore it. The most everything beyond this self-observa- direct contact with other people opinion research. From 1999 to 2002, already outdated, obsolete or even impact and result in product prefer- we can do is avoid it or oppose it, tion. Narcissists are focused only on again. However, this can often only he was research associate for the irrelevant today. This even applies ences, so it is hardly surprising that but this does nothing to reduce its themselves. They cannot enter into be achieved by drawing attention German Research Foundation pro- to theories proclaiming the demise promotional clips and photos show overall power. a meaningful interaction with others to the sculpted body. Narcissism ject Corporality and Urbanity. The of this development. The desire for people in this age group. The same because they are so absorbed in asserts itself even in the attempt to Presentation of Ethnicity in Hip-Hop. newness is a continuum, and again applies to areas of the media closely Most people don’t try to escape this their own image. overcome it, yet another reason why He has been the head of the Institut older people are seen as yesterday’s related to the advertising indus- image world entirely but instead the quest for youthfulness has sunk für soziologische Meinungsforschung news, relics from the past or out- try, for example it is mostly young try to follow it and adapt and shape It is easy to detect narcissistic traits so deeply into our minds and is so since 2003. dated models. people we see on television and film their bodies in line with collective in much of our behaviour. The stubbornly pursued. screens or in magazines. The images requirements. Such efforts are sup- attempt to transform oneself into As far as the workplace is concerned, are intended to encourage people to ported by an entire industry fully an ideal image in order to evoke the days of seeing age as evidence buy. We are fed a vision of a perfect equipped with the right images as the impression of (eternal) youth Waiting for the perfect match of experience and expertise are long life, which includes having a flawless, well as promises of being able to is typically narcissistic. Grooming There is a clear link between the gone, as young people’s motivation healthy and active body. These im- make your body immaculate. The one’s body is mainly about pleasing functional disability of old age, the and enthusiasm count for more. ages stimulate our dream worlds and willingness to transform oneself others, but shaping one’s body to upsurge in images of perfect bodies, Experience has little value because the bodies we see are the idealised using images is commonplace and perfection has become a form of the consumer world and narcissism working conditions and market en- models we need to bring our dreams has long exceeded the physical self-employment primarily con- that results in youth being the only vironments are constantly changing. to life. Possessing the perfect body is limitations of the body. Cosmetic cerned with making an individual desirable state in our society today, Looking to the future is more impor- a common daydream clearly sparked surgery – which uses plastic inserts, dream-body scenario come true. but there is also another reason tant than familiarity with the past. by the images of perfect, youthful suction tools, hammers and knives The fact efforts are also being made why nearly everybody is long- The greater the demand for innova- bodies that flood our daily lives. to reshape the body – is only a radi- for the benefit of others is quickly ing for eternal youth. Many of the tion, the more avidly companies cal continuation of all conventional forgotten. At the same time, an opportunities and freedoms that search for people who can spark it The obsession itself is mainly the attempts to conceal or reverse the increasing number of people are exist for large parts of the popula- and implement change – or at least result of an upsurge of images of physical affects of ageing by achiev- willing to reveal their naked bodies tion in industrialised societies don’t act as if they could. The idea that ex- young, naked or half-naked bodies ing a youthful look that didn’t exist to others – not in bid to make direct necessarily lead to a simpler lifestyle. perience could be useful is now only worked to perfection by artists, previously. Media images of massive contact with other people but to Every decision reduces the numbers really considered by the top brass photographers and videographers amounts of invasive and extensive feast on themselves via others’ vo- of possibilities, which ultimately of large companies, the only group using digital image processing. body shaping normalise the results. yeuristic gazes. We want them to see amounts to a restriction of freedom, of people where the old patriarchal These images accompany and The process is supported by youth us as we see ourselves. It’s a narcis- while the diversity of possibilities at age structure still survives, although illustrate each product on the fashion, taking-up trendy sports or sistic strategy in which the onlooker different levels (work, friends, where

44 45 What I observed and what I liked about this experience was its optimism. It gave hope. The idea of creating the same choreography for people of different ages produced beautiful results. Both the older and younger generations liked the song Yesterday by The Beatles. It had a different meaning for each of them. For the older generation, it seemed to remind them of a point in the past. They have done a lot of things since, left a lot behind and already experienced more than they could have expected. The dance students still have lots of questions to answer. Some are experienced and know a lot but are still searching. The youngest ones don’t have much experience. They have more ahead of them than behind them, but despite this they’re working hard to get to know the world. For me as a performer, it was more interesting to see the older and youngest dancers on stage – rather than dance students my age – as they performed with more expression and looked very honest. The dance students were good technically, correct in their steps, but I missed emotion and pleasure. I noticed that Martinette and Ton were a bit stressed, probably because of the pressure of having to dance in front of a big audience again. Despite that, when they started it was like they forgot all their worries, left everything behind and totally enjoyed the moment, taking the audience with them to a magical world. I had tears in my eyes when they finished. It was so sincere and it really touched me. I started to think how I would feel at their age. I would hope to be as honest as they are now. I hope the dance students learn something from them. Seeing Beau and Jamie (the youngest dancers) touched me in a different way. They looked very cute and innocent but at the same time I could see they had no idea why they were dancing the piece and what it was all about. They were funny but very focused on what they were doing. I think there should be more projects like this. Observing the differences between generations is a great learning opportunity and helps us improve as artists and dancers.

Sonia Egner (dance student 18+) NDT 3 was created in 1991. Imagine being the director of a dance company for 25 years, as I Thewas, andAgeing then having Process to say good-bye from to soa many Medicalwonderful dancers Point after they’ve of View been working with you for 10-15by Anandi years, Felterduring which time they’ve become truly fantastic artists. It’s impossible. It was There are more elderly people nowadays. The population “You don’t stop dancingnatural because to youcreate grow a companyis ageing thanks like to improvements NDT3 to in healthcare use this with bet- old, you grow old becausefantastic you stop accumulation dancing.” ter treatment of experience and counselling and of chronically wisdom ill people. According to the population prognosis by Statistics Unknown author and seeNetherlands it on1, thestage. number of people aged 65 and over in theJiri Netherlands Kylian will increase from 2.7 million in 2012 to 4.7 million in 2041. The number of people aged over 80 This article describes the medical process of a­geing, will increase from 2025 onwards. It is estimated that 26% particularly in dancers, and how you can avoid injuries. of the population will be aged 65 and over in 2040, one People go through different phases as they age. After third of this group aged 80 or over. By comparison, the birth, a person goes through the baby phase (up to percentage of people aged 65 and over in 2012 was 16%. 1.5 years), the toddler phase (from 2.5 to 6 years), the pre-school period (from 2.5 to 6 years), the elementary The ageing process remains a mystery. More than 300 school period (from 6 to 12 years), adolescence (between theories exist about its origins or what causes it. What we 12 and 20), the adult period (between 20 and 60) and the do know is that ageing is an interaction between endog- elderly period (from 60 years until death). The focus of enous (e.g. genetic, immunologic or n­euroendocrine) this chapter is on the final phase of life. factors and exogenous factors such as radiation, nutrition or smoking. There are two types of cells in the physiology of ageing, those that proliferate (reproduce) and those that degenerate (can’t reproduce). Cells that cannot proliferate are nerve cells, cells belonging to the primary sense organs, skeletal muscle cells and heart muscle cells. Cells that can reproduce are blood cells and skin cells, but the speed of reproduction decreases with age.

Skin: The speed at which the skin ages is determined by genes and exogenous influences (exposure to open air, sunlight, etc.). Degenerative changes in the collagen and Jamie Henriks and Beau Delwel elastic fibres in the skin lead to decreased e­lasticity but at the same time protect freedom of movement (in the same way that losing elasticity in your trousers allows you to move more freely in them) while the loss of sub- cutaneous tissue causes wrinkles.

Joints: Synovial joints allow movement. Cartilage covers Dance and age doesn’t sound like a marriage made the ends of healthy synovial joints and provides shock in heaven but in my understanding it shouldn’t absorption. The joint fluid, or synovial fluid, reduces fric- tion via lubrication and transports nutrients and waste be viewed with scepticism. My long experience matter. Ageing causes the breakdown and ultimately loss of the top layer of cartilage as well as a reduction in as a dancer, choreographer and artistic director, the amount of synovial fluid. This is also known as joint as well as my encounters with Asian cultures and wear-and-tear or degenerative osteoarthritis that allows the bones in the joint to rub together causing pain. A Australia’s Aboriginal people, has taught me that radiological sign of degenerative osteoarthritis is the nar- rowing of joint space due to the loss of cartilage. Figure we possess the ability to dance throughout our 1 is an x-ray of a 51-year-old dancer with a normal hip entire lives and can be respected for doing so. We joint on the left and a degenerative hip joint on the right. It is evident that there is narrowing of the joint space. can dance from the womb to the tomb. Degenerative osteoarthritis is most common in the spine, Jiří Kylián hip, knee, hand and foot.

49 Muscles: Ageing leads to a decreased ability of skeletal How can these injuries be prevented? Overuse injuries Older dancers Reference group muscle fibres to contract, resulting in a reduction of are generally caused by a disruption in the balance 66 dancers, 92 injuries 345 dancers, 587 injuries muscle power. It is possible to compensate for this with b­etween a dancer’s load-bearing capacity and the exercise, however. As far as muscle is concerned, it is a d­emanded load. Treating and preventing these injuries 1.4 injuries per dancer 1.7 injuries per dancer matter of “use it or lose it”. is a matter of either increasing and enhancing the load- Table 1: Comparison of older dancers with the reference group bearing capacity – e.g. by improving dance technique, general fitness, control and the body centre (core stabil- Research on ageing in dance medicine ity) – or reducing the demanded load. Because degener- A study of dance injuries in dancers and dance teach- ative changes cause a permanent decrease in a dancer’s Older dancers Reference group ers aged 45 years and older2,3 was conducted out on load-bearing capacity, load reduction is the only option Shoulder 4% 3% the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Dutch in such situations. In my opinion, older dancers should Dance Teachers Union (Nederlandse Bond van Dans take advantage of other qualities. Their added value lies Back 18% 14% Kunstenaars). The study was carried out by A.B.M. (Boni) more in experience and expression and less in purely Hip 15% 10% Rietveld, orthopaedic surgeon at the Medical Centre physical capabilities. Knee 25% 25% for Dancers and Musicians (MCDM) department of the Ankle 3% 27% Medisch Centrum Haaglanden in The Hague. The MCDM I would like to conclude this chapter with a quote from Figure 1: An x-ray of the hips of a 51-year-old dancer with degenerative Foot 28% 16% osteoarthritis in his right hip is a clinic that provides specialised care for professional Shanna La Fleur: “It takes an athlete to dance, but an and semi-professional dancers and musicians as well a­rtist to be a dancer.” Miscellaneous 7% 5% as active amateurs. The goal is to diagnose, prevent Total 100% 100% and treat injuries caused by dancing or playing music, or i­njuries that hinder the ability to engage in such About the author: Table 2: Location of injuries activities. Mrs. A.E. (Anandi) van Loon-Felter, M.D., B.A. (dance) is a resident doctor at the Medical Centre for Dancers A total of 727 dancers and dance teachers who were and Musicians and works in the field of rehabilitation injured on consecutive occasions were analysed in the medicine. She trained as a professional dancer and study. Of the total, 66 people (9%) were aged 45 years dance teacher at the Dansacademie Lucia Marthas in or older with an average age of 52 years. The majority of Amsterdam. people (44 out of 66 or 67%) were dance teachers. They were compared with a control group of 345 dancers of all ages from a previous study and who had also been Address for correspondence: injured on consecutive occasions. Medical Centre for Dancers and Musicians, A comparison between the group of older dancers and Medisch Centrum Haaglanden, lokatie Westeinde, Figure 2: Work in progress at the Medical Centre for Dancers and Musicians with A.B.M. Rietveld (middle) and A.E. van Loon-Felter (right) the reference group reveals no large differences in terms Postbus 432, 2501 CK Den Haag. of the occurrence of injuries (see Table 1) but there is a E-mail: [email protected] difference as far as the location of injuries is concerned (see Table 2). Notes: There was a lower percentage of ankle injuries in the 1. www.cbs.nl 2. Rietveld A.B.M. “Dance Injuries in the Older Dancer: Review of 4 older dancers. Possible explanations for this include the Common Injuries and Prevention”, Journal of Dance Medicine and “healthy worker effect”, i.e. only the strongest persist or Science, Vol. 4, No. 1, March 2000, pp. 20-22. dancers with ankle injuries may chose another, non- 3. Rietveld A.B.M. “Dance Injuries in the Older Dancer: Comparison with Younger Dancers”, Journal of Dance Medicine and Science, Vol. 4, dancing career. However, it is more likely that the low No. 1, March 2000, pp. 16-19. number of ankle injuries in older dancers was due to 4. Rietveld A.B.M. “Dans en muziekletsels”, in Verhaar J.A.N., van Mourik successful treatment of ankle problems at a younger J.B.A. (eds.), Orthopedie, Bohn Stafleu van Loghum, Houten, 2013. age. According to the author of the study, the majority of injuries in older dancers were caused by degenerative changes in the knee, back, hip and foot.

50 51 I was envious of the older dancers, Ton and Martinette, at times. I realised it would take me a long time to achieve such expression. There were a few moments when I thought, ‘I can’t say the things they can say. I’ll just have to wait a bit.’ Michal Szymanski (dance student aged 18+)

Allesandro Sebastiani 53 As a dance student, you do think about getting older. You know a dance career won’t last forever. There will be physical restrictions to deal with, but ‘once an artist, always an artist’, as this performance made clear. It also showed how you can keep growing even if you’re body no longer allows you to do everything you used to. This was beautiful to see. You need to be a personality on stage and be strong enough to open up to the public, something both couples showed. You also need more than just technique and physical possibilities to get the message across. You need to be honest too. We saw this honesty in the children, in the doubt and vulnerability they occasionally showed. We could see they were anxious but at the same time enjoying themselves. Instead of hiding their emotions behind the choreography, they used the choreography to show their emotions. This doesn’t mean technique isn’t important, it is. Technique allows you to extend your movement vocabulary and express a message better.

Xanthe van Opstal (dance student aged 18+)

Jamie Henriks and Beau Delwel Ton Lutgerink and Martinette Janmaat Dance & voice Creating a Third Dimension Podium interview with Jiří Kylián, conducted by Friederike Lampert

A film of extracts from choreo­ Friederike Lampert: This film physicality and abstraction. I think graphies by Pina Bausch, William gave us some impressions of how our ‘naked’ means of expression Christian van Dijk Forsythe and Jiří Kylián was shown choreographers deal with dance have a great deal in common and before the interview. and voice. We saw different ways of are, in themselves, limitless. combining the two: dancers talking on stage or moving to a recorded FL: How do you start when you opera or voice. There are many decide to work with words and ways to produce vocal sounds and voice? Do you write texts? I like to call dance and voice the many ways to present movement. ‘naked’ arts because we don’t need any What’s so fascinating about com­ JK: It’s different each time. You bining dance and voice? saw examples in the film. Tar and extensions to our body to perform Feathers is a tragi-comic piece with Jiří Kylián: I like to call dance and dancers wearing funny black wigs, (unlike musicians who need instruments voice the two ‘naked’ art forms. making grimaces and performing or painters brushes). I think they Why? A painter needs a brush, a pantomime-like movements. It is double-bass player a double bass, choreographed to the words of complement each other greatly because a trumpeter a trumpet and so on, Samuel Beckett’s last poem What but if I want to express myself with is the Word. This great man was a they are the most personal art forms. dance or vocally I only need my wonder­ful juggler of language, We thought it would be a good idea to body, so I call this naked art, as we literature and poetry. His last poem don’t need any extensions to do is absolutely fascinating. A man put them together and create awareness them. That’s their beauty and the who found words for every human reason why I have chosen dance and expression and feeling suddenly and sensitivity between them. voice as part of this lectureship. asks, “what is the word,”. The poem Jiří Kylián is a very definite statement from FL: Why combine the two? a literary giant who actually says at the end of his life that language JK: Because they’re the oldest forms isn’t enough; we don’t have enough of human artistic expression. Some words to portray the spectrum of people say dance is the oldest art human feelings – suffering, love and form, humans’ primary artistic ex- so on. Words are stereotypes but pression, be it spiritual, ritual, artistic dance gives us the opportunity to or rational. I wanted to combine fill in the gaps, which is why I think the two in order to appreciate their there’s legitimacy in combining diversity, bringing them together words, vocal sounds and growling in unexpected ways. The voice can and grunting with movement. Many manifest itself in many ways, from people have done it so its effective- growling and grunting to heavy ness has been proved. breathing and whatever other strange sounds our vocal chords can produce. The possibilities are endless. We can express ourselves through text, literature, poetry and song, the most sublime of vocal arts. The range is enormous. The possibilities for physical expres- sion are just as limitless. Our bodies can growl and grunt in movement. They can also produce literature through sign language. Our bodies can express emotions, spirituality,

60 61 FL: How important is it for you to FL: Dancers and musicians will FL: So you’re going to experiment understand the meaning of spoken be coming together in pairs in with these different couplings and words, if at all? the upcoming Dance and Voice see what happens? workshop: four guest singers and JK: Sometimes it’s essential to four guest dancers, each from a JK: Yes. We’re basically asking each understand every single word, different discipline (Gregorian musician to prepare a short piece but words can be also used as a singing, contemporary dance, rap, of music, roughly two minutes in background soundscape. You know breakdance, countertenor singing, length, and then we’re going to it’s a human voice but you use it as classical dance, overtone singing work with the dancers to create wallpaper, as a base for something and kung fu). Tell me about the four short choreographies. When more important. There are other experiment you want to do? it’s finished, we’re going to change examples, for example my choreo­ the combinations, play around and graphy Claude Pascal, which is some- JK: The subject is huge, as were the look at what’s possible – what works thing of a pantomime. I wrote the themes we thought about explor- and what doesn’t. I’m interested text myself. I was very inspired by ing. Dance and voice is endless. You in creating a third dimension by Eugène Ionesco, a great Romanian have to categorise, so I decided on combining dance and voice. Imagine playwright and a co-creator of four quiet obvious categories. Do the ballerina dancing to a rap singer, absurdist theatre, which expresses you know what a countertenor is? or the kung fu master moving to a the belief that life makes no sense It’s a kind of sublime but artificial countertenor. They will all be mixed whatsoever although we try to give expression of the human voice. up in the workshop in a way that will it some kind of form and meaning. It I coupled it with classical dance, add another layer of adventure to is very important to understand that which is physically very stylised and our experiment. the words in Claude Pascal mean just as extraordinary, so you hear the absolutely nothing whatsoever. I male singer’s incredibly high voice Interview conducted in March 2011 also borrowed some text from Bram complemented by a ballerina en Stoker’s Dracula for this piece. pointe. We also have a rap singer. I’m not familiar with rap music – don’t FL: In your pieces, the sounds of worry, I won’t rap for you – and a words are sometimes distorted breakdancer. These two cultures, rap using technology. They become and breakdance or hip-hop, grew up more of a musical pattern. When together. They’re urban cultures of does vocal sound become music? human need. They developed from crime, poverty and being critical of JK: The sound of a voice is music society. Rap and breakdance is an- anyway, it doesn’t matter what you other very obvious dance-and-voice do with it. It would be fascinating to coupling. Then we have an overtone record a simple sound like ahhhhh singer – I have to say that Mongolian and analyse its range of tones. It’s singing is fascinating for its mysteri- not only an ahhhhh you hear but ous, haunting quality – and I cou- an entire rainbow of aliquote tones. pled him with a kung fu master. We There are all kinds of overtones and talked about martial arts. I think it’s undertones in just that one sound, an art form. It isn’t gymnastics. It’s so it’s music; voice is music. Classical a metaphoric art, a sublime art, so I actors use the singing quality of thought it would be interesting to their voice, so I think voice can be, have meditative music coupled with and maybe should be, regarded as a kind of self-defence, kung fu medi- musical expression. tation. It may not be appropriate, Podium interview with Jiří Kylián, led by Friederike Lampert but it gives you something to think about. The final coupling involves a contemporary dancer reacting to a Gregorian chant. The two don’t really belong together but I thought it was an interesting combination nonetheless. Gregorian chant is one of the oldest voicebased musical forms there is. It’s highly spiritual music. There’s a certain kind of spir- ituality in contemporary dance that can be coupled with the spirituality of the early Christian church.

62 63 Jay Tjon Jaw Chong We developed short choreographies (about two minutes in length) for each couple. The initial choreographies were for matching singers and dancers, for example a countertenor and a ballerina, a breakdancer and a rapper or an overtone singer and a kung fu master. We then mixed up the singer-dancer pairings and this became an extremely interesting experience. Jiří Kylián

66 Hannah de Klein and Jorg Delfos 67 For me, it was the experience of being more focused and Experimenting with really aware of where the singer Dance and Voice was the whole time. I think by Friederike Lampert and Désirée Staverman it made my dancing more sensitive, that it made me listen more to the music to show the Dance and voice are primal art The exchange between dancers, In the last week of March 2013 forms. Dancers and singers have one singers and scholars began in March (d­uring Codarts dance department’s music through my body. thing in common: in that the chan- 2011 with a symposium on the sub- “composition week”), students Hannah de Klein (ballet dancer) nel of expression is their own body ject of Dance and Voice. The session gained experience of working and/or voice. They need no other was opened with a DVD of extracts with the voice, with or without instrument to practise their art; at from choreographies (by Pina movement. the same time they have nothing Bausch, William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián) to hide behind. These “naked” art that use the voice, either spoken or Four guest teachers from different forms, as Jiří Kylián calls them, are an sung, in various ways. disciplines gave one workshop each. interesting research theme. Dancers The soprano Connie de Jongh (who may use their voices while perform- Kylián then explained why he chose teaches awareness in performing ing and singers cannot express the dance and voice theme in a arts at Codarts) explored the body- themselves without movements and podium interview with Friederike mind-voice connection using light g­estures. What happens when danc- Lampert. Afterwards, Vincent and soundscapes to stimulate vocal er and singers work together? Who Meelberg (a senior lecturer in cul- improvisations by the students. inspires whom and what can they tural studies at Radboud University, learn from each other? These were Nijmegen) talked about the naked Renate Hoenselaar (a voice and some of the questions discussed in arts from a music philosophy point of dance therapist) gave a workshop Dance and Voice, the second project view. He used an experimental com- on voice therapy. Using the question of Kylián’s One Of A Kind professor- position for baritone solo, Jactations “Where is the sound in your body?” ship at Codarts. (2001) by Georges Aperghis, to as the starting point, students illustrate the observers’ emotional learned to express different emo- and physical reactions when either tions by making movements and watching dance or listening to sounds without language. Borg Diem singing. Artistic Manager of Codarts Groeneveld (an overtone singer) Muziektheater Academy Alberto ter helped the students become aware Doest then brought the symposium of their breathing and taught them to a close with an inspiring lecture how to use the movement of the that used the students and teachers breath to express the sound of the present to demonstrate a range of voice in different registers. vocal techniques. Drama teacher Pjotr Cieslak’s workshop focused on how to insert sounds in theatrical situations using different and sometimes uncomfort- able positions of the body. The week ended with the students from each workshop presenting the results of their work to colleagues.

Ederson Rodrigues Xavier and Borg Diem Groeneveld 69 Initial formations:

Contemporary dancer Ederson R­odrigues Xavier and Gregorian singer Marcel Zijlstra:

Gregorian chant is a form of mono- phonic, unaccompanied and sacred song that developed mainly in western and central Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries with sub- sequent additions and adaptations. Both contemporary dance move- ment and Gregorian singing are well matched in terms of fluency. Moving one limb at a time, the dancer ex- plored the space around his body. At one point, the performers interacted with each other, the singer mov- ing the dancer’s head. Rather than describing the chant, the dancer’s response was to add another visual dynamic to the vocal sensation.

