WEBVTT

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I like it when people really go all out and they are not
careful because life is really too short for that.

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For me that's the biggest confrontation of all
of course - the one with your own body.

3
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What's really, really important to me is a great openness.

4
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That's kind of the cool thing, that you can then design
something where you can then put yourself in.

5
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I like it when people really go all out and they are not
careful because life is really too short for that.

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And the circumstances are too precarious for that.

7
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That's why I hate it when people ask me what will
be in ten years from now and 20 years from now.

8
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I really don't give a shit about that. What really matters to me is okay, now we have this moment or this show or this rehearsal.

9
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Now we are in this context together
and what are we really doing right now?

10
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That I would say is our main material. For me
of course it's something absolutely not special.

11
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I'm always surprised that not everybody works as physically.

12
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For me that’s the greatest confrontation of all - the one
with one's own body or with the form that one has.

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I never get bored with that because it’s also continuously changing.

14
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And of course it somehow plays a role
that I come more from sport and then

15
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definitely tipped into this dance thing and possibly
more than is good dealt with my own body.

16
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So first of all in an analytical way.

17
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In the end it was always the case that movement was fun
for me and it seemed like a good means of expression.

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Better than words could have done that for me.

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I don’t have any groundbreaking explanations for it because I was only confronted with this concept of borders from the outside.

20
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So especially in the work with Vincent it was never so much
about “which border are we going to cross next”?

21
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Probably we were very busy with understanding the stage
as a free space where you can try out many things

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and where for us it was also clear that this was also
justified as a choreographic form or theatrical form.

23
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It's not just any action but it also immediately has this
performative quality, which is always another layer.

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That we have used it so much for
ourselves as a laboratory, this stage space

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to have certain negotiations there, with each other or
with the body of another person, with our own body.

26
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Everyone is confronted with some kind of border
crossings all the time, in life.

27
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And for us it was always confusing what is socially
accepted, and when, from what point onwards it is not.

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And that probably provoked us somehow,
in a way that we questioned it a lot.

29
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This question is actually becoming more and more difficult to answer the more I am involved in larger production structures.

30
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And I can only test it out for myself on my own body
and sometimes I have to project it onto other performers.

31
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I also try to look for people who are interested
in similar things as I am interested in.

32
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They don’t to this for the first time in my show. They have done it 5000 times already in a different context or in their own context.

33
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I like to work with people who come up to me and say:
“Hey I find it really cool to work with you”

34
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Because then I can rely a lot more
on exactly this kind of thing.

35
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That people have a certain trust in me

36
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but also that I can trust people in many respects.

37
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Usually it is essential for me to take part in it myself.

38
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First of all that I can share these experiences myself and because my stage work is actually only secondarily concerned with

39
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how it comes across as a show for an audience

40
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but it is much more important to me how it comes across for us ourselves, what is the experience that we have with it?

41
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Because then I can somehow halfway rely
on something reaching the viewer I have to say.

42
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That's kind of the cool thing, that you can then design
something where you can also include yourself

43
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and where you can surround yourself with certain people.

44
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And that's also important that people don't read it
as a provocation but rather that it should evoke in people:

45
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“under certain circumstances I would also like to do this”.

46
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I often see my work as curatorial work actually.

47
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Because many people bring their own work into the
work and that should also be relatively transparent.

48
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But I definitely have the feeling, and
I am allowed to make the final decision.

49
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I already have quite a preconceived idea actually before the shows, what the role of different people is in this show.

50
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I am quite bad at giving instructions to people.

51
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For me it is extremely important that people are really proactive,

52
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that it is very clear to them that they are part of
shaping the piece, that they have to be very active.

53
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For me it's extremely important that people suggest things and

54
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I much rather work with what people bring than
telling people very concretely what they should do.

55
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For me that is extremely important: who are
the people I get together to realise this project?

56
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And when the rehearsal process itself really begins in the sense of bringing people together in a studio situation or something.

57
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We always start with a tough physical training
that is designed so that everyone can do it

58
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because it is simply important to me that there is a certain curve of physical development that the whole cast goes through,

59
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so that everyone has the subjective
feeling that I am building something.

60
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In the end I come out of this stronger than at the beginning.

61
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Because the positions within the show are so diverse
and they are not all such uniform group parts.

62
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I need something that we all really do together.

63
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So of course for me it has always something to
do with the transformation of the body somehow.

64
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Now also when you look at your body,
what can you see in it or what kind of training,

65
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But at the end of the day it also means what
kind of life or lifestyle can you see in this body

66
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and to what extent does that then correspond
to a certain kind of lived reality?

67
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And I mean of course we always do it a bit in a nutshell, from project to project, which is also subject to certain production

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structures where a transformation is only possible to a limited extent or is rather an illusion because it’s still theatre.

69
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And theatre should be created in a
rehearsal process of three months.

70
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Specifically for me it is relevant somehow in terms
of dance history how the stage is or was used.

71
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“Tanz” actually, it came out of Apollon, where we already dealt
a bit, but more through neoclassical ballet, with Balanchine.

72
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At that time it was a work that I saw
in the National Ballett in Amsterdam

73
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where this topic of women was picked out as a central theme

74
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I actually had the desire for these genderless “fairies”.

75
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And through that I came to the dance of “Les Sylphides”.

76
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La Sylphide and Les Sylphides but first I was
interested in Les Sylphides, these fairy figures.

77
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But then for research I also watched La Sylphide at the Opera in Berlin, romantical ballet from the beginning of the 19th century.

78
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And I found it really great. Of course because
this is also the narrative of the romantical ballett.

79
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I also found it very funny and very grotesque, actually very absurd.

80
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Then I spoke to a dance scholar who pointed
out to me that all these romantic ballets

81
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were actually stunt ballets and that there were many
more parallels to my interests than I thought originally.

82
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And then I was firmly convinced that
I want to engage with romantical ballett.

83
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And to work this out, too. This “stunting”
aspect, this action ballett actually.

84
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In our research we called it our “Sylphidic
Studies” or sylphidic action ballett.

85
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So this kind of action ballett that tries to lift the body from the floor.

86
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For me that is the exciting thing, to go on these excursions

87
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and then to look at things at the ballett, as well as at stunt studios watch people work, as well as at some circus training sessions.

88
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So I mean we work a lot, we do a lot of workshops
where we get specific people and practise things with them.

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What is really, really important to me is a great openness. That's what I feel is the essence of the work, that you first try things out

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and afterwards you can allow yourself to do that, that you judge
these things or afterwards you can talk about how it was or so

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but that there is a very great openness to really
try things out practically before you negotiate them verbally.