Michael Schumacher and Jiří Kylián

Kylián and Michael Schumacher The students observing the daily Some of the experiments with the organised the Dance and Voice col- developments in the workshop various duets created more suspense laborations for the main experiment: noted the added value generated by than others but all the performers a nine-day workshop that coupled combining different dance forms and and spectators could appreciate the vocal styles with dance forms. The vocal styles. close relationship between dance aim was to present students with and voice, which in turn enriched a wide range of dance and music Kylián and Schumacher created short their sense of perception and fine- combinations that cross both histori- choreographies (each about two tuned their powers of observation. cal and cultural boundaries and in so minutes in length) for each couple. doing reveal the tension that can be Each piece began with a musical As Kylián said: “We didn’t try to created by bringing together disci- score and the choreography then de- make works of art; we simply tried plines that have evolved in different veloped with input from the singer to stimulate creativity and sensibil- time periods, in different parts of the and dancer. Some phrases were fixed ity that dance students can use to world and in different cultures. while some were improvised within a­pproach the voice, the other naked the overall choreographic structure. art form. We also tried to spark a cer- The couples comprised profes- The spacing between the couple tain curio­sity for putting together art sional dancers and singers: a was carefully determined in order to forms that seemingly have nothing contemporary dancer (Ederson examine the various ways the two to do with each other, merely to see Rodrigues Xavier) and a Gregorian participants could relate to each what happens.” singer (Marcel Zijlstra), a kung fu other. The initial pairs where then master (Jay Tjon Jaw Chong) and mixed up to experiment with more an overtone singer (Borg Diem radical formations. Groeneveld), a c­lassical dancer (Hannah de Klein) and a counter­ tenor (Jorg Delfos), and a break- dancer (Christian van Dijk) and a rap singer (Rachel Raverty Manniesing).

70 71 Classical dancer Hannah de Klein and countertenor Jorg Delfos:

This mini-ballet comprising a countertenor and a ballerina, both of whom used their highly stylised classical idioms to an aria by Handel, demonstrated the closest interac- tion possible between a singer and a dancer. Both art forms have their roots in roughly the same historical and cultural fields, and the aural and visual harmony stood out. Kylián also choreographed movements for the singer so he could interact with the ballerina. This naturally posed chal- lenges for Delfos, for example it was extremely difficult for him to finish his final cadenza lying on his back, as he wasn’t able to support his breath.

Breakdancer Christian van Dijk and rap singer Rachel “Raverty” Maniesing:

Kung fu master Jay Tjon Jaw Chong This duet paired song and dance and overtone singer Borg Diem from similar cultural backgrounds. Groeneveld: Breakdancing and rapping work well together in hip-hop culture as In this coupling, the singer and each one supports the other’s strong dancer moved without any physical rhythmic dynamic. In this coupling, contact, in Kylián’s words “like two the breakdancer’s movements were planets in their own world”. They set in a narrative context. Observers both absorbed each other’s energy could imagine a short story involving and spectators were captivated the singer and the dancer, the narra- by the intense atmosphere they tive enhanced by the choreographed created. Groeneveld’s ability to sing interaction between the two. two notes at the same time created a meditative sound that enhanced the spiritual dimension of the kung fu movements. Even though the kung fu movement vocabulary is regulated by rules and tradition, it could nonetheless be translated into a dance context.

72 73 Re-mixed formations:

Contemporary dancer Ederson Rodrigues Xavier and overtone singer Borg Diem Groeneveld:

The contemporary dancer was in- spired by the singer’s hand gestures and “wove himself into the music” (Groeneveld). There was lots of recip- rocal interaction between the two, the singer even being carried by the dancer at one point, the interference altering his voice.

Breakdancer Christian van Dijk and Classical dancer Hannah de Klein Gregorian singer Marcel Zijlstra: and overtone singer Borg Diem Groeneveld: Van Dijk, who normally dances in shows and competitive “battles”, In this combination, de Klein used found himself in a totally different the singer as a support for her environment in this duet: dancing movements (like a barre). Remaining to Gregorian chant. While the singer stable throughout, Groeneveld used walked in straight lines, van Dijk gestures to illustrate his solemn tried to catch his attention moving singing, the movement of his hands acrobatically around him. The con- counterpointing the ballerina’s steps. tradiction in styles created an almost ironic scene that ended with the singer disappearing into the corner followed by van Dijk popping and locking behind him.

74 75 Kung fu master Jay Tjon Jaw Chong and countertenor Jorg Delfos: I love it when two Two art forms with extremely dif- ferent cultural backgrounds came original forms of human together in this coupling. According to Kylián: “This was one of the most artistic expression merge interesting formations: two very in an extraordinary way. different forms of human expression that were created thousands of miles There’s nothing more apart and yet there is something that brings them together. I can’t beautiful than that. tell you what that something is. Jiří Kylián Maybe Pascal’s phrase les extrémités se touchent (extremities touch) goes some way to explaining it. Either way, it was a beautiful experience.” For the spectators, combining seemingly polarised dance and voice styles on stage created a kind of third dimension.

More to explore

Short film: Dance & Voice

Questions: – Do you think that the tone of a voice influences dancers’ movements, making them slower/faster, or bigger/smaller? – Does a dramatic melody imply dramatic expression and dramatic movement? – Does musical support give dance more colour? If so, why? – What kind of relationships may emerge between movement and voice? – How can you search for specific qualities of movement using the voice?

Literature: Borg Diem Groeneveld, Stem en Boventonen. Oefeningen, improvisaties, klank­meditaties, Panta Rhei, 1993. Eric Salzman, Thomas Desi, The New Music Theater: Seeing the Voice, Hearing the Body, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Merce Cunningham, Meredith Monk, Bill T. Jones, Art performs life, Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1998.

76 It was interesting to see the Report by an two try to push together Overtone Singer like magnets, but they by Borg Diem Groeneveld couldn’t do it because they were both the same pole. Connor Schumacher (dance student) My career as an overtone singer began in 1985 when As a musician at the start of my career, I was looking I met Michael Vetter, a German recorder player and for things that were out of the ordinary, for pioneers in Zen master. He discovered overtones while working music. I didn’t want to be restricted by a conservatory. In with Karlheinz Stockhausen who asked him to produce Vetter, I discovered everything I needed for my develop- them with his recorder and voice while performing ment: contemporary improvisation, Zen meditation and Stockhausen’s contemporary compositions at the overtone singing. No musician in this part of the world German Pavilion at Expo ‘70 in Osaka, Japan. Vetter later had heard of overtone singing in the 80s and 90s, so spent ten years as a Zen monk in Japan from 1973-83. everyone, including speech therapists and musicians, On his return, fans of the New Age genre welcomed his were flabbergasted that you could sing two notes at “spiritual” music and his orientation towards Zen. the same time. The phenomenon is well known today, but few people master the technique. Overtones are implicit in many forms of (ethnic) music – for example in Indian music, in the singing of (Sanskrit) mantras or in Gregorian chant – but explicit techniques are rare. Overtone singing is most common in the folk music of Mongolian and Tuvan singers who combine the articula- tion of overtones with a very strong drone of the vocal cords, hence the name throat singing.

The techniques I learned from Vetter are narrowly linked to the European way of singing and speaking based on Germanic and Romance language. In terms of our everyday perception, we use overtones to recognise vowels. The combination of one to three overtones (or “formants”) constitutes the configuration of a vowel, e.g. the “oo” vowel sound consists mainly of very low over- tones combined with very high but soft overtones while the “ee” sound only has very high overtones. The singing of overtones opens up the unconscious sound world and separates the earthly part (the tones we sing using the vocal cords) from the heavenly part (the overtones, which resonate in the mouth).

Ederson Rodrigues Xavier and Borg Diem Groeneveld

They were moving in different time capsules in their own worlds. That’s what made the combination so powerful. The third dimension evolved in spectators’ heads. They brought it all together themselves and this was really exciting. Jiří Kylián

79 People generally lose their sense of space and time Another experiment was to link modern dance with If I attempt to characterise Jiří’s work, I would say that About the author: when listening to overtones. Tibetan monks believe the overtone singing. Vetter taught me how to use gestures he tries to make things simple, to take away what is Borg Diem Groeneveld is an overtone singer and singing of overtones is a sign of contact with the gods. to illustrate my improvisations and Ederson Rodrigues unnecessary or blurs the image. His suggestions are breath / voice therapist. He has released several CDs of Singers have to be alert in order to maintain the balance Xavier used these movements in his dancing and in simple, open and leave space for personal interpretation. his solo improvisations and written the book Voice and between overtones (as well as their embellishment) d­oing so wove himself into the music. The connection He asked me to walk very slowly in a big circle around Overtones (Borg Diem Groeneveld: Stem en Boventonen. and the singing itself, on which the overtones depend. was both tangible and visible in his movements; he liter- Jay, then he asked me to walk slower, to stop from time Oefeningen, improvisaties, klankmeditaties, Panta Rhei Vetter called this die Liebe zum Grundton or love of the ally carried me around like a musical instrument around to time and to create pauses in the singing. Gradually 1993). He is currently the director of his own school for fundamental. and brought me to the ground. The interference with doing less generated more depth and increased the breath / voice therapy and vocal improvisation. my body also produced changes in the voice, so it was a focus on the movements Jay made. In Jiří Kylián’s choreographic experiment, I noticed how reciprocal effect. encircling a kung fu master (Jay Tjon Jaw Chong) with Playfulness, joy and humour had a natural place in the overtones exaggerated spatial and temporal disorien­ The combination of overtone singing with Hannnah improvisation with Ederson. There was something tragic tation: while Jay occasionally seemed to be hanging de Klein’s classical movement was also interesting, about his putting me down on the floor, as if I was dying, in the air, the singing, by creating a circle around him, as Jiří inspired her to do “lots of nothing” during the but there was also something absurd about it. His copy- made the music sound like the harmony of spheres. improvisation. ing of my gestures gave these movements a completely different meaning. Jiří and Michael Schumacher came up to us after the Working with the dance students on breath and voice, first rehearsal to tell us how deeply moved they were by it was interesting to see how easily they were able to Working with Jiří and Michael on these experiments these initial experiments with their own concept. As a use movement to produce breathing and singing. The released a lot of energy, creativity and joy. It wasn’t hard participant, it isn’t so easy to get an impression of what best example of this was when I asked them to stand labour and seriousness – quite the opposite! we developed, but it was nonetheless very exciting to back-to-back like Siamese twins and explore movement sing overtones in a solemn style while occasionally spy- p­ossibilities while giving free reign to their voices. The ing Jay’s unbelievable moves from the corner of my eye. students said the focus on breathing gave rise to new patterns of movement. The other couplings were also amazing. Jiří and Michael really brought them to life. The Handel aria sung by Jorg Delfos generated completely different possibilities for Jiří to develop a fixed choreography with the classical dancer, Hannah de Klein, but when Jay took the place of the ballerina his unbelievable musicality was clear in his use of the singing as an orientation for movement.

80 81 I think both partners – the dancer and the singer – had to leave tradition behind and discover a new direction. That’s what made it so interesting. Borg Diem Groeneveld (overtone singer)

Ederson Rodrigues Xavier and Borg Diem Groeneveld I had to make some choices in my phrasing, as things I could sing standing, longer phrases, I couldn’t sing lying down or especially sitting down, as it makes my support a lot worse. You can still be musical and connected to your body and your music while making physical choices. Jorg Delfos (countertenor)

You have to open your mind to new influences. Jay Tjon Jaw Chung (kung fu master)

Jorg Delfos and Jay Tjon Jaw Chung Sometimes there was The Naked Art Forms: physical contact between the singer and the dancer, Voice, Movement and Physicality by Vincent Meelberg and it was really powerful, and sometimes there was no

contact at all, but even then Introduction The violence of the voice you could still recognize a What does it mean to engage in a naked art form? In a Jactations for baritone voice, composed by Georges sense, all art is naked, fully exposed to the beholder. Art Aperghis in 2001, is one example of a naked art form. It is strong bond between the two. always presents itself in all its vulnerability, vul-nerable a piece in which all the sounds are produced by a single Romanie Bosman (student MA Dance therapy) to the interpretations and reactions of the audience. Art male voice but in addition to conventional singing the cannot be concealed, unless of course concealment is music also consists of bodily gestures not usually associ- part of the artwork itself. ated with vocal music.

However, naked art forms do have specific character­ In Jactations, the sounds produced are as important as istics that make them unique. According to Jiří Kylián, the singer’s visual or rather physical performance. As a such art forms are practices that require no e­xtensions of listener and observer, I can only imagine the physical the body; there are no artefacts behind which the artist effort the singer has to make in order to create these might hide and the artist or performer is fully exposed to sounds, the violence he has to exert on his vocal chords. the audience. We can see the intensity of the physical activities required to execute the musical score in the singer’s In this essay, I will discuss what it might mean for an facial expressions, in the sweat on his forehead and in his art form to be naked. I will suggest that such art forms bodily movements. This piece attacks the singer’s entire foreground a very important aspect of all art: that it in- body, not just his vocal chords. volves the body. More specifically, art makes the body move, and here I mean both the artist’s and observer’s The sounds in Jactations generally appear violent and bodies. These movements can often be quite violent, aggressive, but why? They’re not aggressive because of again for both the artist and observer. their referential meaning; they do not depict any violent act, nor are they an actual representation of violence. Nevertheless, the piece does affect me in a very pro- found physical, almost violent, way. How can a naked voice be so physically violent towards both the listener and the singer himself?

Jactations speaks to me on a very visceral level. The singing addresses my vulnerable body as if it, too, were naked. There appears to be no escape from the intensity created by this singing, speaking, and growling voice.

Awareness is the magic word – a dancer’s awareness of all the nuances in the music and a singer’s awareness of the dancer’s body. Jiří Kylián

Borg Diem Groeneveld and Hannah de Klein 87 The violence of sound Gestures created by the music and ultimately by the The violence of movement It is ultimately movement that is responsible for all these My experience of listening to Jactations suggests that performer’s physical activity result in movements in the The musical sounds, sonic strokes and musical gestures effects. Sonic strokes are movements of the air p­roduced music is primarily a physical event; rather than being re- listener. But what is a musical gesture? A musical gesture in Jactations are the result of a specific activity per- by the singer’s moving body. At the same time, these stricted to the ears and mind, it involves the entire body. is a temporal unfolding of a succession of sounds that formed by a male singer. The sonic entities produced sonic strokes create motion in the listener’s body that Sound is a resonance in the body. Sometimes, you can may be interpreted as significant.4 In other words, it is are no longer part of the singer’s individual body; rather, mirrors the movements of the music, its musical gestures. feel this resonance literally, not necessarily because of musical movement that is meaningful. A musical gesture they have transcended into separate, vibrating entity the volume of the music but because the sound has par- feels unified and meaningful because the body reacts that will interact with the human body from which they Whoever sings Jactations has to confront, in all his ticular qualities. I call sounds that elicit such a response to it, sensing it kinaesthetically and enframing it. The originated. nakedness, all these sonic and physical movements. sonic strokes.1 meaning of a musical phrase is therefore determined by According to Aperghis, that is exactly the point of this the manner in which the listener’s body processes the Peter Szendy calls this the airealisation of a body.5 The piece. Jactations is supposed to obstruct a singer from A stroke can be a slap but also a caress. Similarly, a sonic musical movements. singer produces this vibrating sonic entity with his own singing.7 It is a monster that is created by the singer in stroke can be a sound that impacts on the listener’s body, the same vibrations in turn acting as sonic strokes order to confront him with both the opposite and other body, either as a result of its volume or because the Sonic strokes play a crucial role in this process. They inducing intensity within the singer. The latter’s move- side of singing, in other words unsingable sounds and sound is very soft or has a particular timbre or rhythm. indicate remarkable moments in the music and enframe ments – his breathing, the vibrations of his vocal chords something that is vital to all activity: movement. Music affects the listener’s body, arousing it in some way, musical gestures. They can also be seen as acoustic and the movements he makes with his body to create through the acoustic phenomenon of sonic strokes. markers that help the listener recognise and interpret certain sound effects – are transformed into sonic move- So how does this relate to dance, the other naked art musical gestures. Sonic strokes are therefore an impetus ments which can affect a listener but also the singer form? It could be argued that dance is the foregrounding This implies that the listener’s body is involved in acts of to thinking and reflection. They motivate the listener to himself. of all movement inherent in musical experience. It makes musical listening. The body is indeed touched by musi- consider the acoustic phenomena with which he or she physical reactions, or perhaps more accurately physical cal sounds, as sound waves hit the eardrum and make it is confronted. It is an incitement to interpret the move- In an interview from 2006, Lionel Peintre, the baritone interactions, with sound and music possible. move. In this respect, hearing is more closely related to ment of sounds as meaningful gestures and sometimes singer for whom Jactations was originally written, touch than to any of the other senses. The entire body this motivation can be violent, as is the case in Jactations. describes how he felt when he first saw the musical Watching a dance performance means experiencing is involved in the listening process, however, as it senses score and how this musical piece affected him. Peintre many different movements: those of the dancers and the gestures produced by the music kinaesthetically. It says he regarded the music in Jactations as some kind of music and ultimately those in the observer’s own body. perceives the dynamic and temporal flow of the music monster he had to face.6 He says he produced the sonic Despite – or perhaps because of – their nakedness, and mirrors this movement. blocks that constitute this music but as soon as they dance and singing are able to move the audience in were sounded he no longer considered them as being many ways, both metaphorically and literally. Cognitive scientists Rolf Pfeifer and Josh Bongard show a part of him. Instead, he saw them as separate entities that this is not just another metaphorical way of talking that communicated with him (airealisation) in an interac- about musical listening. They state that human subjects tion that was at times quite violent towards him. have so-called mirror neurons that fire when a subject performs movement or observes it in another subject. Performing and observing movement activate the same brain areas, so watching it can lead to sensing this movement in the subject’s own body, as if the subject is actually performing the movement.2

And it is the cognitive musicologist Marc Leman who argues, as outlined above, that the body senses and sub- sequently processes the dynamics and physical proper- ties of sound and music kinaesthetically. The body is moved, literally, by musical gestures; it accompanies the movement of sound.3

Awareness is the magic word – a dancer’s awareness of all the nuances in the music and a singer’s awareness of the dancer’s body. Jiří Kylián

88 89 About the author: Notes: Vincent Meelberg is senior lecturer and researcher 1. See Vincent Meelberg, “Touched by Music: The Sonic Strokes of Sur Incises”, in Sonic Mediations: Body, Sound, Technology, ed. Anthony in the Department of Cultural Studies at Radboud Enns and Carolyn Birdsall: 61-76, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and at the Publishing, 2008, for an elaboration of the notion of sonic stroke. Academy for Creative and Performing Arts in Leiden and 2. Rolf Pfeifer, Josh C. Bongard, How the Body Shapes the Way We Think: The Hague. He is founding editor of the online Journal A New View of Intelligence, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. 3. Marc Leman, Embodied Music Cognition and Mediation Technology, of Sonic Studies. His current research focuses on the Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007. relationship between musical creation, embodiment and 4. For an extensive discussion of musical gesture, see Rolf Inge Godøy, affect. In addition to his academic activities, he is both a Marc Leman (eds.), Musical Gestures: Sound, Movement, and Meaning, New York: Routledge, 2010. musician (a double bassist in several jazz groups) and a 5. Peter Szendy, Membres fantômes: des corps musiciens, Paris: composer. Minuit, 2002. 6. See the interview with Lionel Peintre in the documentary Georges Aperghis: Storm beneath a Skull (2006), directed by Catherine Maximoff. 7. See the interview with Georges Aperghis in the documentary Georges Aperghis: Storm beneath a Skull (2006), directed by Catherine Maximoff.

Awareness is the magic word – a dancer’s awareness of all the nuances in the music and a singer’s awareness of the dancer’s body. Jiří Kylián

90 Teachers and students from Codarts at the Dance and Voice symposium Dance & music There’s no sound without movement and no movement without sound. We’re constantly involved in some kind of movement and music all our lives. Even if we are not consciously active, the Earth is dashing through the universe at incredible speed, so there’s always movement and there’s always sound. Jiří Kylián

Ángel Perez Cantero and Chika Tatsumi in John Cage’s 4’33”, choreographed by Jiří Kylián Experiencing the Interaction What’s funny is that dancers are always aware of between Dance and Music music but musicians aren’t always aware of dance. by Friederike Lampert and Désirée Staverman Why is that? Well, if you want to see something you need to turn your head, but if you want to hear The close relationship between dance and music Interaction between dance and music requires an aural- something you don’t need to turn anywhere. and how the two interact formed the basis of the visual dialogue, but how does it work? research workshops planned by Jiří Kylián and Michael An improvisation workshop was set up to see whether The sound is always around you. Schumacher for this part of the lectureship. Both dance dancers followed musicians, or vice versa, and how an Jiří Kylián and music can be practised either as i­mprovisation appropriate dialogue could be created. A second experi- (which Kylián describes as “being alert, using one’s ment observed the dance-music relationship when a fantasy and inspiration of the m­oment”) or as a fixed third medium (new technology) is involved. In this work- composition. shop, dance and music students worked together on a real-time composition involving motion tracking tech- nology and infrared light. The workshop was designed as an experimental field that would allow participants to familiarise themselves with technological methods: try- ing them out, observing and researching them. As work- ing with technology is time-consuming, the session was defined as work in progress, the aim being to increase participants’ awareness of the specific requirements for working with technology as well as to deepen their experience of the dance-music collaboration.

Robin Eggers and Holger Werner 99 The project started with a one-day symposium in In the first workshop, which focused on dance and music In the second workshop, Jan-Bas Bollen (composer, November 2011 followed by two workshops carried out improvisation, Michael Schumacher and Mary Oliver digital artist and teacher at Codarts) experimented with in the space of a week. The symposium introduced the (violinist and performing artist) delved deeper into the six composition students (from the Master of Music Dance and Music theme and featured three lectures interaction between dancers and musicians in practice. degree course) and six dance students (from the Bachelor on key aspects of the relationship between the two art The participants were students on the Bachelor of Dance of Dance in Education degree course) on the subject of forms. In the first lecture, Dr. Ad Borsboom (anthropo­ and Master of Music degree programmes at Codarts. “new technologies generating sound through move- logist and Chair of Pacific Studies at Radboud University, Six types of musical instrument were used: violin, piano, ment”. While the composition students developed the Nijmegen) pointed out how music and dance are an percussion, bass clarinet, bass guitar and koto. Oliver, sound design with the help of René Uijlenhoet (teacher integral part of everyday life in aboriginal cultures. Dr. who performs both improvised and composed music, of electronic composition at Codarts), the dancers expe­ Henrice Vonck (ethnomusicologist and research leader challenged the students to be free and improvise and rimented with motion tracking technologies. of the Master of Music degree programme at Codarts) thereby show their creativity. Schumacher encouraged then explained the relationship between Balinese dance both the dancers and musicians to release some habitual The result was a piece called Altered States in which and music and divided the dialogue into three forms: movement and behavioural structures and explore infrared cameras in the environment picked up on motion music following the dance; dance following the music; something new. In order to prepare the students for tracking Wii remotes on the dancers’ bodies and triggered and music and dance following each other in a perma- the improvised dialogue between dance and music, sound scores programmed by the composition students. nent exchange. Schumacher asked them to involve all five senses, for Dancers were able to experience the live effect of their If you have the chance and example he asked the dancers to feel the sound with movements on the sound composition, so Altered States the opportunity to do it The third lecture, given by Dr. Stephanie Schroedter their skin and the musicians to smell the movements was a performance created in real time. The process (dance scientist at the FU Berlin), focused on the use with their noses. Other tasks aimed at structuring required strong communication between musicians and differently, do it differently, of music by choreographers in western dance history. the improvisation were also examined. According to dancers and opened up new aesthetic possibilities. As Examples were shown and the lecture ended with an Schumacher: “One of our exercises was that you could one student said: “The technology was like a bridge link- share it differently. extract from Beachbirds, by Merce Cunningham and only move in silence – when there is silence – so no one ing dance and music.” Michael Schumacher (dancer aged 40+) John Cage, for which the music and dance were created could move because it was never silent. This was a very simultaneously but independently. The lectures were funny moment as it was very difficult for them to find a Kylián sees new technology as an enrichment of the arts followed by a live performance of John Cage’s 4’33’’, moment when there was actually no sound. They were and an enhancement of human senses, sharpening them choreographed by Kylián and performed by Codarts suddenly transported to a place they had never been to or giving them new angles, although he points out that students Ángel Perez Cantero (piano) and Chika Tatsumi before.” The challenge in the process was dealing with people should use technology for their own purposes, (dance). The performance underlined the common­ality the unexpected. The students had to attune their senses to support their own personal expression, rather than and equality of body and instrument when the two and awareness to the dialogue between sound and becoming a slave to it. interact. When the musician made almost no sound and movement. It was clear that the different instruments the dancer barely moved, this altered the typical mean- generated a range of dance movements, but there were The workshops sparked in-depth dialogues between the ing of musician and dancer: by not playing the piano, also interactions when the musicians moved and the dancers and musicians while the improvised composi- the audience became very aware of the musician’s dancers reacted to it, for example when one dancer took tions and new technology raised awareness of the need movements, and by not moving, the audience became over the bow of the koto player or another grasped the to conduct a balanced exchange between the two very aware of the sounds surrounding the dancer (light hair of the bass guitarist. indivisible dance forms. coughs, air conditioning, etc.). The participants reflected on each session in a feed- The issue of live accompaniment was then discussed in back round. “What happened in the music?” or “When a podium talk involving the harpist Lavinia Meijer, Jiří did moments of interaction arise?” were two of the Kylián and Peter-Jan Wagemans (composer and teacher q­uestions discussed. at Codarts). The discussion emphasised the importance of equal interaction between the body and instrument You can learn many things when working with live accompaniment and of finding a common language between the two. but you can’t learn experience. You have to live it, live through it. You should live intensely to have something to remember when you grow old.

Jiri Kylian

100 101 Participants in the Dance and Music Participants in the Dance and Music (Improvisation) workshop: (New Technology) workshop:

Dance students Composition students Lorenzo Capodieci Meriç Artaç Patscharaporn Distakul Enis Gümus Sonia Egner Hugo Harmens Maurizio Giunti Jan Kuhr Michal Goral Evgenia Sereti Valeria Kuzmica Sam Wamper Jean Gabriel Maury Ivan Montis Dance students Bukky Oduwale Laura Hastings I think the biggest challenge Wessel van Oostrum Malou Koesoemo Joedo Xanthe van Opstal Lisa Kapan was not knowing what was Martina Orlandi Amber Monnickhof going to happen in the task. Vincent van de Plas Roosmarijn Prins Ewa Sikorska Aïda Read We didn’t know each other, Mickey Smith the musicians and dancers Marijn Stijl Chika Tatsumi improvised and we didn’t

Music students know if or how the Bernardo Addario, bass guitar collaboration would work. Robin Eggers, percussion Wessel van Oostrum (dance student) Anna Mikhailova, koto Ángel Perez Cantero, piano Holger Werner, bass clarinet

More to explore

Shortfilm: Dance & Music

Questions: – How do you see the interaction between dance and music? WhoYou inspires can whom? learn many things – How does the sound quality/timbre of the music relate to thebut movement? you can’t learn experience. – Do you think the type of instrument used influences the Youinteraction have between to live it, live through it. a musician and a dancer? – In what ways can dance relate to music? You should live intensely to have something to remember when Literature: Stephanie Jordan, Moving Music. Dialogues with Music in Twentieth-Centuryyou grow old. Ballet, London: Dance Books Ltd., 2000. Anna-Teresa de Keersmaeker, Bojana Cvejic, A choreographer’s score: fase, Jiri Kylian Rosas danst Rosas, Elena’s Aria, Bartok, Yale: Yale University Press, 2012. Fedor Lopukhov, Writings on ballet and music, edited and with an introduction by Stephanie Jordan, Wisconsin: University of WI Press, 2002. Steve Reich, Writings on Music 1965-2000, edited with an introduction by Paul Hillier, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Katharine Teck, Making Music for Modern Dance, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

102 Chika Tatsumi and Anna Mikhailova I’m not saying that whatever we Glued Together: created is the right way to approach the ephemeral co-existence of Dance and Music music and dance. The experiment by Friederike Lampert was designed to sharpen our senses, stimulate openness to interesting Dance and music are inseparable. If we look back to the beginnings In the nineteenth century, scores solutions and help shape our own As Jiří Kylián says: of ballet at the court of Louis XIV were written for the ballets d’action, in seventeenth century France, for such as La Sylphide by Jean opinions about dance and music. example, composers like Lully not S­chneitzhoeffer, Giselle by Adolphe This is far more important than the “No two art forms are only wrote the music for the move- Adam or Coppélia by Léo Delibes. as glued – or rather ment but also danced alongside the These ballets were quite flexible results you actually see. super-glued – together king: dance and music were united in terms of both steps and score, Jiří Kylián like dance and music.” and there was no strict separation which meant they could be edited, between musician and dancer either. added to or remoulded for different The two are indeed linked, both occasions and casts. The dance- historically and aesthetically, in a As the virtuosity of ballet technique music relationship continued in relationship that has developed increased, closer relationships the late-nineteenth century, the over centuries. developed between composer golden era of Russian ballet, when and choreographer in order to Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky worked with fulfil common artistic intentions. the choreographers Marius Petipa Professional dancers were now and Lev Ivanov to create famous appearing on stage rather than at classical ballets such as Swan Lake, court, initially in divertissements in The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty. the entr’actes of eighteenth century The idea was to translate music into Baroque operas, andI choreograthink -the biggestdance, the embodiment challenge of musical phers had to be able wasto read not musical knowing structures producingwhat was a visual exper­ scores and imagine the music ience of the highest quality. before they ever heardgoing it live. to happen in the task. We didn’t knowThe Russian each choreographer other, and Ballet scores of the era regularly w­riter Fedor Lopukhov, who was used existing well-knownthe music. musicians In a­rtistic and director dancers of the Mariinski fact it was not until the emergence T­heatre from 1922-30 and again of full-evening ballets inimprovised the latter briefly and in thewe 1940s didn’t and 50s, studied half of the eighteenth centuryknow that ifthe or relationship how the between m­usical specific ballet scores started to be structure and choreography in written, the most significantcollaboration exam- late-nineteenth would centurywork. ballets and ple of which is Christoph WillibaldWessel van Oostrumdescribed (dance Petipa student) as the “creator of von Gluck’s score for Don Juan, a the choreographic sonata form”.1 ballet that premiered in Vienna in As a choreographer, Lopukhov 1761 and presented dance as an concentrated more on the formal autonomous art form independent aspects of choreography and saw of opera. music as an opportunity to liberate dance from the narrative style. His aim was to combine choreography, orchestration, the structuring of musical themes, counterpoint and harmony. By establishing rules (such as the need for unity of musical and choreographic forms, for the curve of the dance to correspond with the curve in the music, or for major keys to be equated with en dehors move- ments and minor keys with steps en dedans2), Laphukov’s writings make it

Lorenzo Capodieci, Chika Tatsumi and Anna Mikhailova 105 clear he was looking for an appro­p­ What’sAt a time funny when it was is believed that thatdancers The second are alwayshalf of the twentiethaware of While Cunningham and Cage It is also important to mention that This may lead us to think that dance riate translation of music in dance. dance sprang from music, Jacques- century witnessed the emergence continued experimenting with the the development of mechanical needs music but music doesn’t need musicIfDalcroze you but becameinclude musicians very influential.all five aren’t senses ofalways a very then striking aware music-danceyou’re of dance. autonomy of dance and music, the reproduction, especially of dance. The fact of the matter is that Many choreographers throughout WhyMeanwhile, is that? in America, Well, the choreo if you­ wantrelationship to seensee in somethingthe early choreographer George Balanchine music recordings, brought new it depends on the dance-music rela- dance history have focused on dealinggraphers Ruthwith St. Denis many and Ted more parametersworks of the choreographer than Merce favoured a more sophisticated possibilities for choreographers, tionship. As Kylián says: “There is no establishing a close correspondenceyou you’d Shawnneed normallyset to out turnto make your musicbe working head,Cunningham but with if youin and dance thewant composer to hear a­pproach to the interaction between as it meant music was more easily sound without movement and there between music and dance, albeit visual in dance, the dance patterns John Cage. Seeking to preserve the two. Russian-born Balanchine accessible and choreographers had a is no movement without sound.” with different approaches. Isadora andsomethingmirroring music the formal compositions. you structure don’t of need theIf autonomytoI ask turn dancers of anywhere.both music and took the ballet tradition of his wider range of music from which to In this sense, music and dance are Duncan, for example, said that the the m­usic.The Choreographer sound Doris is alwaysdance, around the result produced you. works in home country with him when he choose. In addition, choreographers inseparable entities, each of which relationship between dance and toH­umphrey feel the continued sound such experi with­ theirwhich skin,C­unningham and and if Cage tried emigrated to American in the 1930s. were motivated to investigate and has been considered differently Jiří Kylián music is not to dance to the music Iments ask and musicians also emphasised to the smell tothe emancipate movement dance from using His modern­ist impact on choreo­ discover new forms of dancer- throughout history. but to dance the music itself. A emotional effect music can have on music as a source of rhythm and graphy made American ballet a great musician collaborations. The Judson pioneer of American modern dance, withtheatrical their choreography. nose, New, then often you timing have and replacinga whole it, for example success. Balanchine had also been Church Artists, for example, were Kylián’s choreographic oeuvre Duncan used existing European intense differentcollaborations between field of withpossibilities. the ticking of a clock. Cage also schooled in piano, composition driven by democratic thinking and includes musical works by W­olfgang concert music by past masters such choreographers and composers called for music to be “more than an and music theory, his knowledge working with improvisation and Amadeus Mozart, Maurice Ravel, as Chopin, Brahms, Schubert, etc. emerged, for exampleMichael the work Schumacher- accompaniment”.8 One note­worthy of musical structures helping to life art. In their performances, both Anton Webern, Leoš Janáček, Claude She enjoyed musical accompani- ing partnership between Martha example of their music-dance prepare him for choreographic work. music and dance were improvised Debussy, Arnold Schoenberg, ment of the highest quality and G­raham and the composer and pia- concept can be seen in Variations V Categorising his use of music is a and harmonised to the same extent Toru Takemitsu, Gustav Mahler, there was also a strong connection nist Louis Horst. It became clear in (1965) in which, in a reversal of the difficult task, as he choreographed or dance was even performed Igor Stravinsky, Johann Sebastian between her interpretative dance this relationship “how the music for traditional notion of dance embody- many versatile ballets – both story- without music. Bach, Lukas Foss and Steve Reich. form and the orchestra conductor. dance had changed since the time ing music, dancers trigger sound based and plotless ballets – using Kylián has also embraced electronic “I was connected by every nerve in of Isadora Duncan, so that instead through movement. Proximity to music from Romantic composers The twentieth century brought huge music in the last decade, working my body with the orchestra and with of a dancer molding choreography antennas and theremins that were (e.g. T­chaikovsky), twelve-tone music variety in the use of music for dance. with composer Dirk P. Haubrich for the great conductor.”3 to existing, precomposed music, positioned in the space produced (e.g. Anton Webern and Arnold Choreographies could be created several dance pieces. His interest in the composer became, in effect, an sounds that John Cage and David S­choenberg), songs by George for every type of music: folk, ethnic, new music collaborations can also The emergence of the Ballets Russes interpreter of the dance”.6 Tudor would mix with short wave Gershwin as well as stochastic and pop, opera, classical or new, both be seen in the live improvisations in the first decades of the twentieth radios and sound equipment at the electronic music, but it was his live and recorded. The choreogra- with Pieter Wispelwey and Tomoko century turned the dance-music In Europe, the outbreak of the side of the stage. plotless/neo-classical ballets and the pher Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Mukaiyama. relationship into a Gesamtkunstwerk Second World War disturbed the collaboration with Igor Stravinsky who is well known for her specific (i.e. the autonomy, interplay and d­evelopment of a new American- that had the biggest impact on the collaborations with Imusic, think has even the biggest challenge synthesis of art forms) as envisioned style collaboration between music dance world. Balanchine was well developed choreographic tools by the impresario Serge Diaghilev, and dance. Expressionist dance known for his focus on musical inspired by musical compositionwas not knowing what was whose commissioning of contem- choreographers­ had already been timing and rhythmic foundations. (for example embodying musical porary composers such as Claude experimenting with the idea of His declared intention to make counterpoint in dance).going10 to happen in the task. Debussy, Maurice Ravel or Igor freeing dance from the dominance the audience “see the music and We didn’t know each other, Stravinsky challenged his choreo­ of music in the 1920s. Rudolf von hear the dancing” indeed indicates Extraordinary choreographer- graphers to work in innovative ways, Laban, for example, studied human an embodiment of the music by composer collaborationsthe have musicians also and dancers as the musical structures of the movement using the body’s own dancers, but, in contrast to the idea been formed, for example William compositions were more complex rules of dynamics, impetus and of mirroring the music, which St. Forsythe and Tom Willems,improvised who and we didn’t and less common. relation to space. His writings on Denis and Shawn had promoted composed music only for danceknow if or how the dance and his choreographic nota- before, his approach was not for and the music was never performed The peak of this Diaghilev-style tion method LabanotationYou became can learn many things dance to imitate musical notes of separately. By contrast,collaboration much ballet would work. relationship between music and important steps in the systematisa- a piece but to instigate a dialogue music also has a concert existence,Wessel van Oostrum (dance student) dance was Vaslav Nijinsky’s highly tion of dance. It alsobut liberated you dance can’t learn experience. between “two independent which means that the music for controversial choreography to from its dependenceYou on havemusical to live it, live through it. forces”.9 Both modernist thinkers, Le Sacre du printemps or the suite Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps structures.7 You should live intensely to have Balanchine and Stravinsky also from Swan Lake can be performed (1913).4 Obviously influenced by distanced themselves from the on its own, without dance, but this Émile Jaques-Dalcroze and his something to remember when Romantic idea of art as an expression doesn’t work in reverse, i.e. perform- school of eurythmics (or rhythmic you grow old. of emotions, instead tending to ing the Swan Lake choreography gymnastics) in Hellerau, Nijinsky focus on more concrete qualities without the music, particularly eschewed t­raditional ballet vocabu- (such as rhythm, group formations b­ecause the choreography was lary and instead tried to embody the Jiri Kylian and the appearance of the steps) always intended to be danced complicated rhythmic patterns in by playing down meaning and to music. the musical score.5 expressiveness. Balanchine’s expert understanding of music scores made him a trailblazer for plotless ballets in which the interaction of music and movement is executed at a very sophisticated level.

106 107 Speaking of Kylián’s deep under- What’sWhile Kylián funny is strengthening is that the dancers About are the author:always aware of standing of music and his way of dialogue between dance and music Friederike Lampert, herself a former fusing expressive and formal aspectsmusic Ifin hisyou work,but include futuremusicians choreographers all five aren’t senses dancer,always hasthen aaware PhD you’re in theatre of dance.science. in the choreography, the composer Whydealingwill also is bethat? with aware of Well,many these two ifmore art you wantparametersHer main to work see is teaching thansomething dance If you include all five senses then Steve Reich, says: “Of the many forms’ intermingled relationship, theory and practice. She has worked you’re dealing with many more other choreographies that have youyou’d regardlessneed normally to of one’sturn own yourbe ideas working about head, at but Hamburg with if you inUniversity dance want and wasto ahear been made to my music, undoubt- them. Dance history has shown research assistant for educational parameters than you’d normally edly the most remarkable is Jiří andsomethinghow versatilemusic and compositions. differentyou don’t the need projectsIf toI ask andturn dancedancers anywhere. techniques at Kylián’s Falling Angels (1989) done to a­pproachesThe to dance sound and music is canalways Tanzplan around Deutschland. you. Together be working with in dance and Drumming – Part One (1971). ... Many tobe, feelbut they the all have sound one thing with in theirwith Désirée skin, Staverman, and if she was a Jiří Kylián music compositions. If I ask choreographers (and also a few Icommon: ask musicians the high aesthetic to tension smell researchthe movement associate for Jiří Kylián’s music critics early on) focused on produced when dance and music One Of A Kind research project at dancers to feel the sound with the formal organization of my early withare used their successfully nose, together. then youCodarts have Rotterdam. a whole pieces to the unfortunate exclusion different field of possibilities. their skin, and if I ask musicians of all the interpretative and expres- to smell the movement with sive nuances that make my, and Michael Schumacher indeed all, music, come alive. Kylián, their nose, then you have a whole on the other hand, saw both aspects at once and fused them perfectly in different field of possibilities. his choreography. While the dancers Michael Schumacher often form straight lines and work in unison, there are sudden, frequent, and surprising ‘microvariations’ of personal nuance and psychological expression – often extremely amus- ing – that perfectly compliment all the small accents, stick noises, and interpretive irregularities that happen in any performance of D­rumming – Part One. The effect of his brilliant choreography was to capture in dance just the fusion of intellectual rigor, rhythmic accuracy, and unpredictable interpretive i­ndividuality that is at the heart of any successful performance of this music.”11

Notes: 1. Fedor Lopukhov, Writings on ballet and music, edited and with an introduction by Stephanie Jordan, Wisconsin, 2002, p. 4. 2. YouLapukhov, can Writings learn on ballet and many music, p. 16.things 3. Quoted in Making Music for Modern Dance: Collaboration in the butFormative you Years can’t of New American learn Art ,experience. Katherine Teck (ed.), New York, 2011, p. 14. You4. See have Millicent toHodson, live Nijinsky’s it, Crimelive against through Grace. Reconstruction it. Score of the original choreography for Le Sacre Du Printemps, 1996. You5. Lynn should Garafola, Dhiagilev’s live Balletsintensely Russes, New York,to 1989,have p. 60. 6. Louis Horst, “Music and Dance. The New Generation’s Change in somethingMethods”, in Making to Music remember for Modern Dance, Katherine when Teck (ed.), pp. 45-46. 7. See Rudolf vonyou Laban/Lawrence, grow F.C.,old. Effort Economy of Human Move- ment, London 1974, and Rudolf von Laban, Choreutik. Grundlagen der Raum-Harmonielehre des Tanzes, Wilhelmshaven, 1991. 8. “The form of the music-danceJiri Kylian composition should be a necessary working-together of all materials used. The music will then be more than an accompaniment; it will be an integral part of the dance.” John Cage, “Goal. New Music, New Dance”, in Making Music for Mod- ern Dance, Katherine Teck (ed.), p. 216. 9. Stephanie Jordan, Moving Music. Dialogues with Music in Twentieth- Century Ballet, London, 2000, p. 123. 10. See Anna-Teresa de Keersmaeker and Bojana Cvejic, A choreogra- pher’s score: fase, Rosas danst Rosas, Elena’s Aria, Bartok, Yale, 2012. 11. Steve Reich, Writings on Music 1965 – 2000, edited with an introduc- tion by Paul Hillier, New York, 2002, pp. 214-215.

108 Bernado Addario and Ivan Montis 109 109 Technology is like a bridge linking dance and music. Dance student

This programme is about enhancing the senses available to us as human beings, enhancing them using technology, sharpening them or giving them other angles. Jiří Kylián

Dance student Roosmarijn Prins in a real-time composition involving motion tracking technology and infrared light I’m not saying that whatever we created is the right way to approach the Organisation and Inspiration: ephemeral co-existence of music and dance. The experiment was designed to Personal Reflections on Collaborations sharpen our senses, stimulate openness between Dancers and Musicians to interesting solutions and help shape by Jan-Bas Bollen our own opinions about dance and

music. This is far more important than Introduction The starting point the results you actually see. When I wasReleasing asked to write somea text for Jiříof Kylián’s the One Of A As I have been involved with the combination of the Kind professorship at Codarts, the initial subject offered two disciplines from an early stage in my career, I have Jiří Kylián structures we usually work with to me was “dance and music”. However, when I made a experienced many different approaches in collabora- littlefeels note in unusual my diary about but the deadline,it’s the I wrote best “music tions between dancers and musicians. Although most and dance text”. This slip of the pen made me aware of dance productions are initiated and financed by either a theway fact that to I cannot create conceive something of the two disciplines new. in dance venue or dance company, from the moment the any particular orderMichael without Schumacher immediately thinking of the creators of the music and those of the choreography reverse. It also became apparent to me that making any start their artistic relationship, any form of collaboration definitive statements about collaboration between the is still imaginable. two disciplines would be futile, since for any scheme or process I can think of there are many alternatives. In the I often find myself puzzled by the mysterious turns that following article, I will instead reflect on several aspects collaborations can take. One would assume that long- of collab­oration between dancers and musicians from a distance artistic relationships, such as the one I maintain personal point of view, and I will especially touch upon with New Zealand-based choreographer and filmmaker some of the consequences the use of e­lectronic music Daniel Belton, would more likely to suffer from artistic and interactive technologies have in this context. disconnection than those based in one location, but I Ifind think that there the isn’t biggest really a great challenge deal of difference. Even Unless otherwise specified, the word “dancers” includes ifwas you try not to make knowing the starting points what of a wasproject as clear choreographers and the word “musicians” includes as possible, and even if there is a subject upon which composers. Although I am quite aware of the fact that bothgoing sides haveto happen agreed, the twoin disciplines the task. can go there can be a big difference between makers and per- quiteWe separate didn’t ways know in terms eachof artistic other, direction before formers, the distinction is of minor importance for my they are joined together again in the form of a finished reflections on the subject. production.the musicians and dancers

As improvisedJonathan Burrows states: and we didn’t “Collaborationknow is about if or choosing how the the right people to work with, and then trusting them. You don’t, however, havecollaboration to agree about everything. would Collaboration work. is some- timesWessel about findingvan Oostrum the right (dance way student)to disagree. […] In the gap between what you each agree with, and what you disagree with, is a place where you might discover some- thing new. It will most likely be something you recognise when you see it, but didn’t know that you knew. This is the reason to collaborate. [...] When you allow yourself to make a discovery, then there is something for the audi- ence to discover. When you try to agree too much with your collaborators then there’s nothing new to discover, either for you or for the audience.”1 Releasing some of the Indeed there is a fine line. I’ll come back to this subject structures webriefly usually later on. Forwork now, let with me say that the key elements feels unusualfor me but at work it’s here the are organisation best and inspiration. way to create something new. Michael Schumacher

Dance student Malou Koesoemo experimenting with infrared light 113 The organisation of material - towards inspiration The next level The traditional musical score versus electronic music I find it quite fascinating that certain technical concepts Combinations of the main musical parameters (pulse, The more complex the combination of sound and move­ The history of western classical dance has left us with from the world of electronic sound have never found a rhythm, pitch, dynamics, articulation, texture, density,This ment programme parameters, the moreis aboutvarious factors enhancing (cultural the a legacy of great choreographies and wonderful ballet permanent place in contemporary movement syntax. timbre, etc.) have led dancers to create specific move­ background, personal sensitivity to variations, etc.) will music. The clear and efficient hierarchy of choreogra- Attack-decay-sustain-release (envelope), bandwidth ments that attempted to match the spirit of the sonic sensesaffect available our individual toperception us as of humannuances within beings, a pher and composer leading dancers and musicians has and pitch (filter), the index-resource-pitch-amplitude realms presented to them. Although the historicalenhancing specific them piece ofusing music or technology,dance and the way in sharpening which proven highly workable, especially through the use of (modulation), the idea of LFO (low frequency modula- classifications of the different parameters of movement we, consciously or unconsciously, will react. In other written musical scores. tion), panorama position, source distance, room size show less of a universal understanding than those in themwords, whator givingbinds us with them certainty other is pulse andangles. for any­ (reverb) and granular synthesis come to mind. These music, combinations of these parameters have also thing beyond that, evenJiří for Kylián many primary extensions of However, it was not always the case that the music was are all wonderful, thought-provoking descriptions of inspired musicians to deliver specific sonic results. As pulse in the form of rhythm, we are separate entities. completed before work started on the choreography. devices and techniques that are still in use after having obvious as all this may seem, it is maybe less obvious In the past, there were many more formal conventions been around for decennia. Since the use of electronics in that organisation preceding performance is in my I would like to consider this in a larger perspective by that made it possible for a choreographer to commence music for contemporary dance is quite common, could opinion inevitable. Emile Jaques-Dalcroze writes in a saying that this solitary condition is symbolic of new working on a piece even when the musical score was not some of these concepts not serve as connection points rather dated manner: “The music that is within us and collaborations where there is nearly always a period of yet available. between musicians and dancers? which is composed of our natural rhythms and of the mutual investigation into each other’s aesthetic notions. Releasing some of the emotions that determine the sensations peculiar to our Perfect agreement on taste and beliefs is not a necessary Quitestructures often, prior agreementswe usually were made work concern with- temperament, may assume different forms according to precondition; in fact, a certain amount of tension ing the template to work with: in 3/4, in 4/4, a menuet, Interactive setups the capacities of individuals. In dancing it must translate evolv­­­ing from conflicting preferences can lead to very a pasfeels de deux unusual, etc. In modern but performance it’s the practices, best Improvisation enables dancers and musicians to react itself at once into sound and movement.”2 interesting artistic results. This awareness of different many different creative relationships exist. There is no to each other in interactive ways. Over the last half- palates may however equally result in recognition of reasonway why to both create composer something and choreographer new. can’t go century, artists have been trying to create another form The raw materials, certain combinations of parameters, mutually incompatible aesthetics or opinions. through a lengthyMichael period Schumacherof experimentation with or of interactivity. John Cage and Merce Cunningham, for already reside in our bodies. That is, we as human beings without preliminary sketches or improvisation sessions. example, experimented with theremins in the sixties embody organisation. I will expand on this in the com- “There are not many people in this world who you can to trigger electronic musical events directly through ing paragraphs. collaborate with successfully, and when you find one Although electronic music has a certain advantage in performers’ movements (such as in their work Variations you should treasure them.”4 that a written score is not essential for its execution V from 1965). Since the early nineties, it also has become I would like to suggest that, in this environment, inspira- (although a graphical version might be produced as an possible to interact via movement tracking using (wire- tion behaves like a free-floating agent that can present after-thought as a means of communication between less) sensors attached to the dancer’s body or by using itself at any time. The trilogy of sound, movement and Form composer and choreographer), a completed electronic environment-based devices, such as motion-tracking the element of form need an inspirational receptacle to During free improvisation sessions where neither composition in the form of a tape or a work on CD is still cameras. Digital technologies have developed rapidly to complete the creative process. technical nor artistic agreements are made between a set work, just as much as a written score is. However, Ithe think point where the it isbiggest now relatively challenge easy to set up direct the p­articipants prior to their activities on stage, I often within its completion lies the fact that there are no relationships between motion and electronic sound - witness an approach that is opposite to the more tradi- longer any means of changing its content; the path of andwas projected not images,knowing for that matter.what This was can result Pulse - the fundamental parameter tional practice in which music opens an event. Dancers collaboration ends right there, at least temporarily.5 As in enhanced synchronicity between sound and move- Our brains are hard-wired to move to the physical mani- frequently start their instant choreography without we will see when discussing interactive setups, not all ment:going the dancerto happen becomes a dancer/musicianin the task. playing festation of pulse, a more or less regular subdivision of presenting any aural or visual clues that imply or suggest electronic music is limited this way. aWe musical didn’t instrument know for which each the composer other, provides time by means of beats, and this applies to our species pulse. Musicians will then follow with musical actions, the content, either premeditated (composed) content exclusively.3 When a musician starts to perform a pulse, having decided which sounds will be most appropriate Independent of the format in which a composition is de- andthe thoroughly musicians rehearsed and or, as I havedancers witnessed also, it will be very tempting for a dancer to let the movement to the nature of the movement. When movement and livered, one can distinguish different types, or degrees, conceived in real time. It is obvious that either approach follow it. In dance, walking can be considered to be the sound are introduced in this way at the beginning of a of electronic music. Because the character of highly demandsimprovised close collaboration and andwe a greatdidn’t sense of aware- equivalent of pulse and implies human motion itself. performance, there is often an exhilarating and magical developed electronic music is usually more timbral and ness fromknow both sides if toor become how predictable, the especially Even if both art forms are familiar with the concept of moment, as formal aspects are evolving on the spot and textural than music for instrumentalists or singers, it is since the realm of possibilities is – practically at least - pulse, musicians are often puzzled by the way dancers the aesthetic boundaries of the piece are not yet fully harder to link specific movements to sonic events. There limitless.collaboration Careful consideration would needs work. to be given to the count their beats. For example, four measures in a simple predictable. are no melodies or functional harmonies for movement organisationWessel vanof material, Oostrum i.e. (dance which student) movements will trig- 4/4 time signature resulting in a total of 16 beats might patterns to follow. ger which sounds. Ironically, the rejection of possibilities, be counted like this: 1, 2, 3 – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 – 1, the numerous choices that have to be made, provide a 2. But for the next 4 measures, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 – 1, 2, 3 – 1, framework in which the aesthetics are amplified and this 2 – 1, 2, 3, 4 might be used. may be the main advantage of the use of these tech- nologies over more traditional collaborations. It is very likely that this way of counting can be fully explained by looking at the particular choreographic demands on body, action, space, time and energy. Yet, the relationship with the relatively simple musical counting here has become complex or polymetric, which is why it is very valuable for a composer who is collaborating closely with a choreographer to internalise at least some of the counting at hand, as it can facilitate the synchronisation of rhythm and movement.

114 115 However, there is a hidden pitfall. As Joseph Butch About the author: Rovan describes: “[…] the cause and effect relationship Dutch composer, sound designer, instrumentalist It’s difficult working with between sound and gesture has remained an elusive Thisand programme digital artist Jan-Bas is Bollen has about written enhancing music for the problem.” many soloists, ensembles and theatre productions. He composers and dancers, He continues: “[…] designing an interactive system sensesfrequently available collaborates to with us dancers as human and beings, is somewhat of a paradox. The system should haveenhancing choreographers them usingincluding Rosstechnology, Cooper (UK) and sharpening Daniel developing the concept and components (dance input, musical output) that are Belton (NZ). Bollen teaches composition and new media working with advanced obviously autonomous, but which, at the same time, themat Codarts or Music giving Conservatory them in Rotterdam.other angles. must show a degree of cause-and-effect that creates a Jiří Kylián technology, but it was also perceptual interaction. Unless the mapping choices are made with considerable care, the musical composition Notes: really exciting. I think this and choreo­graphy can easily end up being slaves to the 1. Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook, Routledge UK, 2010, ISBN 978-0-415-55530-2, p. 58. is the future. system. In some cases, interaction might not occur at 2. Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Rhythm, music and education, translated Lisa Kapan (dance student) all. Not in a technical sense—the movement will indeed from the French by Harold F. Rubinstein, New York / London: G. P. control the music—but in the sense that no one (except Putnam’s Sons, 1921, p. 236. Digitised by the University of California, Los Angeles, and available at: www.archive.org/stream/rhythmmu- perhaps the performers) will notice that anything special siceduca00jaquiala/rhythmmusiceduca00jaquiala_djvu.txt is going on!”6 Rovan then postulates several points that 3. Burrows, p. 59 are centred around the notion of what he calls “gestural 4. For extensive literature on this subject, I refer to the publications coherence” and are to be used as guidelines. of cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Jessica Grahn, assistant professor in the Brain and Mind Institute and the Department of Psychology at Western University, in London, Ontario. A listing of her writings can It is interesting to realise that although the term gestural be found on: http://www.jessicagrahn.com/articles.html. A particu- coherence suggests a movement or dance perspective, larly good starting point is J.A. Grahn, M. Brett, “Rhythm and beat perception in motor areas of the brain,” in the Journal of Cognitive it is in fact applied here to a synthesis of both disciplines. Neuroscience, Vol. 19, No. 5, May 2007, pp. 893-906. In western art speak, we do not have a single word to in- 5. A common practice worth mentioning here is the use of so-called clude both dance and music, as is the case in many other “working music”. Only two weeks before the premiere of Looking for Peter in 1996, the choreographer Gonnie Heggen invited me to vocabularies in the world, for example in most African replace 60 minutes of working music, a collection of tracks by dif- languages. Yet, this would be most appropriate for an ferent artists that was used during rehearsals, with original material. interactive situation such as the one described above I was commissioned to stay true to the tempi and atmospheres of and, more generally, for a collaboration. the working music but a common aesthetic approach was never discussed. Choreographic work on the piece was in an advanced Dancers checking the Wii remotes with Jan-Bas Ballen stage, although not finished, so there was no room for me to refine my electronic language to the movement repertoire within the Conclusion choreography. I used a combination of recorded instruments and sequenced tracks to produce a CD in time. It was a successful show I have stated above that the primary human organisa- and at first I thought we must have had luck on our side. However, tion of material is within our own bodies and that more gradually I started to realise that the restricted freedom itself had complex levels of organisation are affected by both provided me with an aesthetic framework juxtaposed with the given style of the choreographer. personal and societal factors. I looked at various ways in 6. Joseph Butch Rovan, Artistic Collaboration in an Interactive Dance which dancers and musicians can connect and consid- and Music Performance Environment: Seine hohle Form, a project ered what electronic music can mean for these collabo- report (2002), CEMI-Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia, rations and specifically how its parameters could also be University of North Texas, U.S.A. Document downloadable at: peo- ple.brunel.ac.uk/bst/documents/josephbutchrovan.doc of i­nterest to dance. Furthermore, I proposed that the creation of interactive setups should recognise the need for a combined gestural and sonic coherence that could lead to deeper connectivity between the two disciplines.

Codarts teacher Sanja Maier-Hasagic

116 Lisa Kapan 32 Dance and music students from Codarts 37 Dance & Visual Techno­ logy Dance students working with a video feedback system created by Jason Akira Somma Editing Moving Images by Friederike Lampert and Désirée Staverman

UmaMedia filming and interviewing Jiří Kylián, Jason Akira Somma and Michael Schumacher

“ […] the affinity between the dance and the movies The fourth project in Jiří Kylián’s One Of A Kind professor- seems unquestionable […]”1 wrote the dance critic and ship at Codarts Rotterdam took place in February 2012 writer Walter Sorell in 1967. New technology in the film and dealt with this new dance dimension by focusing on world has indeed changed the face of dance. the interaction between dance and visual technology. An opening symposium saw Kylián, Michael Schumacher and Sabine Kupferberg discuss the topic with various guests, among them well-known choreographers and filmmakers.

Thibault Desaules 125 Three examples of dance films were shown: Amelia by In the first workshop, animation film students from Édouard Lock, Anonymous by Jiří Kylián and Jason Akira the Academy of Art and Design St. Joost in Breda, the Somma, and Waltzing Jessica by Jason Akira Somma. The Netherlands, created short-film projects with dancers extracts demonstrated a high level of synergy between from Codarts. The workshop was led by René Bosma dance and film, particularly in the sense of both dance (vice-dean of the art and design academy) Michel Gutlich and film as choreographed moving images. (art & technology co-ordinator at the academy). The dance students experienced what it was like to work The visual artist Anna Henckel-Donnersmarck then gave with filmmakers and were able to experiment with an a lecture on choreographing the dialogue between the animation suit, which allows a dancer’s movements to performer, camera and editing in Hollywood musicals. be captured­ and transferred to a three-dimensional ani- Using examples from Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and Busby mated figure performing the same actions. Students were Berkeley films, it became clear not only how film sup- able to exercise their creativity in a collaborative setting. ports dance in a very specific way but also how dance techniques gave rise to new possibilities for directing Another result from the workshop was a film called films. The interaction between camera and performer in Pygmalion in which the dance student Wessel Oostrum particular produced fascinating results in relation to the was mirrored by an artificial figure of himself. To produce If you have the chance and perception of filmed dance. the effect of an artificial figure, Oostrum was filmed the opportunity to do it u­sing pixelation, a non-stop motion technique in which a The working process involved in the dance film Car performer’s slight changes are recorded frame-by-frame differently, do it differently, Men (2003) by Boris Paval Conen and Jiří Kylián was in an animated film. h­ighlighted in a podium discussion with Paval Cohen, share it differently. Kylián and Kupferberg, who was one of the dancers The working process showed how interdisciplinary Michael Schumacher (dancer aged 40+) in it. The special working relationship that developed projects require all the disciplines involved to re-examine between Kylián and Paval Conen when making the film what they do and decide what to preserve and what to enriched their individual creative processes. transform. In a concluding session, the students worked with the choreographer and researcher Jack Gallagher to Extracts from two other dance-film examples were discuss dance film projects, the challenge of transdiscipli- shown and discussed with their creators: Ed Wubbe’s Lost narity and how to sketch out a dance film. and David Hinton’s Strange fish with DV8 Physical t­heatre. Both Wubbe, who is the director of Scapino Ballet In the second workshop, Jiří Kylián, Jason Akira Somma Rotterdam, and Hinton, a director of dance films, agreed and Michael Schumacher worked on the interaction that dance had to be choreographed differently for film between live performance and live video. Kylián choreo- and that it should make the most of the opportunities of- graphed a short piece using a video feedback system fered by the medium. Jiří Kylián also showed the b­oxing that was operated and controlled by Akira Somma. The scene from Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights to show how images of the dancers were projected onto a screen via early silent movies can be seen as dance choreographies. a live video camera that not only filmed the dancers but also its own projections that were beamed back onto Caspar Bik experimenting with an animation suit The workshops that followed focused on the creative the screen. Students were able to manipulate the visual interaction between dance and visual technology. images with their bodies and were in turn manipulated by the moving images of themselves on the screen. They were also able to see themselves in a way they had neverYou seen can themselves learn before, many for example things from behind, when they were filmed facing the screen with their backs butto the you camera, can’t and this learn gave them experience. a new awareness of Youthe bodyhave as an to three-dimensional live it, live entity.through Meanwhile it. Youanalogue should v­ideo technologylive intensely used the images to have to create – on the screen – the kind of fractal patterns you often somethingsee in nature.­ The patternsto remember made students when aware that even a small movementyou grow can have old. a great impact. Finally, the experiment also demonstrated a form of motion capture using film technology and how it could be used for dance. Jiri Kylian

In a final feedback round with the participants, Kylián talked about two dance-film examples (Jan Švankmajer’s Food and David Hinton’s Snow) in which non-human objects such as food or snow are “choreographed” in the editing room. Modern film technology broadens the concept of dance and choreography to include moving images in addition to moving bodies.

126 127 Participants in the Experiments with Animation Suit Participants in the Mixing Live Performance and and Animation Film workshop Live Video workshop: In collaboration with the Academy of Art and Guido Badalamenti Design St. Joost Davey Bakker Pauline Briguet Students from the Academy of Art and Design Eva Calanni St. Joost: Laura Casasola Fontseca Rezvan Abbaspour Thibault Pierre Desaules Charlotte Apers Thijs Huizer Laura Dumitru Myronne Rietbergen Olivia Ettema Gianmarco Stefanelli Setareh Goudarzi Angela Tampelloni Ruben Monteiro Adrian Wanliss Imge Ozbilge Guilia Wolthuis Marlyn Spaaij Wouter Zaman Notes: Codarts students: 1. Walter Sorell, The Dance Through the Ages, London: Thames & Hudson, 1967, p. 291. Caspar Bik Sonia Egner Maurizio Giunti Asja Lorencic Wessel Oostrum Ewa Sikorska Emmely Tunders

More to explore

Short film: Dance & Film You can learn many things Questions: – How do you seebut the interaction you can’t between learn dancer andexperience. filmmaker? – Do you thinkYou visual technologyhave to can live extend it, the live borders through of dance? If so,it. how? – What influence does film have on the structure and rhythm of choreography? – Do you think filmYou makes should dance less live or moreintensely physical? to have something to remember when Literature: you grow old. Larry Billman, Film Choreographers and Dance Directors: An Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia, With a History and Filmographies, 1893 Through 1995, North Carolina: McFarland &Jiri Co., Kylian1997. Do you think you can stop Erin Brannigan, Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. training as dancers now Elizabeth Mitoma, Dale Zimmer, Ann Stieber, Envisioning Dance on Film and because you can do everything Video, New York: Routledge, 2003. Walter Sorell, The Dance Through the Ages, London: Thames & Hudson, 1967. with technology? No way! Jiří Kylián

128 Thijs Huizer and Gianmarco Stefanelli 129 Humans express themselves primarily through their bodies. Dance is older than music, painting, literature or any other art form, but we dancers and choreographers are underprivileged because dance records are very scarce. There are some ancient drawings, sculptures and paintings, but dance is an art form that requires time to be created, performed, understood and appreciated. Thanks to the invention of film, we can now see what people do physically. Film’s initial task was simply to record how people move. As new technology developed, we saw that dance and film could interact in such a way as to create a completely new art form. Jiří Kylián

32 Dance students working with the video feedback system created by Jason Akira Somma 37 When I started using a video camera Some Thoughts on to film dance, I immediately noticed that the framing actually extended Dance Film my understanding of how I perceived by David Hinton myself as a three-dimensional being. For instance, seeing myself from behind while Introduction Given these fundamental affinities, Although there are some fundamen- dancing made a huge impression on the why is dance film mostly an awkward tal affinities between dance and film, development of my own dancing, and also Dance and film were born to be and unsatisfactory form? The main there are some fundamental difficul- together. What is a film camera problem is that almost all serious ties too. For instance, films are made how I perceive dance in general. after all? A machine that records dance people are theatre people. out of shots, and a shot can be a very Michael Schumacher movement. Who moves in the most They get their training in the theatre, confining thing for a dancer. Once interesting way? Dancers, of course. make their living in the theatre, and you are in a shot, you are no longer So dancers are the most interest- make their reputations in the theatre. simply a figure in a space, because ing people to put in front of the A lot of the qualities they value are you are also part of the composition camera. This is what they thought at theatrical qualities. of an image. As soon as you move, the birth of cinema, and, for me, it you start to transform, and possibly remains true. The trouble is, of course, that what unbalance, that composition. So works in a theatre is mostly quite there is an immediate tension there, To create a shot is to create an im- different from what works in a film. between the filmmaker’s desire to age of action. To edit shots together Time, space, energy, presence, dyna­ make an image and the dancer’s is to give shape to a sequence of mics – nothing translates directly desire to move. actions. There is this deep con- from one medium to the other. You nection between filmmaking and can’t make a “good film” simply by There is also the problem that film dance-making: they are both about filming “good theatre”. language is based on the edit. giving structure to action. And they Theatre dance is designed to be seen are both musical endeavours in the The drama learned this lesson a from a fixed position in relation to a sense that their success depends on hundred years ago. The earliest film fixed space, but, in a film, every edit the success of their rhythms. dramas were records of theatrical relocates the viewer in relation to the performances, but actors learned performer and the space, disrupting very fast that what was effective on the flow of energy and the reada­ screen was quite different from what bility of the body. For the filmmaker, was effective on stage. Nowadays, the edit is a crucial tool for making everyone simply takes it for granted structure, but for the dancer it can that what is required in a film drama easily become a blade that shreds is entirely different from what is their performance. required in a theatrical drama. There’s also the problem that most I’m sure that screen dance will dance films are a collaboration eventually evolve away from theatre between a filmmaker and choreo­ towards cinematic sophistication in grapher. They are both used to all the ways that dramatic films have being in charge of the structure of done. New ways of performing will the work they make, and they tend emerge, which will redefine dance to have different instincts about virtuosity in screen terms. But this where structure is going to happen. evolution hasn’t been accomplished The choreographer is likely to think yet, and, for the moment,It workingwas also in ofvery structure a humblingas something inherent experience dance film remains largelyto alearn process thatin the you performance don’t (i.e. always something have to of experiment and exploration. that exists prior to shooting) while do big movements.the filmmaker is Small likely to think movements of it as something created in the cutting canroom have (i.e. somethinga great created impact. after Adrianshooting). Wanliss (dance student)

Adrian Wanliss and Davey Bakker 133 This can cause a lot of confusion. In Stage to screen: Creating the cinematic world for I think there’s a fundamental conflict When dancers are working in clear One reason why DV8’s work lends it- order to avoid such confusion in my Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men Dead Dreams was particularly in all dance film work between “cine­ lines and in unison, it’s much easier self very well to film is that, although own head, I have invented my own interesting because some of the matic energy” and “performance to make strong compositions than the performers are all trained danc- terminology for the different kinds The first dance film I made was a scenes had to happen in spaces with energy”. You can achieve a lot of when dancers are scattered in space ers, their preoccupations are those of of screen dance work I do. Whenever TV version of the stage show Dead obvious­ real world counterparts – cinematic energy through precision and moving independently. An even drama: character, psychology, con- I embark on a project, I ask myself: Dreams Of Monochrome Men by DV8 like a disco or a bathroom – while of shooting, but, for this, the danc- pace of movement is easier to fol- flict, emotion. Of course, I find their “Where is structure going to hap- Physical Theatre. In those days – this others had to happen in purely ers must be constrained to suit the low with a camera than an uneven work more interesting than straight pen?” and I ascribe the work to one was in 1989 – there was no such psychological spaces. Making the shots. If the dancers are unleashed to pace. An edit is always going to work drama, because of its physicality, its of three categories: thing as a dance film culture. Most TV action move seamlessly between move freely, you can achieve a lot of better with an emphatic action than musicality and its ritualistic quality, versions of dance took what I would these different kinds of spaces – so performance energy, but less preci- a soft one. Generally speaking, film but at the core of it is storytelling, (1) Stage to screen: call “the football match approach”: the audience was not even aware of sion is possible in the shooting, and tends to be more confident with con- and film has a long history of story- Here, I’m talking about any work they would simply run a theatrical the transitions – was one of the most subsequently in the editing. tained and repetitive action than it is telling, so there is a well-established where you make the dance first – dance and shoot it with six cam- interesting tasks involved in making with diverse and uneven action. cinematic grammar that can be used with no regard to how it is going to eras, like a football match. From the the film. Which sort of energy should you go in filming their work. be filmed – and then decide how filmmaking point of view, I found for? I don’t think there’s any single It is quite possible for a dance to be to film it. In such cases, the structure this depressing. It meant that what As far as the shooting went, my answer. If the readability of the body a hugely successful piece of theatre For me, DV8 were also great to work is inherent in the action, and the you were offering the viewer was a method was to treat the stage show is more important, then you have to without ever being able to work well with because they understood the filmmaking serves that pre-existing second-hand experience: a compro- as a sort of physical script. I studied shoot in one way, and if the momen- on film. For instance, some theatrical value of adapting things to make structure. mised and diminished version of a it diligently on video, breaking it tum of the body is more important dance depends on many different them more powerful cinematically. theatrical event. down and mentally re-configuring then you have to shoot in a different things happening at the same time When we did Dead Dreams, they (2) Dance for camera: the action until it played out in my way. Any way of shooting a theatrical – perhaps twelve dancers on stage were relentlessly tough in their Here, I’m talking about the approach I thought the task should be one of head successfully as a film. I then dance is, ultimately, an interpreta- all doing different things simulta­ c­ommitment to the integrity and where you work out the dance and transformation rather than reproduc- storyboarded it out, and we shot the tion of that dance, and to do it well, neously. This might be beautiful emotional honesty of their stage the film at the same time. In other tion. We must make the dance as film one shot at a time, mostly using you have to know where to put the as theatre, but it is very hard to show, but they realised that being words, the structure of the dance and powerful as a television event as it a single camera, as though we were emphasis. It all comes down to what translate successfully to film, because true to the meaning of the show did the film are conceived together. had been as a theatrical event. This making a movie. the dance is about. film is not very good at dealing with not mean that the film had to slav- meant not simply reproducing what many different things happening at ishly reproduce the actual physical (3) Documentary choreography: happened on stage, but translating In order for the film to be strong, I Of course, some kinds of theatri- the same time. details of what happened on stage. Here, I’m talking about work where it into film terms. We had to intensify thought each shot had to be strong cal dance work better on film than This made for an exhilarating collab- you use the camera simply as a what was there in the stage show, – not only the performances, but others. This is nothing to do with the The camera has none of the agility of oration, full of passionate discussion means of harvesting unstructured not diminish it. also the composition and lighting of quality of the dance, but simply to the human eye, which can simultane- about what changes we had to make movement, and then create structure each shot. I also tried to work out in do with the nature of it. Some shapes ously take in detail and a general pic- to achieve a successful translation in the cutting room. In other words, For me, the first part of achieving advance where all the cuts would be, and rhythms of movement are better ture. The camera is blunt and literally from stage to screen. the structure is created in the editing. this was to invent a cinematic world so that the structure and rhythm of adapted to the language of shots demands a focus. It requires that you within which the action would un- the edits would, in the end, serve the and edits than others. chose either a wide shot or a close In the end, the real power of a piece I’ve worked in all these different fold. The stage show of Dead Dreams structure and rhythm of the action. shot. You can’t have both at once. like Dead Dreams lies in the convic- ways, and it may be interesting to had just a single set, and film uses In other words, I tried to make the For instance, one reason why Fred tion of the performances. The hardest say something about each of them. up the visual interest of a single set whole film in my head before we Astaire and Ginger Rogers work In fact, I would say it is in the nature work – the emotional work of creat- I will write a little about my first very fast. In fact, one thing that still picked up a camera. so elegantly on screen is that the of theatre to be cumulative, and in ing those performances – was done e­xperience of each form. surprises me about dance films is type of dancing they do – basically the nature of film to be selective. in the rehearsal room for the stage how often they use only a single set The difficulty with this method is tapping and waltzing – sustains as Theatre is an experience in a space, show, long before I was involved in or a single location. For me, this is that the more carefully you construct a composition in the frame, and can and within a space you can have the piece. My job on a work like this simply the residue of theatrical think- good shots, the more you break therefore be captured in a single, ele- this and this and this and this, all is that of an interpreter rather than ing, and it makes the films strangely up the flow of the dancer’s perfor- gant take. If they were dancing ballet happening at once. Film is an experi- a creator. The vision of the piece static. mance. The shots may fit together – with its leaps and lifts, separations ence in time, and all about one thing belongs to the dancers who make and flow in the edit, but during and changes of pace – it would not after another - this then this then the performances. Dance is about movement, and one the actual shooting, the dancers sustain as a composition, and would this then this. Film is by its nature of the most beautiful ways in which a must perform in stops and starts, therefore be impossible to shoot sequential, and much more linear For a filmmaker, of course, it is a great film can move is that it can take you often just a few seconds at a time. with the same simple elegance. This than theatre is. bonus to inherit a lot of work that has on a journey through a progression Obvious­ly this can feel very alien to is one reason why there are more been done before you arrive on the of many different spaces, support- dancers who are used to the long good tap-dancing films than there scene. And – although it goes against ing the meaning of the dance by runs of theatrical performance. are good ballet films. It was also manyvery of mya theorieshumbling to say it – experiencemany creating the right environment and to learn thatof the you most powerfuldon’t dancealways films have to the right atmosphere around every derive from stage shows. The reason, development in the action. do big movements.I think, is largely economic.Small Dancersmovements and choreographers are usually paid canto have work much a great longer on impact. a theatre Adrianpiece than Wanliss on a (dance film, so student) a film based on a theatre show benefits hugely from that.

134 135 Dead Dreams made a big impact Dance for camera: Once the film was finished, the In theatre, a performance con- The beauty of dance for camera lies For a long time, I used to say that when it was first shown. We had Touched objection was soon made that the sists of a single unbroken flow of in all the freedoms it brings to think the best dance films were kung fu made something almost like a silent movement was too small to qualify energy, sustained for as long as about movement in ways that are m­ovies, because the people who movie for television that communi­ For a short time, in the 1990s, the as dance. But one of the points we the p­erformer is on stage. In film, a impossible in theatre. You can show made those movies were much more cated with the audience in a very BBC started to commission Dance were trying to make was that, in a performance can be a fragmentary angles, details and subtleties of the alert and imaginative about using visceral way, through their guts. We for Camera films. A lot of the work film, no action has scale in and of thing, which the audience experi- body that are impossible in theatri- the freedoms of film than the sup- live in a very talky culture, and the seemed to consist simply of theatrical itself. Its weight, presence and value ences a few seconds at a time. This cal dance. You can make different posedly serious dance-film people. tendency in television is to make dance performed in interesting loca- depend entirely on its relationship to means that a film dance can contain kinds of relationships between everything more and more wordy tions. I thought any serious attempt the camera. a lot of action that is implied but sound and image. You can think in Of course, a lot of people have made and explicit. It was refreshing for me at dance for camera had to go deep- In a theatre, the scale of a move- not seen. It also means that put- non-­ theatrical­ ways about perform- a lot of very good screen dance. But to make something that was mute er, and aim towards a more wholesale ment depends on its relationship to ting the performances together is ers and performance. You can even when I consider the power, sophis- and did not explain itself, and left re-thinking of what dance is. the fixed space of the stage, but in a completely different process than dispense with gravity, if you like. tication and seriousness of the best room for the viewer’s own imagina- a film, there is no fixed space, and it is in the theatre. It is not about theatrical dance, I don’t see the same tion to work. I thought the fundamental question everything depends on the size of orchestrating the flow of bodies I think the freedoms of film can qualities in dance film yet. How often we had to ask ourselves was: “If you the shot. The most muscular leap through a space, but about the linear sometimes be disturbing rather is there the same buzz of excite- I had discovered in dance film an area were inventing a choreographic will feel feeble if you make it a tiny arrangement of fragments in time. than liberating for choreographers, ment around a dance film as there of television where, almost in secret, language for film rather than the element in a wide shot, whereas the In Touched, combining the perfor- because all the physical practicalities is around a new theatrical work? it was possible to make one-off, theatre, what would be the charac- smallest twitch will feel significant if mances was like assembling a mosaic that normally discipline their work no Almost never. unique and adventurous films. The teristics of that language?” Of course, you make it the dominant element or a jigsaw puzzle. longer apply. The number of dancers beauty of it was that dance film was Maya Deren started addressing this in a close-up. In a film, a look can be can change in a blink from two to Right now, an accomplished so ignored and despised by senior question back in the 1940s, but the bigger than a leap, and we felt that Touched was also a film where we did twenty. The space they are in can choreographer might devote their executives that no one had invented process of thinking and experimen- any serious dance for camera should a lot of work on the sound track. In change in a blink from a cupboard whole life to thinking about theatri- any rules or formulas for it yet. That tation that she began still has far to take account of this fact. dance film the sound is particularly to a football pitch. There doesn’t cal dance, while dance film will be was too good to last, of course, and go. Most dance films are still uneasy crucial, because sound can be felt in even have to be any continuity in the something they address occasionally, most of the television money for hybrids between theatrical and We also saw the movement of the the body in a way that images can’t. movement. You can dispense with as a sideline. I don’t think we’ll see a dance films has now dried up – in cinematic ideas. camera itself as a crucial part of the In other words, the sound actually anything preparatory or transitional really mature screen dance culture Britain, at least. movement content of the film. After has a visceral and physical effect on simply by cutting it out, leaving only until choreographers are working as I got together with choreographer all, when you move the camera, the viewer, and this is very important the peak moments. You can make a regularly, diligently and confidently Wendy Houstoun and we decided to essentially what you are doing is set- if you want to communicate with dance full of ellipses in time. in film as they do in theatre. set ourselves the challenge of mak- ting the viewer on the move. There’s people through their guts, not just ing a dance film that could have no a visceral aspect to this, because through their eyes and intellect. Time-wise, of course, theatre is lum- I think there’s also probably a feeling existence as a piece of theatre. The any movement of the camera itself bering, in the sense that everything in some quarters of the dance world way we began was to ask ourselves is going to be felt in the body of the What you can do with sound in a has to unfold evenly in real time. that dance, by its very nature, has a formal question: “Is it possible viewer far more powerfully than any film, which you can’t do in theatre, Film, on the other hand, can be as to be “live”. After all, what does “not to make a dance film entirely in movement of a performer in the is place every sound absolutely nimble as you like in time. TIme can live” dancing consist of exactly? For close-ups?” The close-up is a potent frame. But there’s also a visual aspect, precisely in relation to the action, be sped up and slowed down. You me, its a big part of the screen dance part of film language, but it doesn’t in that, when you move the camera, and mix the sounds so the audience can land before you leap, or leave enterprise to answer that question, really exist in theatre, so we felt this you are guiding the eye of the viewer hears exactly what you want them to before you arrive. A dance on film and it gets very interesting very challenge would force us to think through the action. Dance for camera hear. If you want the dancer’s breath can, as it were, dance back and forth fast, because it quickly evolves into about dance anew, in a genuinely can be about choreographing the to be louder than the music, you can in time, so that time becomes an the philosophical question: what is cinematic way. eye of the viewer, as well as choreo- make it so. added dimension within which the “dance”? graphing the performers. dancer can move, something that Much as I’m interested in formal One of the things we did on Touched doesn’t exist in theatre. I’m not going to try to answer that ideas, it’s the emotional impact of a Our film was about several different was to create more than twenty here, but perhaps we should at film that matters to me most. Here, characters all taking part in the same different sound tracks that ran in Rarely have we seen choreographers least consider the analogy of music. the idea of making the film in close- social occasion, but because the film p­arallel through the film (atmos­ seize on such freedoms to make There’s “live” music and “not live” ups led us to look at our performers was shot entirely in close-ups you pheres, effects, body sounds, music, work of true cinematic rather than music (i.e. recorded music) and very closely, and this quickly led us never saw them all in the same shot. and so on) and then we had d­ifferent theatrical complexity. Too often, the everyone understands the difference into emotional territory to do with The way we made connections be- tracks cutting in and out on p­icture freedoms afforded by film are seen and no one sees any problem. A live intimacy. It also forced us, in the tween them was by intercutting. This cuts, so that the texture and density as novelties to be enjoyed briefly or performance has certain virtues, and choreo­graphy, to work with small, is a commonplace of film grammar, of the sound was constantly chang- played with light-heartedly. But, for a studio recording has different vir- subtle actions. Before long, we real- but once you apply it to dance the ing, often in abrupt ways. This me, it is these freedomsIt that was make also tues.very It’s obviousa humbling and unproblematic. experience ised that our film was going to be a whole idea of what a performance created a disorientating, drunken film a different languageto from learn thea- thatI see noyou reason don’t why the always same should have to dance of hands and faces. is becomes very different from a atmosphere, which was appropriate tre, with different rules, and there- not apply to dance. theatrical dance performance. to the action in the film. fore different possibilities.do big movements. Small movements can have a great impact. Adrian Wanliss (dance student)

136 137 Practically speaking, I’d say that Documentary choreography: One particular preoccupation with Third, there is a rhythm to do with I have also heard the objection that Ending dance film has, so far, made only Birds Birds was rhythm, and the rhythmic the way I actually make the edits. Birds does not count as legitimate a few stumbling steps towards relationships between actions. We I can make a tight edit so that the dance because the birds have no When I started making dance films, achieving “not live” dancing on a One evening I was standing at a bus decided from the beginning that hop comes right on top of the jump, dance intention in what they are in Britain in the late eighties and sophisticated­ level, but that’s one stop in Leeds, a city in the north of we weren’t going to cut images or a looser edit so there is a breath doing. But, for me, of course, all the nineties, they were financed by thing that makes dance film an England, watching thousands of to music, because we felt that the between the hop and the jump. intention lies in the editing. In the television and shown on television. interesting form to work in. There’s birds flocking over the town hall. results would be glib. The film does (I’m talking about real subtleties of cutting room, you have more control They went round the world, and they still lots of territory to be explored, I felt like I was watching an extra­ have music, but that came late in the editing here – whether you leave over the movement of a bird than reached far bigger audiences than lots of challenges to be met, lots of ordinary dance, and it struck me that process. Most of the time we worked two or four frames on the end of a any theatrical choreographer ever live dance ever could. Unfortunately, problems to be solved. there was no reason why I shouldn’t in silence, determined to create shot – but the magic of a film may lie has over the movement of even the most of the support from television use the movements of birds to make something that qualified as a dance in these subtleties, just as the magic most obedient dancer. has now dried up, and these days it a dance film. Why not? Birds have through its visual rhythms alone, of a piece of music may lie in finding For me, Birds opened up the is very hard to get money to make an extraordinarily rich vocabulary of irrespective of what the sound was exactly the right distance between possib­ility of making all kinds of dance films. movement, including a wonderful doing. one note and the next.) films using the same combination ability to fly. of documentary observation and At the same time, the technology I grew fascinated by the fact that as Fourth, there’s a rhythm to do with film editing. It pointed me towards you need to make screen work – At that time, I was coming to the soon as you start editing, you are the pattern of edits in the film. This working with not only new move- the cameras and editing equipment realisation that more and more of immediately dealing with four differ- is largely a question of whether ment v­ocabularies, but also new – has become ever more cheap and the structure of the dance films I was ent kinds of rhythm. I don’t consider the edits are coming at regular or movement qualities. A large part readily available, so making some- making was being created in the cut- myself at all musically sophisticated, irregular intervals. Mostly, of course, of the beauty of bird movement, thing for the screen is far less daunt- ting room. It dawned on me that film and I’m sure a more musical person the viewer is not consciously aware for instance, lies in the fact that it is ing and expensive than it used to be. editing is, in itself, a choreographic could take the principles of Birds to of this, but if the edits are coming at entirely authentic. The birds have no All over the world there are people activity. Why not make a dance from a much higher level than I did, but regular intervals, they will experi- sense of putting on a performance making no-budget dance films just the actions of birds, using editing simply an awareness of these four ence this as a kind of rhythmic pulse. for the camera. because they want to. Somehow, de- alone to give those actions form, rhythms is interesting, I think… In Birds, there are many sequences spite the lack of money, it still feels as rhythm, structure, meaning and where the edits are placed at math- The beauty of movement observed though there is a lively screen dance every other quality one might want First, there is the rhythm inherent in ematically determined intervals, in is quite different from the beauty of culture out there, largely sustained in a dance? the shot. By this, I mean the rhythm order to achieve this rhythmic pulse. movement performed, and I liked by eccentrics and enthusiasts. of the bird that is the subject of the the idea of making dances from un- That was the beginning of the film shot. A bird hopping along a branch, When Birds won the IMZ Dance performed, unselfconscious actions. I certainly feel as though I’m see- Birds. I went on to watch hundreds of for instance, has its own rhythm of Screen Award, there was a certain Why not extend that idea to people? ing dance films all over the place hours of bird footage in the archive stops and starts. What was inter- amount of scandal because some Why not make dances with people these days, partly because so many of the BBC Natural History Unit, and I esting was deciding how much to people refused to accept that it was who don’t know they are dancing? adverts and YouTube sensations discovered more magical bird move- allow the bird to move according a dance film at all. They felt that a I have gone on to pursue this in other look like dance films to me. A lot ment than I ever dreamed existed. to its own rhythm, and how much dance film must have dancers in it. found-footage films like Snow and All of people who are working with That taught me a principle that has to impose my own rhythm upon My view is that anything that moves This Can Happen. video in the art world are essentially stayed with me ever since: one way it through editing. If the bird went and can be filmed can become a making dance films or screen dance of finding beautiful movement is by hop-pause-hop, I could cut out the legitimate part of the movement One thing that is particularly impor­ installations, and lots of people are searching for it in the world, rather pause, and thereby impose my own content of a film dance. tant to me about documentary combining screendance with live ac- than creating it in a studio. rhythm, or leave in the pause, and choreo­graphy is that any film made tion in theatre shows. The worlds of thereby allow the bird to stay in its In fact, one of the most exciting this way is a “pure” dance film, in that dance, film, theatre and visual art are I also quickly discovered that all own rhythm. things about making dance on film is the “dance” and the “film” are one all intersecting much more than they the challenges of working on a film that it gives you access to all kinds of and the same thing: a single rhythm used to, and dance-film thinking fits like this lie in how you connect one Second, there is the rhythm to do movement possibilities that are not and a single structure. The dance is very happily into this new cultural image to the next. It isn’t so hard to with the ordering of shots. If I have available in the theatre. If you want a not something that exists indepen- environment. find beautiful or fascinating images one shot of a hopping bird and one movement that feels like a thousand dently of film technique but is some- of bird movement. The demanding shot of a jumping bird, there is imme- birds taking off, you can use a shot of thing created by film technique. One great thing about dance is that work lies in deciding how to com- diately an infinite number of different a thousand birds taking off. It would it leaps over all barriers of language, bine one action with another, how to films I could make with just those be perverse not to take advantage For me, this wholehearted inter­ so a good dance film on the Internet build structures of action. I felt that two shots, simply by repeating and of this. section of the ideas of “dance” and can go round the world like wildfire, it was through structure that the raw re-ordering them in different ways. “film” represents a beautiful opening and be enjoyed equally in Shanghai, movement would acquire music and A rhythm might start hop-jump- up of opportunities. It Itenlarges was our also Moscow,very aLagos humbling and New York. experience I see meaning and be transformed into hop-jump, or hop-hop-jump-jump, or sense of what a film mightto learnbe, and thata lot ofyou hope don’t for the future always in that. have to dance. hop-hop-hop-jump, and so on. what a dance might be, and where I think the universality of dance is dance might be found. doDocumentary big movements. going to make dance Small film evermovements more choreography proposes that dance important in the increasingly global can be not just an activity done by canculture have of thea great future. impact. dancers, but also a way of looking at Adrian Wanliss (dance student) the world.

138 139 The success of Wim Wenders’ recent About the author film about Pina Bausch is also an David Hinton is a director of arts doc- interesting development, because it umentaries and performance films. played to audiences more accus- He worked for ten years on The South tomed to watching fiction films than Bank Show where he made docu- dance performances. I like the idea mentaries about artists of all kinds, that dance film can cross over into including Francis Bacon, Bernardo the territory of narrative cinema. Bertolucci, John Cleese, Alan Bennett Mainstream filmmaking looks very and Little Richard. He has also di- tired these days, full of repetition and rected television versions of several cliché, and it needs to be refreshed stage shows and collaborated with by new ways of thinking. Dance film many choreographers to create origi- might provide that. nal dance works for the screen. He has twice won BAFTA awards for his I think for dance film in general documentaries, and his dance films these are still the pioneering days. have won many awards. He teaches There’s a huge amount of work to be dance film ­orkshopsw all over the done, and its fun to do, because the world. freedom is there to experiment as much as you like. The masterpieces of dance film haven’t been made yet, so the future looks very exciting and I’m very optimistic about it.

It was also a very humbling experience to learn that you don’t always have to do big movements. Small movements can have a great impact. Adrian Wanliss (dance student)

140 There is another very simple reason why film and video have such an important place in our consciousness: whenever we see a film of a living artist, the film seems dead, but whenever we see a film about someone who has died, the only thing that seems to be alive is the film. This is something we felt as children. Moving pictures are one of the greatest ever inventions and they do exactly what they promise: they moved me when I was a child and they move me today. Jiří Kylián

32 Guido Badalamenti and Thibault Desaules dancing with video feedback system created by Jason Akira Somma 37 New Perspectives on Dance Podium interviews with Jiří Kylián, Michael Schumacher, Jason Akira Somma, Sabine Kupferberg, Boris Paval Conen, Ed Wubbe and David Hinton

Turning Dance into a new Art Form Jiří Kylián: Film and dance, or video and dance, is of course something we have lived with for many years Podium interview with now. It becomes increasingly more important by the Jiří Kylián and Jason Akira Somma, minute. One of the reasons why dance is less developed conducted by Michael Schumacher than other art forms is because there was no record of dancing for centuries and millennia. It was only with Three films were shown during the interview: Amelia by the introduction of film that there was suddenly the Édouard Lock, Anonymous by Jiří Kylián in collaboration possibility of actually seeing how people moved and with Jason Akira Somma, and Waltzing Jessica by Jason danced. This was a new beginning for the dance era. Akira Somma. In fact, when you watch the old silent movies, they’re more dance than film. They’re pantomime, because in a silent movie you can’t watch two people sitting at a table talking. You wouldn’t know what they were talking about because you can’t hear them. There are many reasons why film and dance are important, the main one being that you can record what has happened, but there are many other aspects. You can use close-ups, you can look at dance from different angles, you can make dance on location, in which case the film becomes unique, unrepeatable, and then of course there’s the possibility of using the latest technological developments that turn dance into a completely new art form. There are prob- ably one thousand other reasons why video, film and dance are important in the development of dance.

Michael Schumacher: We’re going to see three e­xamples. The first we’re going to see is Édouard Lock’s dance film Amelia. Sometimes we were [Video is shown] talking about the same Waltzing Jessica by Jason Akira Somma JK: This is a remarkable film. It’s the waything it’s filmed. in aThere different is the set and choreography, of course, but it’slanguage. the speed that’s so amazing. I was sure it had been sped up, but Michael assured me it wasn’t. What weWessel just saw Oostrum is the (dance student) actual speed they dance. It’s remarkable because the movement is so fast you can’t register it as it’s produced. In a way, I feel that this film lives more in your memory than in your experience of the moment while watching it. Later on, you’re able to make some kind of sense from what you’ve experienced.

145 MS: Would you interact and work with dancers differ­ MS: Let’s see the next example, a film by Jason called The Making of Car Men Friederike Lampert: When did the idea of making a ently for a film project compared to a stage production? Waltzing Jessica. dance film with Jiří Kylián come about? Podium interview with Jiří Kylián, JK: Definitely. You will probably see it in the examples. JAS: This is my first venture into dance film. I made it Sabine Kupferberg and Boris Paval Conen, Boris Paval Conen: The idea that Jiří and I should work Choreographing forIt’s a camera like on not location running is a totally dif for- whenthe I buswas 21 or 22 years old. There was no budget for conducted by Friederike Lampert together came about in 2002. The initial idea was to ferent ball game to a stage choreography, where people it. I made it after earning some money bartending and make an adaptation of an existing stage piece, then, one look mostly from anymore.one side and in oneI just direction don’t only. Itdo it.getting In friendsthis together. A short “making of” video relating to the dance film Car night, Jiří called me and said, ‘I’m not so interested in re- expands the possibilitiesdance, for thethe choreography. younger ones turn, but Men (2006), choreographed by Jiří Kylián and directed digesting what I’ve made already. Maybe we should start [The video shows two dancers filmed in a kind of stop-mo- by the filmmaker Boris Paval Conen, was shown before something from scratch? Imagine a Carmen on a scrap MS: The next film isI Anonymous thought,, your ‘I’m collaboration not going tion to technique do where the dancers move in small increments the interview. Han Otten composed the music for the heap in the Czech Republic.’ I asked myself, ‘Oh my God, with Jason Akira Somma. It was originally a stage piece between individually photographed frames. This creates film. The dancers in it are Sabine Kupferberg, Gioconda what do I think of this?’ and then I of course said, ‘Yes, created for the Hollandthat Dance because Festival two I’ll years probably ago. an illusion fall’. of dancers floating in the air when the series of Barbuto, David Krügel and Karel Hruška. I’d love to do it.’ We probably spent one-and-a-half to I don’t take risks. I don’t framesrun isfor played continuously.] two years developing the ideas alone. At that time, the JK: Yes, it was created for the opening of Korzo Theater project had been postponed for the future, so I made a in The Hague. It wasthe made bus,for two Iwonderful wait dancers,for the nextMS: How one. many times did you jump? drawing of how Jiří Kylián and I would be 120 years old Sabine Kupferberg and CoraMartinette Kroese. We Janmaat felt very (dancer privi- aged 60+) when Car Men is finished. Then suddenly, within half a leged to be asked to do a piece for the opening of the JAS: We jumped about 3,000 times. Our legs were very year, we had the money and could start working on the Korzo Theater and it was a wonderful experience. Jason’s sore the next morning! The film was just as much fun to movie. participation was of essential importance. He edited the edit, taking the frames of each jump and slicing them film you’re about to see and he created the corrupted together. FL: How did you start? Did you write a script or create video that is also shown in the film. Anonymous is about a storyboard? two extraordinary humans who look like unreal, angelic MS: This is something that’s very different to a live people but you don’t know what’s happening inside performance on stage: the editing process can BPC: Writing a script for a dance film is very strange, as them. They may be tormented and experiencing the most expand the timeframe of the creative process and you can only describe what it’s more or less about. The horrendous scenes in their minds, but they always try to sometimes bring radical changes to the actual story only really starts to become alive in the rehearsal be good, as many of us do. We always try to bring some- performance. room when all the dancers are with Jiří and they start thing positive to the world no matter what is happening to mould all these rough ideas into something that inside. This is the message of the film we will see next. JK: I have an enormous respect for someone like Jason. starts to come alive. The funny thing when Jiří and I He danced himself, and he filmed and edited it himself. were writing the scripts is that I was always sent home [Video is shown] How much was the budget? with, ‘Yeah, Boris, this is interesting, but in the end we’re going to change everything.’ So I went home, thinking, MS: Tell us a bit more about the collaboration on this JAS: Ten euros. ‘Oh my God, I have to rewrite it all.’ I rewrote it, then Jiří project? said, ‘Good idea, but when we’re in the rehearsal room, MS: That’s inspiring! we’re going to change everything.’ But we needed a Jason Akira Somma: Jiří had told me about the concept script to get the money together. We needed something of this piece and asked if I would contribute the video JAS: But that’s the beauty of technology these days. It concrete. We had two weeks’ rehearsing in The Hague. and audio. He was talking about this internal struggle, encourages anyone who’s interested in filmmaking to At the beginning, the dancers and Jiří had the possibility the two worlds that we have, and he said, ‘Jason, I want do it. Don’t get blinded by HD. Don’t get blinded by of working for two days with a heap of scrap metal that it to be absolutely terrifying. You should scare the shit the best equipment. Those rules don’t apply anymore, in the end was to become a child’s ideaSometimes of a car. The third we were out of the audience.’ We began with the audio. I sent especially with the new generation growing up with day, I joined them with a small video camera. Jiri’s first him some of the manipulations I was doing, a lot of them YouTube. We’re free to focus solely on what it is you’re question to me was, ‘Okay, where aretalking you going about to put the same Waltzing Jessica by Jasonmy Akira own Somma. vocals in a microphone, distorting the sound. tryingYou to saycan and learn the medium many that can things help you do that. the camera?’ I looked at him puzzled andthing said, ‘Sorry, in a but different I showed him a video technique I’d been working on, a butI’ve seen you some can’t amazing learn films shotexperience. by people on their what am I going to see?’ We looked at each other very sort of digital corruption. phones and it’s wonderful. It’s beautiful to see what they puzzled for a long time, then he said, ‘Let’s start,’language. and Many of you might see it happen when you’re speak- can achieve without a budget and what they’re able to they performed the first twenty seconds of the piece. I You have to live it, live through it. Wessel Oostrum (dance student) ing to someone via Skype. Sometimes the image gets Yousay, andshould that they live can reach intensely new audiences to have and expose said, ‘Well, it would be an idea to put the camera here?’ distorted. I spent some time burning DVDs, microwav- people to new forms of dance. Then suddenly the choreography developed shot by ing them and trying to find various ways to emulate this something to remember when shot. I filmed a shot with slowed-down music that we effect. It took me a while before I actually found a way you grow old. sped up later. We did a few shots, I edited them and Jiří to control how much you can distort an image, but it’s said, ‘Maybe we can do it this way?’ So this whole scene still limited to a bit of chaos and chance because you’re started to come alive as we were working. Every day literally destroying the architecture of the video in order Jiri Kylian we shot the ‘building of the scrap metal car’ again, we to create it. changed it, shot it again, edited it, changed it again, and so slowly, at the end of those two weeks, we had this scene. Then we travelled to the Czech Republic with the whole film crew. We were there for four weeks in this huge brown coalmine, rehearsing all the other scenes and at the same time shooting and editing the film.

146 147 [A clip from the film Car Men is shown] FL: Is being screened by the camera different to Dance Film: Friederike Lampert: Ed Wubbe, in your long career as performing on stage where you have a gap between A genuine Duet between Dancer and Camera a choreographer, when did you start to get interested BPC: What I love about these two examples – the ‘mak- yourself and the audience? in film and dance? ing of’ and Car Men itself – is that the ‘making of’, where Podium interview with Ed Wubbe (director of Scapino we see the rehearsalIt’s in The like Hague, not was runningshot with no for SK:the Dancers bus or performers are always visually trained, so Ballet) and David Hinton (filmmaker), Ed Wubbe: I actually don’t know. People started asking light and no equipment: I was running around with the we’re very critical of ourselves when dancing or perform- conducted by Jiří Kylián and Friederike Lampert me if I would be interested in doing a dance film, or a camera like an idiot.anymore. The film Car Men I just was done don’t with ado it.ing. In In this this case, when there are close-ups at around nine director or television station approached me and asked very big film crewdance, on location the with youngera really large budget,ones turn,o’clock in but the morning after getting up at five o’clock me if I’d be interested in doing a project. I started one which is rare for a dance film. But funnily enough, when I and being in make-up until eight o’clock, your face is project without any knowledge at all, which was a very look at the ‘making of’,I thought, it still has something ‘I’m magical. not going really to like do a mask. There was one scene Jiří and Boris interesting experience. My first film was directed by had the idea of starting with a close-up. They wanted Willem van de Sande Bakhuyzen. Rotterdam was the Jiří Kylián: I have not thatseen this because ‘making of’ clipI’ll in itsprobably en- all the fall’. very small, expressive muscles to work, but they European Capital of Culture in 2001 and the idea was tirety and it’s strange,I don’t as it’s exactly take the risks.same choreog I don’t- didn’trun because for they were already plastered with make- to make a film about Rotterdam. We had a very simple raphy as in the film. I find that quite amazing. The script up before they were even awake. I still have problems concept of a girl walking through Rotterdam and seeing you wrote was brilliant,the and bus, Sabine I andwait I used for to laugh the nextlooking one. at this scene, because I know how I was feeling dance performed at several spots. We chose 25 loca- over your inventions at homeMartinette every night. Janmaat They (dancer were agedat 60+) the time. It worked in the end, of course, but I’m very tions. It was frightening. I couldn’t prepare a lot of cho- quite fantastic. The other thing we really appreciated self-critical. These close-ups are hard moments in film. reographic material as I didn’t know the locations and was Han Otten’s music. The idea was for Han to make You want to be deep, you want to be honest, but maybe we had to deal with people in a public space. We had sounds from all kinds of manipulations of scrap-metal you’re not ready to be deep and honest at that time of to make sure the dance fitted into the public space and and then to tune these up with other realistic sounds the morning. was not too obvious. We wanted the public to take part so that they would sound like Bizet’s Carmen. The last It’s a confrontation you have to accept in the end and in the film, ordinary people walking by or cars, trams or thing I want to say is about the trick, which is prob- just go with it. trains. I only really choreographed the last part, when ably obvious to all of you, about how Car Men is filmed. the girl is pulled into a café. Occasionally, you see very fast choreography that is FL: What is the relationship between a choreographer totally synchronised with the fast music. While filming, and a filmmaker? [Excerpts from the dance film Lost is shown] the music is played at half speed, the dancers are filmed moving slowly, and then you speed up the music and JK: I think it’s really important for the filmmaker and FL: What did you want to communicate with this film? the filmed material to the correct tempo, so the dancers choreographer to influence each other in a positive way. are seen to be moving in fast motion. It’s a simple trick Of course, the filmmaker must know everything about EW: Well, as I said, we wanted to see Rotterdam through we used for this film and for other films I’ve done before. editing, the camera angles and movements, but he the eyes of this girl. There was no plot in the sense of should also study the intentions of the choreography. wanting to tell a story. We just wanted to catch the FL: Sabine, you are one of the protagonists. Let’s say The choreographer should understand that his work can atmosphere of the city. you ‘pull the strings’ in the film, like your role model be expanded, enhanced and improved by creative film- Carmen plays her admirers in the opera. How is the ing and editing. A positive influence will produce fine FL: Can film be used to make a dancer’s body more working process different for a film compared to the results. In this case, I think Boris and I were lucky that we dramatic or show more extreme aspects of the body? stage from a dancer’s point of view? kind of understood each other. EW: Oh yes, certainly. The good thing about the camera Sabine Kupferberg: With a film, once it’s done, it’s done. is that you can get very close to the dancer. What I think That’s really nice. With performing, you have different is important in this film is that you followSometimes the main char- we were nerves every night. It’s a live performance, which is very acter because you see a lot of close-ups. You see what exciting, but I like the sensation of film work, working she sees. You can emphasize that moretalking in film thanabout on a the same Waltzing Jessica by Jasonhard, Akira having Somma. all kinds of ups and downs and rehearsing You can learn many things stage. thing in a different it over and over again, but once you have a really good but you can’t learn experience. shot, you’re happy and you don’t have to do it again. The FL: David Hinton, you have often collaboratedlanguage. with camera really only witnesses one very short moment in choreographers, including Lloyd Newson from DV8 You have to live it, live through it. Wessel Oostrum (dance student) your life. You should live intensely to have Physical Theatre. Let’s start with an example. FL: Did you rehearse the choreography in the studios something to remember when David Hinton: Sure. It’s an extract from Strange Fish, in The Hague? Or did you rehearse it in the coalmine you grow old. a film I made with the DV8 Physical Theatre. It was a in the Czech Republic? 50-minute film made for television. This is just a two- minute extract. SK: We rehearsed in the studio in The Hague and also Jiri Kylian on location in a surface coalmine. We rehearsed more [An extract from Strange Fish is shown] on location because the weather conditions were very different there and lots of problems arose, so we had to keep changing the choreography to fit the ever-chang- ing weather conditions. It was hard work.

148 149 FL: Is there a difference between physical presence on exciting is the fact that I understand about camera way. When you’re doing that, you’re just using the cam- understand film language better, so they know that stage and on screen? movements, I understand about editing rhythms.’ And in era as a way of harvesting movement material. Then the what they’re creating actually makes sense in the lan- the end, he creates a dance that uses film language in a way you structure it has very much to do with the edit- guage of shots and edits. DH: Yes, I think there is. The reason why, as a filmmaker, very sophisticated way. ing. That’s a perfectly legitimate way to make films and FL: So is dance film it’s own genre? I like working with danceIt’s islike because not through running dance you for the bus I’ve made films like that, just out of found footage. I just can achieve a very visceral communication with the au- Both Fred Astaire and Busby Berkeley are great, but if find images, bits of movement in the world that I like. DH: Well, I would say one of the reasons I’m into it is that dience. I really wantanymore. to communicate I justwith the don’t audience, do it.they In tried this to collaborate it would be a car crash because Then all the choreography lies in the way in which you it’s one of the most cinematic films you can make. When and that’s how I camedance, to working the with younger dance in the ones first turn,they both but want to be in charge of what’s happening. edit them together, because I think film editing is itself the film camera was first invented, what was it? It was place. I want to feel physicality and I want the viewers to This is a big issue in all dance films when a choreogra- a choreographic activity. It’s about giving structure to just a machine that records movement. Nobody really feel it in their guts, notI thought, just in their brains. ‘I’m But not clearly, going in pher to and do a director get together. They’re both used to action, which is what choreography is. That’s one way to knew what to do with it: ‘We’ve got a machine that re- a film, a lot of the physicality gets lost because you lose being in charge in their own worlds. They have to make work, and if everybody knows ‘Okay, this is what we are cords movement, what’s the point of it?’ They had to ask the magic of the livingthat moment. because I mean, in I’lla theatre, probably it really fall’. clear between them who’s going to be respon- doing’ then everyone is fine. The dancers can improvise, themselves: ‘What do people want to see moving?’ The we’re all here alive inI adon’t space together. take Sorisks. much ofI thedon’t siblerun for for what, and who’s going to control what, in the and the cameraman can improvise, because all we’re answer was: ‘Other people!’ And who moves in the most power of theatre has to do with the fact it’s alive and real work they’re making. trying to do is to find images that we like. That’s fine, interesting way? ‘Dancers, of course!’ So if you look at a and happening in frontthe of bus,you. A filmI wait is just imagesfor the on next one. as long as everybody understands that all the rhythm lot of the earliest films ever made, they are dance films. screen. In fact it’s just patternsMartinette of light. Janmaat It’s all an (dancer illusion. aged FL: 60+) Was it like this in Car Men? and all the structure is going to be created later, in the A lot of what you have to do all the time in film is to find cutting room. So, if you, as a choreographer, want to be JK: Exactly. I think the first silent movies are really ways to compensate for that. You have to find out what Jiří Kylián: Yes. You respect each other’s medium and involved in the structure and the rhythm, you also have pantomimes and choreographies because there’s the strengths of film are, which are very different from you set boundaries on how far you can trespass into to be there when the editing is happening. no dialogue. In the Charlie Chaplin film City Lights, the strengths of theatre, and then try to make them the other person’s medium. there’s a short clip of Chaplin in the boxing ring. If you work for you. Another way to work is to plot everything out very watch the clip, you’ll see that it’s a dance. DH: What I found fascinating about Car Men is that carefully in advance. One of the things that fascinates FL: How should dancers be prepared? Is the dancer’s they were actually working like Hollywood filmmakers me about Singin’ in the Rain is that Gene Kelly was the role different in a film? worked in 1910. dancer, the choreographer and the film director. I think Interview conducted in February 2012 that’s probably the most successful bit of dance film DH: Yes, I think it’s totally different making a film than JK: The film looks also like that. that’s ever been created in terms of the impact it has on performing for the theatre. It’s weird because dance is a people. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that hundred years behind drama in this respect. A hundred DH: Yes, and it has a lot of spirit. What’s great about what Kelly was doing all three jobs. He made it work on all years ago, when they first made dramatic films, they Boris and Jiří were doing is that they were thinking out three levels: it works as a piece of choreography, it works started off by filming the same thing that they were a choreography in film terms. They were planning it out as a performance and it works as a piece of film. But be- doing on stage. They would just take a theatrical piece shot by shot, thinking: ‘Where is the camera going to be cause all these things are happening in the same mind, and film it and say: ‘There’s a drama.’ They very rapidly in relation to this action?’ Then: ‘How are we going to there’s no tension. realised that this wasn’t working very well. Film is a com- get from this action to the next one, through cinematic pletely different language than theatre and if you want means, through cutting?’ The vast majority of dance A final thought in relation to Singin’ in the Rain is that to take advantage of what’s strong about it, then you films still start from the idea of creating a choreography when you’re making a dance for film, you’re not only have to change everything you’re doing as a performer. and then thinking about how to film it. That’s a com- choreographing the action, you’re choreographing Dancers still live their lives far more in the world of thea- pletely different thing. Of course, you can get really the eye of the viewer in relation to the action. It’s not tre, so adapting to the way film works is a big stretch for good results that way, but I think the future lies in what enough to make only the performance and say: ‘There a lot of them. Boris and Jiří were doing: actually thinking the chore- you are.’ That’s not what film is. In a theatre, you can Sometimes we were ography out for the camera. This is what Gene Kelly was make a performance, hand it over to the performers, and Of course, there’s a constant issue in film about how doing in the clip from Singin’ in the Rain. He knows at they perform it, and your job is done. But in a film you talking about the same Waltzing Jessica by Jasonmuch Akira the Somma. rhythm and the structure and the energy of everyYou moment can what learn the camera many is doing things in relation to have to decide every second where you want the viewer thing in a different the film is going to lie in the performers themselves, butwhat he’syou doing. can’t As a learnperformer, experience. he can see himself in to be in relation to that performance. You’ve got an infi- and how much it is going to be created by the film- the frame. He understands where he is in the composi- nite number of options. No movement actually has any language. maker. In theatre, all the rhythm, all the energy and all tion. His mind is working behind the camera as well. He weight or any meaning in a film except in relation to the You have to live it, live through it. Wessel Oostrum (dance student) the structure is within the body of the performers. They Youknows should when the livecamera intensely is moving in on to him. have He knows camera. It is all entirely dependent on what the camera come into the space and they perform. Somebody like when he has space around him and when he hasn’t is doing in relation to the action. Fred Astaire wants to reproduce that in films. Basically, somethinggot space around him.to remember This is a genuine duetwhen between he’s saying to the filmmaker: ‘You’ll be passive, just let performer andyou camera. grow old. In a piece of live theatre, I can come into this space here, me do all the work. All you’ve got to do is sit back there do a massive great leap across this space and that’s a with your camera and hold me in a full-length shot. I’m a JK: David, in this kind of structure you have just de­ very powerful, commanding thing, because I am com- brilliant dancer so just take a shot of me and you’ll have scribed, how muchJiri space Kylian do you give to intuition? To manding the space that we’re sitting in. But if I’m back a brilliant film.’ the moment? there with a camera and I shoot that leap on a wide shot, it’s going to be a very weak thing on screen, just a Somebody like Busby Berkeley does completely the DH: It depends. There are many different ways of making tiny, little figure going ‘du-bi-du’ across the frame. So if opposite. He’s saying: ‘I’m the filmmaker and all the crea- a good film. But the important thing is that everybody the idea of this leap is that it is supposed to be power- tivity, all the rhythm and all the structure is going to lie involved has got to understand what kind of film it is ful, then it’s not working anymore, because the way with me.’ He’s saying: ‘You’re the performer. Just stand they are making. A film like the one Ed Wubbe showed power works in a film is different. It might be much more there, that’s where I need you in the frame to make the us is obviously very heavily dependent on spontaneity. powerful to have a tiny, little movement in a very close composition right. What’s going to make my dance It’s about going out and shooting in a very documentary shot. So we have to find ways to help choreographers

150 151 It’s like not running for the bus anymore. I just don’t do it. In this dance, the younger ones turn, but I thought, ‘I’m not going to do that because I’ll probably fall’. I don’t take risks. I don’t run for the bus, I wait for the next one. Martinette Janmaat (dancer aged 60+)

Michael Schumacher working with Dance students from Codarts

Sometimes we were talking about the same Waltzing Jessica by Jason Akira Somma. You can learn many things thing in a different but you can’t learn experience. language. You have to live it, live through it. Wessel Oostrum (dance student) You should live intensely to have something to remember when you grow old.

Jiri Kylian

Q&A session at the Dance and Visual Technology presentation New technology and multidisciplinary collaborations seem to give rise to debates about where we stand as animators and where we stand as dancers. Marlyn Spaaij (animation film student)

The dancer’s individual expression will always emerge, even if you’re working with an animated figure. René Bosma (professor of animation film)

32 Caspar Bik 37 Choreographing the Dialogue between Performance and Camerawork in Fred Astaire’s and Gene Kelly’s Hollywood Musical Films by Anna Henckel-Donnersmarck

One of the first records of dance on Fred Astaire continued this es- film is the Serpentine Dance, which tablished convention of filming was invented by Loie Fuller in 1891. dance with an almost static camera. It was a popular motif and we can “Either the camera will dance or I find recordings of it by Alice Guy, the will,” he said. “But both of us at the Lumière brothers, Thomas Edison same time, that won’t work.”1 In his and others. opinion, camera movements had to be subtle and were only allowed to The performance took place right in make sure that he and his partner 1: Serpentine Dance by Lina Esbrard (1902), front of the camera, which mimicked were always in the centre of the by Alice Guy the situation of a seated theatregoer. frame. Editing was considered cheat- We see a stage defined by the wood- ing and was therefore to be avoided. en floor and empty background. This meant that combining good The performance space is limited moments from different takes was by the size of the camera frame. For not possible and he had to make technical reasons, the camera had to sure his performance was the best be static on a tripod, which meant from beginning to end in every take, that pans or movements were not just like a performer in the theatre. possible. Neither colour nor sound Dance sequences often take place were possible at this time either. The on stages (e.g. in a nightclub) or dancer performs for the camera as if stage-like settings (e.g. in a ballroom it were a spectator and sometimes or pavilion). Astaire also insisted 2: Les Kiriki Acrobatas Japoneses (1907), by Segundo de Chomón looks directly at it. This remained the that all song-and-dance routines standard mode of framing dance for be seamlessly integrated into the a long time. plotlines of the film and are used to advance the story. The plot often Even at this time, however, there follows a simple pattern: boy meets were a few attempts to enhance girl, girl gets annoyed by boy, boy a particular performance in a way wins girl by dancing. All the camera only film can do. One way was to does is witness what Astaire would manipulate the material after the have been doing anyway. filming, for example by tinting the individual celluloid frames by hand and thereby adding colour, or even allowing continuous colour changes (Picture 1). Tricks were also used during the shooting. In Picture 2, for example, the camera is mounted on the ceiling with the performers lying on the floor. The choreography c­reates an illusion that defies the laws of gravity.

156 Dance students in the Mixing Live Performance and Live Video workshop 157 When Astaire chose to break his own Kelly grew up in Pittsburgh (Steel The camera not only supports the The leg belongs to Cyd Charisse, rules and use special effects, he did City) in the Midwest of the United performer but also controls the gaze who Astaire described as “beautiful so in the most exquisite way, always States, in a family of Irish immi- of the spectator asIt’s it defines an interestingthe way of looking at howdynamite”. the Donen, human who directed body can making sure that his skilful dancing grants. He spent much of his time space around the dancer (wide angle the film, said: “We needed someone remained the centre of attention. on the street or playing ice hockey shots or close-ups)be and abstracted,thereby de- or how your feelings canwho couldbe enhanced stop a man by just through stick- Royal Wedding (1951) is such an and other sports. He was influenced cides wheretechnological to direct the audience’s means. It isn’t just about theing upobvious her leg. Cyd visual was stunning. dimension; We example. It was directed by Stanley by the physical performances of attention. This is something that is stuck a hat on the end of her foot 3: “You’re All the World to Me” from the 1951 Donen, who later became an im- the stars of silent films, such as not possible on a theatre stage. and handed her a cigarette holder, film Royal Wedding the point of view of the camera can have a decisive influence on the portant co-director of Gene Kelly’s Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, and I had to cue her to exhale the films. The plot is loosely based on and by the African-American tap Talking about the number “Alter 5 cigarette smoke for when Gene first the career of Fred Astaire and his dancers Dancing Dotson and Frank Ego” from the 1944 film Cover Girl, runs into her, because she couldn’t sister Adele with whom he used Harrington from whom he learnt in Kelly says: “The conception of this handle the smoke.”6 to perform as a child in vaudeville Pittsburgh. (Astaire had also learned dance came from theaesthetic desire to do and psychological resolution of the artistic product. t­heatres and dance shows all over tap from an African-American a pure cine dance. In other words, Jiří Kylián As the music changes, the shot the U.S.A. and England until, at the teacher, John W. Bubbles.) Kelly was to do something that would be continues by following Kelly’s gaze age of 33, she fell in love with an interested in ballet and folk dance, impossible in any other medium. […] – without taking his point-of-view English Lord and her brother moved and modern dance à la Martha I didn’t want to do a ‘trick’ number, (POV) – as it travels along Charisse’s on to Hollywood. Graham. He was determined to but I did want to use the visual long legs, takes in the cigarette in bring the joy of dance to the kind of medium in a way so as to express an her hand then moves up her body 6 In the song “You’re All the World people he grew up with. He called it emotional struggle.”5 (7) to her face, which is looking slyly 4: “Shoes with Wings On” from the 1949 film to Me”, rather than dancing with a “dance for the common man”. down at Kelly kneeling in front of The Barkleys of Broadway partner in person, Astaire dances In Stanley Donen, who had also her (8). The camera then jumps back with the photograph of a girl he Cyd Charisse, who danced with both trained as a dancer, Kelly found the to a medium-long shot to reveal adores and who has just expressed Astaire and Kelly, said: “Kelly is the perfect co-director for his vision. three suspicious men at her table. some interest in him. We see a man more inventive choreographer of They created the choreographies Kelly, slightly confused, takes his literally head over heels, dancing the two. Astaire, with Hermes Pan’s together. Donen then operated the hat from her foot (9) then follows on the ceiling and up and down the help, creates fabulous numbers camera while Kelly performed in her off screen. Instead of follow- walls. The set was built inside a huge – for himself and his partner. But front of it, as in Singin’ in the Rain ing Kelly and Charisse, the camera

rotating barrel with the camera lined Kelly can create an entire number (1952). 7 takes a closer look at the three men, up and attached to the room so that for somebody else, as he did for especially the scar-faced man in the it rotated with it (Picture 3). me. I think, however, that Astaire’s In the film’s “Broadway Ballet” middle who is tossing a coin and coordination is better than number, the camera captures seems to be the one in charge (10). Another example is “Stepping’ Out Kelly’s. He can do anything – he the flirtatious but silent dialogue This shot tells us that this particular with My Baby” from Easter Parade is a fantastic drummer (and piano between two performers as it man is not merely a bystander but (1948). Towards the end of the song, player). His sense of rhythm is unfolds through dance, movements, will play an important role later on in Astaire is shown dancing in slow uncanny. Kelly, on the other hand, gestures and the use of a few well- the scene, probably using money as m­otion while the chorus of dancers is the stronger of the two. When chosen props. his tool. All three protagonists in this in the background continue to move he lifts you, he lifts you! Fred could scene have now been introduced at normal speed. The trick was ap- never do the lifts Gene did, and The scene takes place in the painted 8 with a portrait shot and a prop. plied afterwards by combining two never wanted to.”2 backdrop of a nightclub. A few different shots in the same frame: people are sitting at tables scattered the slow-motion film of Astaire was Kelly himself once said: “I wanted around the dance floor on which superimposed onto the normal- to do new things with dance, adapt Kelly is dancing alone, swirling speed film of the chorus of dancers. it to the motion picture medium.”3 and jumping energetically and He understood that the camera was completely absorbed by the music. In “Shoes with Wings On” from The more than just a recording device, The camera follows his movements Barkleys of Broadway (1949), Astaire that it could actually enhance the by panning slightly to the left or tries on a pair of tap dance shoes e­xperience of dance. As the experi­ right, maybe zooming in or out, that have a life of their own and mental filmmaker Maya Deren says: but always showing him in full (5), 9 dance him through a battle with “The camera is a partner to the the conventional way of filming another seven pairs of shoes (4). dancer and carries him, or acceler- dance. Then, in order to introduce ates him, as a partner would do to a new plot, the camera shifts from While Astaire represented the the ballerina, making possible pro- witnessing to storytelling: Kelly epitome of male elegance and gressions and movements that are falls to his knees and slides rapidly casual style, moving effortlessly impossible to the individual figure.”4 across the floor directly towards from the world of backstage the camera, only to be suddenly Broadway to ballroom parties and stopped by a leg that comes in from charming the ladies with singing the left, surprising both him and us and dancing, Gene Kelly saw himself in the audience (6). 10 as the common man.

158 159 Charisse circles around Kelly, shaking The camera angle changes when At this moment, Kelly’s behaviour Charisse slides down Kelly’s body her derriere and looking at him over Charisse takes off Kelly’s glasses (14), changes. He throws away the ciga- and ends up lying on the floor until her shoulder (11). She blinds him by uses them to tease him and then rette Charisse has put in his mouth, he steps over her. The camera is just blowing smoke in his eyes (12). He finally drops them on the floor to takes her hand and brusquely lifts above them taking a bird’s eye view is too embarrassed to respond to kick them away with her long legs. her onto his chest (17). The camera or an externalised POV of Kelly, just her gaze, let alone her actions, and Again the camera follows Kelly’s jumps to a portrait shot and we see as we’ve seen it before (19). When he stands, almost paralysed, in the gaze by looking down while keeping two equal partners looking at each he pulls her back up to eye-level, the middle of the frame (13). The camera Kelly himself in the frame (15). The other with intensity in preparation camera moves down and returns to a switches or zooms between full- camera then follows Kelly as he gets for a heated pas-de-deux (18). standard frontal shot. This pattern is figure and portrait shots, depending 11 up and returns to eye-level with 17 repeated once more until the music on Charisse’s action, but always Charisse (16). slows down and we return to a por- remains statically in front. trait shot because the two of them are just about to kiss (20).

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16 160 161 An unexpected distraction suddenly When Kelly tries to run after her, In the famous “Singin’ in the Rain” The scene starts with Kelly escorting enters the frame from the left, just as the man’s two companions enter number from the same film, the the lady of his heart to her house Charisse’s leg did at the beginning the frame unexpectedly from the s­tory is very simple: it’s a man sing- and kissing her goodbye. Happy of this dance dialogue. This time sides and hold him back (23). The ing and dancing in the rain. The and in love, he starts to dance in the it’s a diamond bracelet that catches camera jumps to a wide angle, over camera no longer functions as a rain (25), captured by a camera that Charisse’s attention (21). The camera Kelly’s shoulder, to show that these story­teller but as a dance partner. always knows exactly how much pans back to reveal the owner of men are also tossing coins, making In the scene itself, Kelly chooses the space to give him: zooming into the bracelet: the scar-faced man it clear to Kelly that he should mind rain, an umbrella, the lamppost, the an intimate close-up on his face to tossing his coin. He walks out of the his own business and get back to puddles and streets as his dance show his big smile as he cuddles up frame with Charisse following him, 21 dancing (24). partners. 25 to a lamppost and sings, “The sun’s her eyes on the object of her desire in my heart / And I’m ready for love!” (22) in the same way Kelly’s eyes Néstor Almendros, Truffaut’s (26), then moving back to a full- followed her onto the dance floor at camera­man, described the effects of figure-shot to allow Kelly to express the b­eginning of the scene. composition in the frame as follows: his emotions in dance form with the “Horizontal lines suggest repose, arms wide open, ready to embrace peace, serenity. […] Diagonal lines the world (27). A couple walks by, crossing the frame evoke action, protecting themselves with a news- movement, the power to overcome paper, but Kelly doesn’t even need obstacles. Curved compositions that the umbrella in his hand when he move circularly communicate feel- sings, “Let the stormy clouds chase 22 ings of exaltation, euphoria and joy. 26 / Every one from the place / Come “In the art of cinema, the director on with the rain / I’ve a smile on my of photography’s skill is measured face,” and again we zoom into his by his capacity to keep an image big smile (28). clear, to ‘clean it’, as Truffaut says, by separating each shape (be it a In front of a shop window (29), person or an object) in relation to a framed by the camera panning left background or set; in other words, and right to follow his movements, by his ability to organise a scene almost as if they were dancing a visually in front of the lens and avoid waltz together, he sings, “I walk 23 confusion by emphasising the vari- 27 down the lane / With a happy refrain ous elements that are of interest.”7 / Just singin’ / Singin’ in the rain.” Kelly twirls his umbrella like a dance partner or uses it to mimic playing a guitar. He bows to the girl in the window and then, in a close-up, is drenched by the rainwater falling from the gutter (30).

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30 162 163 He continues to tap through the About the author: puddles with his brown shoes – Anna Henckel-Donnersmarck is a white would have been too bright, short-film maker and also creates It’s an interesting way of looking at how the human body can black too subtle. The overall colour video installations for the stage and palette is toned down to blue, grey exhibitions. She teaches at various be abstracted, or how your feelings can be enhanced through and brown, with the occasional institutions including HTW Berlin, technological means. It isn’t just about the obvious visual dimension; use of red or green. Every now and the Folkwang University of the then, a lit shop window provides a Arts in Essen and the Pictoplasma the point of view of the camera can have a decisive influence on the backdrop, the window sometimes Academy in Berlin. She runs work- aesthetic and psychological resolution of the artistic product. showing figurines or other depic- 31 shops for children and young adults tions of women. In any case, there is in collaboration with, for example, Jiří Kylián just enough colour and information the Berliner Philharmoniker. She to support the dance but never too is a member of the pre-selection much to distract attention from it. committees as well as the juries of v­arious short-film festivals in When the full orchestra kicks in, the Germany and abroad, including camera moves up to a generous the Berlinale. birds-eye view and Kelly’s move- ments become wider and more and more playful, almost childlike Notes: 32 1. Astaire quoted in: Jenelle Porter, Dance (31). During the violin solo, Kelly with Camera, Pennsylvania: University of b­alances on the kerbstone that cuts Pennsylvania, 2010, p.13. a diagonal through the frame. It is 2. Charisse quoted in: Larry Billman, Film Choreographers and Dance Directors: An the diagonal that emphasises his Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia, With speed and the quick, small steps he a History and Filmographies, 1893 Through makes (32). 1995, New York: McFarland &C, 1997, p. 68. 3. Kelly quoted in: H.W. Wilson, Current Biography Yearbook, New York: H.W. Wilson He then splashes in big jumps Co., 1987, p. 245. through the puddles – again accom­ 4. Deren quoted in: Jenelle Porter, Dance panied by full orchestra music with Camera, Pennsylvania: University of 33 Pennsylvania, 2010, p. 11. – in front of a sign saying “Mount 5. Kelly quoted in: Jenelle Porter, Dance Hollywood Art School”. Suddenly, with Camera, Pennsylvania: University of a policeman the audience notices Pennsylvania, 2010, p.14. 6. Donen quoted in: http://www.specta- b­efore Kelly does, just as in a chil- tor.co.uk/features/796481/what-cyd- dren’s puppet show, stops him (33). charissetold-me-about-singin-in-the-rain/ (10/10/2013). The camera shows Kelly’s apologetic 7. Almendros quoted in: Judy Mitoma (et al.), Envisioning Dance on Film and Video, face, filmed slightly from above (the London: Routledge, 2002, p. 222. POV of an authority figure, higher in rank) with the policeman’s back like List of pictures: a solid wall in the foreground. “I’m 34 Picture 1: Serpentine Dance by Lina Esbrard (1902), by Alice Guy, http://www.youtube. dancin’ and singin’ in the rain,” he com/watch?v=hgbNYmQKWGk (8/2/2014) sings politely to the policeman, as if Picture 2: Les Kiriki Acrobatas Japoneses (1907), to say, “What’s wrong with that?” (34). by Segundo de Chomón, http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=xJTq9a5BAmQ (8/2/2014) The last shot of him is a wide-angle Picture 3: “You’re All the World to Me” from shot of the street. Kelly gives his the film Royal Wedding (1951), by Stanley Donen, http://www.youtube.com/ umbrella to a passer-by and then dis- watch?v=i0g3g6AvLtM (8/2/2014) appears into the cityscape, turning Picture 4: “Shoes with Wings On” from the him back into a common man again, film The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), by just like you and me (35). Charles Walters, http://www.youtube.com/ 35 watch?v=qxDjPkb6QoI (8/2/2014) Pictures 5-35: Singing in the Rain (1952), by Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen, http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=7YWBOfsXsDA (8/2/2014) and http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=7YWBOfsXsDA (8/2/2014), DVD Singing in the Rain (1951), A Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer Picture, copyright: Turner Entertainment Co. and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

164 Jiří Kylián with dance students during the Mixing Live Performance and Live Video workshop 165 Dance & design We had panels on wheels, and a duet performed with different arrangements of the panels, which were black on one side, white on the other. The surroundings changed the meaning of the choreography completely. The same story can be told many times, but its surroundings can change its meaning. The formation of the panels also changed the direction of the choreography. Jiří Kylián

32 Dance students rehearsing the choreography Stonehenge, which was created by Jiří Kylián and Michael Schumacher during the Dance and Design workshops 37 The effect of the costumes surprised me. Dancers as ArchitectsSome things happened that we didn’t by Friederike Lampert and Désirée Staverman expect or think would happen. Grey Timmers (dance student)

The choreography was always the same, but there were different dancers with different personalities and different costumes that either enhanced the movement or restricted it. Jiří Kylián

Jiří Kylián in a podium discussion with architect Atsushi Kitagawara and interpreter Keiko Taylor

Design was the focus of the final project of the Jiří In the Dance and Design symposium, Kylián and Michael Kylián lectureship at Codarts Rotterdam. It took place Schumacher introduced the topic using filmed record- in May 2013. Costume, light and stage design as well ings of the former’s dance works No More Play and One as architecture play significant and obvious roles in Of A Kind (stage design Atsushi Kitagawara, light design choreo­graphy. Design is a key element of a dance Michael Simon) as well as a duet by Michael Schumacher performance, as it can have a supportive, restrictive or and Han Bennink. Dr. Nathalie Bredella (architect and even destructive influence on choreography. researcher at the University of Arts in Berlin) then gave a lecture on body and space, and focused on architectural The topic was first addressed in broad terms in a sympo­ projects that explore spatial experiences using new Jouke Rouwenhorst, costume by Karine Guizzo sium involving guests from the world of design and technologies, for example Diller + Scofidio’s Blur Building architecture. Then, in two workshops, dance students created for EXPO 2002 in Switzerland. The symposium from Codarts could experience – in physical terms – the was concluded with a podium discussion involving impact of costume, light and set design on choreography. Kylián, Schumacher, the stage designer Ascon de Nijs, The topic extended beyond the boundaries of dance, as the designer and choreographer Sjoerd Vreugdenhil and It’s really interesting how you can its content is also of interest for students and teachers of the costume designer Erika Turunen. create a new dimension with costumes. the two other Codarts academies: music and circus. It’s a new path of discovery. The same choreography can look very different with a different costume. Jouke Rouwenhorst (dance student)

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For the first workshop, Dance and Costume, the dancer The results of the workshops were shown in the final and costume designer Karine Guizzo created eight Dance and Design event, which also marked the end The effect of the costumes surprised me. different costumes, one for each of the participating of Jiří Kylián’s three-year professorship. Special guest students. Each costume was based on a different base was the renowned architect Atsushi Kitagawara Some things happened that we didn’t model, was made from different materials and had its (kitagawara.co.jp) who d­esigned the set for Kylián’s 1998 expect or think would happen. own style. The four-day workshop, which was led by dance piece One Of A Kind. Kitagawara, whose work in- Kylián and Schumacher, investigated the interaction cludes numerous architectural projects as well as urban Grey Timmers (dance student) between costume and dance, and in particular the effect planning, landscape and furniture design, described costumes can have on dance. Each of the dance students his collaboration with Kylián in 1998 as “an unforget- learned a different choreography while wearing their table experience”. “Dancers are architects,” he said. normal training clothes. Each student then put on their “They create the space instantly.” In One Of A Kind, Kylián respective costume and developed an individual inter- explores the possibi­lities and limitations of space within pretation of their dance. Kitagawara’s set design of complex spatial structures and façades. The possibilities and restrictions imposed by the costumes increased the students’ awareness of the inter­ action between movement and costume. Participants realised that costumes do indeed influence movement, but also that movement transforms the look of costumes in unexpected and surprising ways, for example the dancer wearing the “hairy” costume performed exagger- ated movement that allowed the hair to swing, while the dancer in the box costume could only execute a reduced spectrum of movement but this in turn gave rise to new One Of A Kind, photo by Joris-Jan Bos movement. Laura Casasola Fontseca (dance student) All students – including those who were also given the on the project Dance and Design: chance to experiment with dance and costume on the final day of the workshop – reported their discoveries in The goal of the project was to play At the end of the second day, we landscape. We not only played with a concluding feedback round in which the influence of and to discover how a given set started looking at how we could integrating ourselves into the dance costume design on movement was obvious. For his part, design could influence the creation use the panels in the space: how material and set but also with the Jiří Kylián emphasised what he called “the moment of of a piece. The workshop only lasted we could play with the colors and way we used the set: travelling with incarnation”, the point at which a costume allows you to one week – four working days and how could we move them. It turned it through space, moving it on the become somebody else, or something else, on stage. a performance – so the result was out that it was hard to move them spot (tilting it, turning it, etc.) and really just an overview of what can without the dancers being seen even making noise with it. Lighting A second four-day workshop led by Kylián and happen when you incorporate set behind them, so the next day we also played a really important role. Schumacher focused on stage and light design. There design into dance and vice versa, but used handles. Ellen Knops used it to create different were ten students involved as well as ten large panels, it promoted playfulness, innocence atmospheres and to create shadows black on one side, white on the other, and fitted with and childlike desire for discovery. We We also had smaller versions of the and shapes with the panels. She also wheels to enable them to be moved on stage. Guest had to allow our minds to open and panels that Jirí Kylián and Michael played with dark and light, with the lighting designer Ellen Knops was responsible for the try to achieve something new that Schumacher used to create some seen and unseen. lighting. The choreography developed for the workshop would either work or not in the end nice effects and positions they (Stonehenge) was a duet performed by different couples but would nonetheless be the result recorded with a camera. Then it was I thought the result was fantastic. It with different arrangements of the panels, which were of interesting research. time to put it all into practice. “The was clear even from this small over- moved by the other dancers either between or during duet was repeated for the whole ten view that there are many options each duet. Students experienced the effect of space On the first day, we prepared the minutes of the piece but it was used for mixing dance and set design. I and lighting on a dance piece. Creating the space with set. It consisted of ten panels, each in many different ways. For some also realised how a set is not only bodies and the movable panels, they learned how the one approximately two meters by 1 parts of the piece, the duet was the décor but can also be part of the choreographic process is also a continuous dialogue meter, black on one side, white on main element and the panels just movement and used to make a clear with the set and light design. The shapes and move- the other. At the base of each panel décor, which created a nice effect, statement. There is a huge range of ments of the dancer’s bodies interacted with the set and was a small platform that protruded but in other parts the panels were possibilities for using set design on lighting to produce an interwoven effect on stage. The about 30cm to the front and back. the main element, and their mov- stage but it should also be clear how dancers created lines and shapes with the panels and Each platform had four wheels so it ing and turning from one colour to and why it’s being used, the purpose each performance of the duet gave rise to surprising was possible to move them. Once another was a kind of dance in itself. should be coherent. When using a new formations. the set was ready, we started creat- In the latter case, the dancers had set, it is important to bear in mind ing a duet with different pairings: to work with the panels as the other that it takes time to arrange it, so the man-man, woman-woman and dancers were moving them. At one rehearsal period may take longer. man-woman. It was about a minute point, the panels were also used as There is also the risk and excite- long and it took us the first two days part of the image, a dancer being ment of dealing with the set in a live to create it and clean it up. lifted behind them so both she and performance. For me, this was an the panels created a mysterious amazing experience.

172 173 Participants in the Dance and Costume workshop: Dane Badal The effect of the costumes surprised me. Eva Calanni Titel Laura Casasola Fontseca Jiri Kylian Some things happened that we didn’t Izabela Orzelowska expect or think would happen. Jouke Rouwenhorst Gianmarco Stefanelli Grey Timmers (dance student) Grey Timmers Adrian Wanliss

Participants in the Dance and Design workshop: Steven Pinheiro de Almeida Rodrigo Azevedo Davey Bakker Guido Badalamenti Pauline Briguet Laura Casasola Fontesca Peter Copek Thibault Desaules Alina Fejzo Myronne Rietbergen Gianmarco Stefanelli Angela Tampelloni

More to explore

Shortfilm: Dance & Stage Design Dance & Costume Final Event

Questions: – How do you see the interaction between costume designer and dancer? – What influence does costume design have on choreography? – What influence does light design have on choreography? – In what ways can stage design and dancers interact? – Can you imagine dancers creating their own set design?

Literature: Jane Collins, Andrew Nisbet, Theatre and Performance Design: A Reader in Scenography, New York: Routledge, 2010. Markus Hallensleben, Performative Body Spaces: Corporeal Topographies in Literature, Theatre, Dance, and the Visual Arts (Critical Studies Series), Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2010. Billy Klüver, Julie Martin, Barbara Rose (eds.), Pavilion by Experiments in Art and Technology, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1972. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1991.

Grey Timmers, costume by Karine Guizzo

174 175 What I like about design and architecture on stage is that your brain is really active. You don’t only deal with the shape you can create with your body but also how it combines with the other lines in the space. Alina Fejzo (dance student)

32 Angela Tampelloni, Guido Badalamenti and Peter Copek rehearsing the choreograpy Stonehenge 37 Discussing Dance and Design Podium interviews with Jiří Kylián, Sjoerd Vreugdenhil, Ascon de Nijs and Erika Turunen, conducted by Michael Schumacher and Friederike Lampert

Three clips from different works were shown before the “The most obvious and strangest thing is interview: two pieces by Jiří Kylián, No More Play and that everything is design: my jacket, this One Of A Kind (stage design by Atsushi Kitagawara), and microphone, the sofa, the floor, this com- a duet (one of a series of three duets called Triple Dutch) puter, the lighting, the seating. Everything that Michael Schumacher made with Han Bennink for is design. Everything you look at. Can the Holland Dance Festival in 2003. design be art? Of course it can be, but Michael Schumacher: How did the work for One Of A design isn’t necessarily art. Do you know Kind begin? what the most brilliant piece of design is? I’m not actually sure if it was designed by Jiří Kylián: I was asked by the Dutch government to make a piece based on the Dutch constitution. I decided to do anybody, but it’s one of the most perfect something about individuality and the rights an indi- designs around: an egg. If there were to be vidual has. It starts with a woman sitting in the audience. an independent competition for design, the She then dances her way through the spectators and egg would win everything hands down. It’s across a bridge built over the orchestra pit, then stays on stage for three acts and two intermissions before disap- perfect, perfectly irregular.If you It’shave symbolic the chance and and I think wearing a costume is pearing into the back of the stage. Atsushi Kitagawara, it has life within its shell.the Itopportunity represents the to doa great it Japanese architect I really admire, designed the universe,a wonderful the sun, gift thedifferently, giftwe’ve of procreation been do it anddifferently, stage. Michael Simon did the lighting – he’s like a light- so on.” ing architect. Just a little anecdote about how the col- given. It means we sharedon’t ithave differently. laboration started… Michael Simon and I were walking Jiří Kylián to represent onlyMichael ourselves Schumacher (dancer agedthrough 40+) Tokyo. We knew it had some incredible twenti- eth century architecture, so we bought a big book and on stage: we can take on went on a pilgrimage through the city. We kept saying, ‘Oh, this is a fantastic building! And this one is fantastic, other personalities, be other and that one too!’ until we realised that all buildings characters. That’s the beauty we really loved were by Atsushi Kitagawara. We finally stumbled over an incredible building that looked like of theatre. I always enjoy two concrete blocks with a golden harmonica squeezed in between them. ‘This is again fantastic,’ we said. As we that moment of incarnation, got closer, we realised it was Atsushi’s office. We rang the of becoming something or bell and said, ‘Hello!’ That’s how it all began.

someone else. MS: How did you work with Atsushi Kitagawara? What Jiří Kylián was the dialogue that led to his producing this design for you?

JK: He decided on a random design. Of course, we now know what a random design is. One Of A Kind is more than twenty years old and at that time random design was really new. I didn’t know what it was, so he showed me. He had some ideas with lasers and horizontal beams. I loved the ideas but it didn’t work in practice. Finally, I wrote him a nine-page letter asking for certain adjustments, and then I visited him in Tokyo. I arrived at five o’clock in the morning, at eight o’clock

Podium interview on Dance and Design, from left to right, Friederike Lampert, Erika Turunen, Sjoerd Vreugdenhil, Ascon de Nijs, Michael Schumacher and Jiří Kylián we started working, by midnight we were finished and at five o’clock the next morning I left for the Netherlands.

179 That’s how this design actually came about. Sjoerd Vreugdenhil: What’s so interesting is that the were the case why would everyone buy it? I wanted to FL: Do costumes develop throughout the whole dialogue between dance and design is actually a restric- use this chair because for me it represents something. choreo­graphic process? MS: In the moment on the stairs that we just saw in tion, either because of the costumes or because of the I would often use it in sets for Club Guy & Roni because the One Of A Kind clip, it seemed as if the dancers were set design itself. I’ve had my dancers work on stones for me this chair comes straight out of reality. It’s not ET: They develop over a much longer period of time. on e­scalators. There’s something about the perspec­ before. What does this mean for the dance vocabulary? beautiful, but maybe that makes it even more realistic. I usually start with choreographers about a year before tive that makes it look as if the steps are moving. How does it change? What kind of different impulses It has a sort of honesty. You create a beautiful image, the premiere and we meet whenever we have the time. does working on stones produce? I was very fortunate but also put something ugly in there. It’s never a wholly JK: The design had to be re-adjusted to serve the to have one studio with stones in it, so for ten minutes homogeneous image. Maybe that’s the characteristic I FL: What are the best moments in the process? choreo­graphic intent. Atsushi is an architect, not a stage we could work with them, then there was so much dust was trying to find, to create a beautiful image and then designer. This is precisely what was exciting about the that we had to run to the other studio to work out the to destroy it. ET: There’s a moment that usually comes in the middle project, getting someone from outside the theatre world choreo­graphy. I loved this change of dynamic, of the of the night when I’m so tired I think you can’t work any to create with me. I enjoyed it tremendously. I should work and vision. I don’t think I’m the greatest choreogra- FL: When do you have your most creative moments? more that day. Then suddenly I start to combine and add that the cellist in the piece is Pieter Wispelwey, pher. I prefer to work with whatever aesthetic that arises Where do they happen? At home, on stage, in the park? mix things in my head, all the thoughts the choreo­ whose musical contribution was of essential importance. each time. grapher has been giving me, and I listen to music. Then I AdN: In a way, being a stage designer is a very solitary suddenly want to do something completely different to MS: The second piece we just saw, No More Play, has no FL: Are there any playful moments in the creative business. You’re on your own in a room with a small- what the choreographer and I talked about. Sometimes décor. The architecture is created by the lighting alone. process? scale model. You’re only with the dancers, choreogra- it’s a kind of automatic handwriting. It just comes… phers, costume designers, light designers and techni- JK: The piece was inspired by a small marble sculpture SV: Most of the playful moments are actually in the cians at the end. It goes up and down a lot, but my most FL: What are the worst moments of this work? by Alberto Giacometti. We’re all familiar with Giacometti, pre-production stage. I like my solitude. I have so much creative moment is when I’m half-asleep in the morning. but we only know those long, thin iron figures. This fun on my own, thinking, trying to work it all out, and That’s when you have ideas because you’re still in a ET: Everybody’s work is really important: the sewers, the sculpture was a tiny piece of marble with all kinds of then coming into the studio and thinking, ‘Okay, this blurry state of mind that’s not very rational, not very tailors and the people who cut the costumes. They really rectangles and curved shapes in it. I reproduced those isn’t going to work,’ and then seeing how you react. For considered. I keep a little notebook next to my bed and respect the dancers and the entire artistic group that is shapes in the lighting. Of course, the lighting is also a me, it’s about the product rather than me. You work with make a very quick note of ideas to develop later on. Then working together with them. Then suddenly comes the way of dividing the space. We used lighting to divide up amazing people. You learn from them and they inspire there’s the whole development stage where you talk to moment when the costumes are on stage and every- the space just as much as we used it to light up the space you, and they can even give you something through collaborators such as directors and choreographers, and body’s really nervous and unsure, and I think that’s the for the dancers. miscommunication. Beautiful things can appear. I mean, then there’s another very creative moment when every- worst moment for me. I can often see that something sometimes I have an idea that I don’t explain clearly and thing goes on stage. Everything always becomes a mess will work, and it could work if we practised it, and if we MS: I have always said to Han Bennink, and many oth­ the miscommunication gives rise to something else, Iwhen think it goes wearing on stage so you a havecostume to be able isto think really wanted it, but the choreographer or dancer can er people besides, that he gave me my best lessons in but it’s the right aesthetic. Then I’m like, ‘Okay, that’s very quickly; you have to change things you thought up sometimes be so nervous that they can’t see it, but I can dance. This man, who is a great Dutch musician and not really what I intended, but it’s fantastic.’ A person’s ora createdwonderful in your beautiful gift small-scale we’ve beenmodel in order already see that there are just small things we have to fix improviser, is also a master of movement in time and interpretation, when it comes genuinely from him or her, given.to make them It meanswork. All your we senses don’t have tohave be on super and then it will be perfect. space. He knows so much about this aspect of perfor­ is very important too. So it’s not about me, it’s about the alert for two days because it’s too late to change any- mance. He isn’t a trained dancer, nor is he trained in product we all deliver together. thingto afterwardsrepresent – the onlylighting andourselves set have been fixed FL: When do you decide which textiles to use? the theatre, but he has a natural understanding of and the dancers are now used to them. For me, these are what it is to move through a space and change it by FL: Ascon de Nijs, you’re a stage designer. What’s the theon two moststage: creative we moments, can take the highlight on moments. ET: I think about the kind of form I would like to create moving in it. There’s also something I’ve been explor­ most striking characteristic of your work? other personalities, be other out of the textile or material and then I think about the ing for quite a while with the light designer Ellen FL: Let’s talk about costume design. Erika Turunen, kind of movement it should support. I would very often Knops: the power of light, how light can guide the eye Ascon de Nijs: My work has become quite diverse, espe- you’recharacters. a costume designerThat’s and the have collaboratedbeauty with create something from the original material, something and how you can create a narrative with light simply cially in the last few years. I have worked for a lot of dif- choreographers like Tero Saarinen and many others. three-dimensional. It’s light but you can manipulate or by taking it away or bringing it up in another place in ferent modern dance companies and I do different work Youof were theatre. the head of I the always costume enjoydepartment of put your hands inside it, then you can see how different the room. I noticed how much of a director Ellen was forYou musical can theatre. learn Then Imany also do work things for Club Guy thatthe Finnish moment National Opera of incarnation, for several years and also it looks when somebody’s moving. during live performances of the Magpie Music Dance & Roni. I’ve never really looked for any kind of thread designed costumes for large-scale operas. In 2010, Company. We were dancing, then the light would shift butrunning you through can’t my worklearn in order experience. to discover what my youof launched becoming your own something design studio, designing or MS: I always have that moment you spoke about, that to somebody else completely and the whole narrative Youstyle have is. I think to you live always it, do live your throughown thing wherever it. costumes alsosomeone for individual else. artists as well as even­ ‘troubled moment’ when all of the ideas and visions of the dance would change. I found that fascinating. Youyou are.should I love monoliths, live intensely objects that can to work have in a lot of ing dresses. What’s your experience of designing become reality. There’s this moment of hesitation and different ways, that you can use in a lot of different ways, costumes for movingJiří Kyliánbodies? questioning. What I find interesting is that most of JK: I was asked how important light is so I will show you. somethingthat have a lot of different to remember functions and when also have a lot our work as dancers is done in a studio without stage [Gives a sign to the light technician to switch off the lights of different atmospheresyou grow and old. images on stage. That’s Erika Turunen: For me, it’s always a challenge, because design, costumes and lighting. Then we step into this and turn them on again.] Et voilà. Between having all the something I really like, but I also like highly stylised there’s the moving body and then the possibility of other world. I always wonder if designers are aware lights on and total darkness there are a million pos- sets too. I also like things that are really connected with adding something on top of that. I start to think about of the transition that happens because it’s quite pro­ sibilities about how we can use light. But without light reality, which is sometimesJiri Kylian what my work with Club Guy movement growing with the costume, or maybe the cos- found. It’s like learning to play basketball then you go we can’t see anything. This is really simple, but really & Roni represents. We often use a lot of materials from tume making it even more difficult to move. Costumes out onto a football field. It’s a very different world. important, too. daily life. Jiří said everything was design. I think that ugly add another layer to the movement. I always wonder if the dialogue between the choreo­ white garden chair you see from the Indian Himalayas grapher, the rehearsal directors and the designers Friederike Lampert: Sjoerd, you’re a designer and to the gardens here in Rotterdam is one of the best- includes the fact there’s going to be a huge transition choreographer. What do you find so interesting in the designed objects in the world. It’s a perfect chair. It’s at that moment. If we’re lucky, we get time with the dialogue between body and design? very bad for the environment, as it never goes away. You designers in the space. can only burn it, which is very polluting, but you can use it everywhere, so you can’t say it’s a bad design, as if that

180 181 AdN: What I always try to do – especially with sets that SV: But sometimes things change on both the choreo- interaction with the dancers – is to make most of the graphic and design sides. You react and the whole thing sets inside the studio, but it isn’t always possible. The becomes something different. This is why I think you dancers should have time to make it work, to figure have to be able to react really fast, as then it can lead to things out, ‘Oh, I can’t move here so I’ll do something something else. else.’ In this way, the stage design is also developed dur- ing rehearsals and I think that’s the best way to make a AdN: It’s also beautiful that theatre is made together. As long as I kept focusing piece, especially with choreographies. The stage design I could never create my designs without any interaction workshop should be next to the dance studio so you can with the choreographer or director. Stage design is not a on the costume and adjust things. That’s the most workable situation. form of sculptural art you practise on your own. choreography, I could MS: Yes, then you can interact with it and integrate JK: I would like to ask our three guests a question… actually discover a lot yourself into it very well, so you feel comfortable Is there something you’ve always dreamt of doing but with it. have not yet had the chance to do it? If so, what is it? of movement, even while dancing in a box. JK: In the works I’ve done or am working on, I work [Silence] Izabela Orzelowska (dance student) with the entire set and all the costumes, as it changes how people feel the space and how they feel inside the JK: I mean professionally not personally, of course. costumes. The ideal situation is to have the studio, the costumes and the set. The problem isn’t money, it’s time. [Laughter] Time is the biggest problem we have. If I plan a piece and know it will take two years to have all the costumes ET: I have one strange dream as far as costumes are and the set, I will be a different human being by then. concerned, that I would like to do a contemporary Swan This is really a huge problem. If I’m a writer or a painter, I Lake in which all the swans look ruined, wet, greyish and wake up in the morning and say, ‘Okay, I have this idea,’ forlorn. Then, suddenly, they all open their wings on Izabela Orzelowska, costume by Karine Guizzo and I write it down, or I start writing or painting, but stage and start to shine… something like that. being a choreographer is a multi-disciplinary job. There are so many elements you have to work with. Your task AdN: Maybe it’s a kind of set-designers dream, but I’d is to organise things cleverly and quickly so that you can like to be able to adjust the set live. There would be a make costumes and sets at great speed so that you don’t base, but I would be able to change the set as a dancer lose your momentum or inspiration. Maybe you need or performer improvises new steps or text. I’d be like a computer technology, I don’t know. But you still need painter, putting paint on canvas, looking at it for a while, the physical items. You need costumes on bodies. You wiping the paint off then creating something new. Every need a space for dancers to walk on. This is something performance would be different. Of course, it’s sort of for future generations to figure out. impossible, but that’s what I dream about.

MS: I was in a production years ago where we worked SV: Now that these three-dimensional printers are and worked but weren’t given the costumes until the coming out, I would like to create a kind of three- final week of rehearsals. They were made from real dimensional printer that allows dancers to create the set leather and they looked fabulous, but no one could while they’re creating the movement. So the set, like the move in them. No one could lift their arms or their choreo­graphy, starts from nothing. I’ve already pro- legs, so it was a crisis moment. posedYou the can idea and learn it requires many a lot ofthings research. It might come true in five, seven or ten years or so. For me, it ET: I think it’s a question of how you cut the material. butwould you be a­mazing can’t if thelearn dancers experience. were actually creating Youthe set.have to live it, live through it. MS: Exactly. Then you can be flexible. You should live intensely to have

JK: But if you know what the restrictions are, you can somethingInterview conducted in to May remember2013 when base the choreography on it. you grow old.

MS: Right. If you already begin with the restrictions, they inform the movement. Jiri Kylian

JK: I don’t think choreographers mind working with leather costumes, with costumes you can’t fit your legs into, but you have to know it beforehand, then you can work with the restrictions, they’re not a problem.

Eva Calanni, costume by Karine Guizzo 182 Normally, when you’re performing, the lighting is one of the last things you see before you go on stage, but in these rehearsals the lighting grew with us. Davey Bakker (dance student)

Laura Casasola Fontseca and Gianmarco Stefanelli rehearsing the choreography Stonehenge Tuning the Body. On World Exhibitions and Atmosphere by Nathalie Bredella

Starting with the notion of atmos- In developing a concept of aesthe­ According to Böhme, atmosphere phere, I would like to draw atten- tics based on atmosphere, the plays an essential role in perception tion to some architectural projects philosopher Gernot Böhme defines and he stresses that, when entering that explore spatial experiences uti- atmosphere as something between a room, we do not perceive objects lising new technologies. Particularly the subject and the object, stress- first then later ascribe atmospheric in the context of world exhibitions ing that an aesthetic of atmosphere attributes to them but rather feel the or fairs, architecture can act as a must mediate between the aesthet- atmosphere first and then identify medium that addresses cultural ics of reception and the aesthetics of individual objects. Referring to the changes related to technological product or production.1 Given that in German term Stimmung or gestimmt developments. Pavilions of such our everyday life we do not usually werden (in English “tuning or to be expositions are known for circum- pay close attention to our e­motions tuned”), he describes the effect of venting commercially orientated (unseren Befindlichkeiten), art is atmosphere: “Whenever I step into a applications of technology while at needed, according to Böhme, as a room, my mood will be set (tuned) in the same time pushing architecture realm where we can pay attention to some way or another by this room. into extended fields and focusing atmospheres and feelings without Its atmosphere is crucial for my on visitors’ sensorial perception of any obligation to act.2 feelings. Only after having moved changes in the environment. In the into the atmosphere I will eventually following, I will focus on visitors’ As Böhme notes, architects as well recognize and identify one object or bodily interactions with the techno­ as designers and artists are skilled another.”3 This implies that percep- logically advanced environments in how to create atmospheres. And tion is more than just identifying of expositions as well as on the he stresses that architecture’s ability objects or sense data: it comprises creation of atmospheres that, so to to produce certain atmospheres emotion and affection, an insight speak, tune visitors’ bodies. in spaces (which evoke emotional that directs our attention to the effects in viewers and users of these body, which is the presupposition for spaces) indicates that architecture is experiencing atmosphere. As Böhme also political. Thus, the interest in the writes: “The aesthetics of atmos- mechanisms of creating an atmos- phere shifts attention away from phere raises the question whether the ‘what’ something represents, to atmosphere can be a valid criterion the ‘how’ something is present. In for thinking about architecture in this way, sensory perception as op- political terms. posed to judgment is rehabilitated in aesthetics and the term ‘aesthetic’ is restored to its original meaning, namely the theory of perception. In order to perceive something, that something must be there, it must be present; the subject, too, must be present, physically extant.”4

World exhibitions play a crucial role in allowing people to experience at first hand new technical inven- tions. And one can notice that the interest in objects, their operation and functioning that characterised the first world exhibitions has shifted towards the production of environ- ments that encourage the visitors’ involvement.

Guido Badalamenti, Davey Bakker and Rodrigo Azevedo rehearsing the choreography Stonehenge 187 Atmosphere and E.A.T.’s Pepsi Designed by Fujiko Nakaya, the The creation of atmosphere by Pavilion water vapour sculpture, which architecture The ephemeral constructions of resembled a moving cloud, spilled Diller + Scofidio’s project Blur world exhibitions and fairs consti- over onto the public plaza in front of Building­ , built for the Swiss National tute a special architectural genre in the pavilion.9 Setting the outside and Exposition in 2002, explored the which modern cultural phenomena the inside of the pavilion in motion tradition of world fair spectacles are on display and technological creates a shift in the understanding – namely to enable unexpected effects challenge the visitors’ senses. of architecture away from the idea of experiences – by creating an empty Notably, exhibitions after the Second a solid building towards an unex- construction on water. In her lecture World War embraced a variety of me- pected and provisional one. “Architecture is a special-effects Figure 1: The Pavilion. Photo: Shunk-Kender Figure 2: Construction photograph of Blur Figure 3: Aerial view of Blur © Beat Widmer, dia in order to create multi-sensory machine”, Liz Diller characterises the © Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, courtesy of © Ennio Bettinelli, courtesy of Diller Scofidio courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro environments and these provided As Böhme argues, atmospheres are Blur Building in the following words: Roy Lichtenstein Foundation + Renfro a testing ground for deploying new produced, they are not merely a “Aside from keeping the rain out and architectural concepts. subjective projection of the viewer, from producing some usable spaces, and he points out, with reference to architecture is nothing but a special In the Osaka Expo 1970, the Pepsi Hermann Schmitz, that the current effects machine that delights and Pavilion was designed and pro- belief in atmospheres as a result of disturbs the senses.”11 For Diller, the The structure of the Blur Building, As with the Pepsi Pavilion, the envi- Thinking through the body grammed by Experiments in Art a projection is misleading. “Atmos- concept of architecture as “a special situated right in the lake and made ronment of the Blur Building can only As shown in the examples of national and Technology (E.A.T.), a New pheres fill spaces; they emanate from effects machine” addresses the rela- accessible via a pier, resembled a be grasped through physical pres- and world exhibitions, focusing York-based organisation devoted things, constellations of things, and tionship between atmosphere and Buckmintser Fuller geodesic dome ence. In our context, the key insight on atmosphere means addressing to co-operations between artists, persons. The individual as a recipient emotions: “We wanted to make an (Figure 2). Its lightweight metal struc- is that experiencing atmospheres space via the interaction between engineers and industry. Initiated by can happen upon them, be assailed architecture of atmosphere, a mass ture housed 35,000 high-pressure presupposes the existence of the observer and observed. The Pepsi Billy Klüver and Robert Whitman, by them; we experience them, in of atomised water.”12 The building mist-nozzles creating a fog mass body. This reinforces Böhme’s point Pavilion expanded the role of the the project was led by a core design other words, as something quasi- reminds us of the etymology of the that made the building. Water was that human kind must be thought artist in contemporary society and team and a group of over 75 artists objective, whose existence we can word “atmosphere”, which derives pumped up from Lake Neuchâtel, of as “body”. “To corporally sense tried to eliminate the separation of and engineers from the US and also communicate with others. Yet directly from meteorology and filtered and shot out as a fine mist oneself means at the same time to the individual from the technological Japan.5 they cannot be defined indepen- whose synonyms connote the “airy”, through the high-pressure nozzles. sense one’s being in an environ- progress. Visitors were encouraged dently from the persons emotionally “cloudy” or indefinite. A technological device created an ment, means to sense how one feels to explore the artificial environment The dome of the pavilion, 120 feet affected by them; they are subjective artificial element, the cloud, and here.”14 Therefore, we can say that forming his or her own personal in diameter, was built of white PVC facts (H. Schmitz).”10 Hence, atmos- The Blur Building was one of the the atmosphere emanating from it is only because we have bodies experience. panels fixed onto a steel structure. pheres emanate from things and pavilions built on the Arteplages the construction with its changing that we are tuned in certain environ- A slanting tunnel gave entrance to a can assault the viewers. They are not sites. Placed around the lakes of morphology enveloped its visitors in ments. While on the one hand aesthetic space called Clam Room with a Dome only in the subject but outside in the Neuchâtel, Yverdon-les-Bains, the artificial fog (Figure 3). Prevented pleasure can be attributed to atmos- Room upstairs. The inside of the world. Atmospheres create a new M­urten, and Bienne, each pavilion from seeing their surroundings, phere, on the other hand aesthetic dome was fitted with Mylar mirror, reality in which the perceiver and the was faced with the challenge of pre- visitors were in a way thrown back manipulation is also present.15 This which produced three-dimensional perceived are inherently interrelated. senting technological, scientific and to themselves. The blurring of their raises the question whether aesthet- images suggesting a hologram. An It is precisely the oscillation between economic developments that were eyesight caused a loss of visual ics based on atmosphere can be of electronic environment was inte- the architecture and the visitors’ having an impact on S­witzerland. orientation, which demonstrated hu- critical importance. Arguing for an grated into the habitable structure emotions, which finds expression The Blur Building delivered a corporal man’s dependency on vision. When aesthetic of atmosphere, Böhme using interactive programs. Various through the atmosphere of the Pepsi experience, which inspired Jonathan watching and simultaneously feeling rejects aesthetics when mainly concerts and happenings took place Pavilion. What came to be known Glancey of the Guardian to write the mist gradually break up, visitors interested in value judgments and inside the dome and visitors were as one of the first immersive art and an article entitled “I have seen the had to activate other senses in order in separating good art from bad immersed in the images created by technology projects of the 20th future - and it’s wet”.13 to regain orientation. Heightened art Böhme’s critique of aesthetic mirror reflections and spatialised century depended on the partak- awareness of our dependency on arrogance­ (Kritik des ästhetischen electronic music.6 Krüger describes ing of the visitor, whose physical bodily senses as implied by the Blur H­ochmuts) acknowledges all the Pavilion as “a living responsive presence was the pre-condition not Building encourages us to be aware artefacts that satisfy human needs environment”.7 Barbara Rose also only for experiencing the environ- of the effects of the environment on and demands equal recognition for highlights the experience of the ment but also for creating the latter’s our bodies. all products of aesthetic activities, project as opposed to viewing art atmosphere. such as advertisement, set design in a museum or gallery context. She In an age where emergent techno­ or so-called real art.16 This means, stresses the communal and colla­ logies promise immediacy and for instance, the rehabilitation of borative process that led to the simultaneity, Diller + Scofidio instead kitsch based on recognising aesthe­ evolution of its form as well as the use technology to produce interrup- tics as a basic human need and the integrated sensorial response it trig- tion and hesitation. The Blur Building showcasing of oneself or Aus-sich- gered.8 Ever-changing densities of creates an artificial environment in Heraustreten as a typical feature of water fog, generated by an atomis- which visitors are exposed to the our nature.17 ing device, enshrouded the exterior unpredictable, and their ability to of the dome (Figure 1). see an object is disturbed.

188 189 The aesthetic of atmosphere cannot About the author: be considered as a critical perspec- Nathalie Bredella studied architec- tive, in that it accepts everything as ture at the Technical University in legitimate. Yet, Böhme points out Berlin and the Cooper Union, New how his aesthetic of atmosphere York. She received a Ph.D. in archi- possesses a critical value. For Böhme tectural theory with a dissertation on the creation of atmospheres can architecture and film: Architekturen and must be criticised when used des Zuschauens. Imaginäre und reale to manipulate people. In particular, Räume im Film. She was a Research he refers to background music in Fellow at the Internationales Kolleg shopping malls and the imposition für Kulturtechnikforschung und of lifestyles. Medienphilosophie (IKKM), Bauhaus University Weimar. She is a research- However, analysing how atmos- er at the Institute for the History and pheres are produced is a critical act Theory of Design at the Universität in itself because it allows us to set der Künste Berlin (UdK). Her current ourselves at a critical distance. This project for the German Research is all the more necessary in an era of Foundation (DFG) investigates the aestheticisation of politics and the subject of architecture and new great economic power of advertis- media. ing. Yet within Böhme’s aesthetic of atmosphere, the distinction between the legitimate and the illegitimate use of atmospheres proves difficult to identify. There are no pre-given criteria to be found. Rather, it chal- lenges us to reflect on the ways we experience a place by making us aware of our senses. We therefore should pay close attention to the effects of atmospheres and under- stand what needs they really satisfy or fail to satisfy. Notes: 1. Gernot Böhme, “Atmosphere as an Aesthetic Concept”, in Daidalos, No. 68, June 1998, pp. 112-115. 2. Gernot Böhme, Atmosphäre, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1995, p. 17. 3. Gernot Böhme, Atmosphäre: Essays zur neuen Ästhetik, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1995, p. 15. [Translation by the author.] 4. Gernot Böhme, “Atmosphere as an Aesthetic Concept”, in Daidalos, No. 68, June 1998, p. 114. 5. www.zakros.com/projects/pavilion/original_new.html (23/09/2013). 6. For a detailed account on the Pepsi Pavilion, see Billy Klüver, Julie I don’t like it if the light dictates where Martin, Barbara Rose (eds.), Pavilion by Experiments in Art and Technol- ogy, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1972. 7. Billy Klüver, “The Pavilion” in Billy Klüver, Julie Martin, Barbara Rose you have to look because I think the (eds.), Pavilion by Experiments in Art and Technology, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1972, pp. ix-xvi, p. x. audience can decide for themselves 8. Barbara Rose, “Art as Experience, Environment, Process”, in Billy Klüver, Julie Martin, Barbara Rose (eds.), Pavilion by Experiments in Art what they think is interesting. I like and Technology, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1972, pp. 60-104, p. 60. darkness and light because then you’re 9. Billy Klüver, see footnote 6, p. x. 10. Gernot Böhme, “Atmosphere as an Aesthetic Concept”, in Daidalos, forced to really watch. If you’re watching No. 68, June 1998, p. 112, p.114. 11. www.ted.com/index.php/talks/liz_diller_plays_with_architecture. something in bright lighting, you can html (23/09/2013). 12. Ibid just let it in. If it’s in a dim light, you 13. www.theguardian.com/culture/2002/jun/10/artsfeatures (23/09/2013). have to ask yourself what you’re seeing. 14. Gernot Böhme, Atmosphäre, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1995, p. 31. [Translation by the author.] 15. Here and in the following, the text follows the author’s publication You have to focus on your own. Architecture and Atmosphere. Technology and the Concept of the Body, Ellen Knops (light designer) in: Kari Jormakka et al. (eds.): Architektur der neuen Weltordnung, Weimar: Verlag der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, 2011, pp. 550-559, pp. 558-559. 16. Gernot Böhne, Atmosphäre, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1995, p. 42. 17. Gernot Böhne, Atmosphäre, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1995, p. 41.

190 Thibault Desaules, Gianmarco Stefanelli and Alina Fejzo rehearsing the choreography Stonehenge You could see the creativity of the dancers, how the costume influenced their performance of the choreography and what they made of it. Jiří Kylián

Participants in the Dance and Costume workshop, from left to right, Adrian Wanliss, Gianmarco Stefanelli, Izabela Orzelowska, Dane Badal, Eva Calanni, 32 Laura Casasola Fontseca, Jouke Rouwenhorst and Grey Timmers, costumes by Karine Guizzo 37 Credits Thank you to all those involved in the project

Codarts Rotterdam Samuel Wuersten, director of dance / board member Patrick Cramers, secretary of the board Caroline Harder, head of the Bachelor of Dance programme Ingrid Stoepker, head of the Bachelor of Dance in Education programme Hans Boerrigter, communications & pr

Co-ordination Ellen Dijkstra, Sanja Maier-Hasagic, Keith-Derrick Randolph

Codarts teachers Jan-Bas Bollen, Dr. Hilke Diemer, Alberto ter Doest, Connie de Jongh, Antien van Mierlo, René Uijlenhoet, Dr. Henrice Vonck

Research team Jiří Kylián, Michael Schumacher, Sabine Kupferberg, Dr. Désirée Staverman, Dr. Friederike Lampert

UmaMedia Barbara van den Bogaard (direction, editing), Gerbert Toes (direction, 1st camera) Roos Breukel (2nd camera), Jasper Bruijns (3rd camera)

Website oneofakind.codarts.nl Jasper van der Hoeven, Robbert van Kolck

Co-authors Dr. Nathalie Bredella, Jan-Bas Bollen, Anna Henckel-Donnersmarck, Dr. Anandi Felter, Dr. Malte Friedrich, Borg Diem Groeneveld, David Hinton, Dr. Vincent Meelberg

Interviewees Jiří Kylián, Boris Paval Conen, David Hinton, Sabine Kupferberg, Ascon de Nijs, Michael Schumacher, Jason Akira Somma, Erika Turunen, Sjoerd Vreugdenhil, Ed Wubbe, Codarts students and teachers

Guest researchers and artists Dr. Ad Borsboom, René Bosma, Piotr Cieslak, Jay Tjon Jaw Chong, Jorg Delfos, Christian van Dijk, Jack Gallagher, Michel Gutlich, Karine Guizzo Renate Hoenselaar, Atsushi Kitagawara, Hannah de Klein, Sarah Lugthart, Rachel “Raverty” Maniesing, Lavinia Meijer, Mary Oliver, Dr. Stephanie Schrödter, Keiko Taylor, Peter-Jan Wagemans, Ederson Rodrigues Xavier, Dr. Marcel Zijstra

English language editor Nickolas Woods

Photographers Joke Schot, Wijnand Schouten, Joris-Jan Bos

Front cover photo Serge Ligtenberg

Graphic design 75B, Rotterdam

Printing Veenman+, Rotterdam 195 Titel Jiri Kylian

197 ONE Of A KIND A professorship held by the choreographer Jiří Kylián at Codarts Rotterdam, started in October 2010. Working with artists and experts from different disciplines, as well as with associate researchers Dr. Friederike Lampert and Dr. Désirée Staverman, Jiří Kylián has been conducting research into a series of themes: Dance and Age, Dance and Voice, Dance and Music, Dance and Visual Technology, and Dance and Design. Students from various departments of Codarts Rotterdam participated in the research workshops, which were led by Jiří Kylián with Michael Schumacher and many other teachers and artists.

ONE Of A KIND – The Kylián Research Project This publication documents Jiří Kylián’s professorship from three different angles: the professor’s perspective, the experts’ view and finally student feedback. Interactive printing also allows readers to view short films showing the process for each workshop phase. The book is intended to inspire future dance students and is dedicated to the world of professional dancers as well as to the field of dance science. The book is also dedicated to the many people interested in Kylián’s work and the art of dance in general.

oneofakind.codarts.nl