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00:00:29 00:00:39

There was a piece where I came down the stairs and I lied down, and there was a concrete floor here, and we were lying in a nice diagonal.

00:00:40 00:00:51

And I did once a piece where I was going up and down in this way and when I was there I fell down to the floor, I was crawling backwards and I was doing this continuously.

00:00:52 00:01:07

And I did once a piece where I started here in a diagonal and then I came forward and I did arm gestures, a port de bras. And when I was there, I said: close-up of hand.

00:01:08 00:01:32

And I did once a piece where I was… I came from there and I walked forward in a straight line, and when I stood there, I looked at the audience and tried to make them my friends. And then, I fell down to the floor and I was crawling backwards. And I think when I was approximately here, someone came from there, onto the stage.

00:01:33 00:01:41

And today I will come from there and I will go there. And when I’m here, I will start to undress.

00:01:56 00:02:26

Why me? Oh… No… I change position. Oh… Ahh… I take another job. Goh… Oh…

00:02:27 00:02:45

I have this moment every time before I go on stage. But today, this is a lie. Because right now, I’m already in the middle of the performance. And this moment happened five minutes ago, out there, in the dressing room.

00:02:46 00:03:03

To go out there and talk about myself, it helps me to know that I can lie about myself. I can talk about myself, lying about myself on stage, and nobody gets hurt about it. It gives me a lot of freedom.

00:03:04 00:03:22

What I also like about going out on stage is that, with movements I have the feeling I can make time stand still, I can speed up time or I can create changes and jumps in time.

00:03:25 00:03:53

I also like performing, because on stage there is no democracy. And there are no social, boring rules. It’s just the rules that you create for yourself. It’s just the rules that the performers create with each production. I find this very pleasurable. But very scary.

00:08:35 00:08:56

How to be simple, but not simpler than you want it to be? How to find the essence of what you want to say in a simple movement? Simplicity with a lot of details.

00:09:07 00:09:30

When I understood technique for the first time, it was a very touching moment in my life. I understood that it’s not about the form, but about going further. To leave the form behind you. To make the form alive.

00:09:31 00:09:47

Maybe it’s comparable with meditation techniques, when you go layer after layer deeper into your body until in the end you don’t understand anymore what you’re busy with.

00:09:51 00:10:04

It has a lot to do with repetition. But to me, it doesn’t feel like I’m repeating. It feels like I’m exploring, over and over.

00:10:20 00:10:46

Something in a form is charging me up and it is the form itself. It’s a funny journey: first form, then sensation and interpretation, and in the end you leave the form behind you. You leave the choreography behind you and you start to dance.

00:10:47 00:11:06

I try to look for volume inside the form. And it’s about finding oppositions or contradictions.

00:11:07 00:11:33

When I think about love, I think about pain. When I think about dancing, to the floor, I think, how will I stand up? When I take about breaking up, I think about a new start. And when I think about something very strong, I think about how fragile it is.

00:11:33 00:11:42

I try to think about many things at the same time.

00:12:23 00:12:44

This is my arm. And this is my leg. This is my head. This is my knee. These are my eyes. This is my tongue. These are my shoulders.

00:12:44 00:13:03

This is not my arm. This is not my leg. These are not my eyes. These are not my shoulders. This is not my finger. This is not my head.

00:13:03 00:13:17

It’s not about the arm. It’s not about the leg. It’s not about the finger. It’s not about my head. It’s not about my eyes. It’s not about my knee.

00:13:17 00:13:47

This is my arm. This is not your arm. It’s not about the arm. This is, this is my leg. It’s not about the leg. This is your finger. This is my eye. It’s not about the leg. It’s not about my eyes. It’s not my elbow. This is your elbow. It’s not your elbow. This is not your elbow. This is not my eye. This is not my finger. This is your finger. It’s not about the finger.

00:15:14 00:15:56

As soon as I come on stage, my technical brain starts to work. I cannot stop it. It’s just starting and… everything I do, I do from this technical aspect. Like how to walk on stage naturally? How to stand still on stage? How should I take off my pullover in a very easygoing way? How should I pick up something leaving any question that’s necessary to do? How to do that?

00:17:51 00:18:20

I think I’m always dancing by going down to the floor. I think I’m trying to do it as complex as possible. It’s about giving in and resisting gravity. But actually, all I want to do is stand up. And I think that’s why I dance downwards, because I like to stand up later.

00:18:20 00:18:40

I think it’s very beautiful to stand up from the floor like an amateur. To stand up as if you have never taken any dance classes in your whole life. I don’t know, it’s for me, it gives me so much pleasure. I think, this talks so much about humour.

00:18:42 00:18:53

I rehearsed sometimes to be an amateur in movements. Funny rehearsals.

00:18:57 00:19:35

I also enjoy this reaching out, lies. I find so much in there. Maybe it’s because I trained so much ballet. And in ballet, we were only allowed to stretch our arms in an arabesque but the shoulders were really backwards. For the rest, we had these combo curved arms. And I still feel when I do that, when I lift my shoulders, like a revolution!

00:19:35 00:20:04

Really! And also, I like that because I don’t want to become a character on stage. I want to be this curved person. And I want the swinging arm person and the more stiff, but I also want the free arm person. But I just don’t want to be myself on stage so much.

00:20:29 00:21:00

Another quality was born out of my fear. Because I have this fear to fly. But I think the first half a minute of a plane ride is worth taking. It’s when you sit in a plane and the engine hasn’t started and then the engine starts and you feel how your body gets pressed slowly into the seat. And you feel that this machine takes over.

00:21:00 00:21:19

And it takes you more and more and you get pressed into the seat and then, you feel how the plane takes off. And… over, it’s gone, stop. It’s not interesting anymore. It’s just from starting the engine until three seconds in the air, then you can forget the whole plane ride.

00:21:19 00:21:37

But this sensation I tried to find in dance. I want to find it in the movement. It’s… I want to imagine I lean into it. I think, I want to imagine I can sit down in a movement. I want to imagine that there’s a motor inside me that drives me.

00:21:37 00:21:52

I want to imagine that there’s energy that creates movement. I want to imagine that movement just runs out of me. I want to imagine that my movements are quicker than my thinking. Normally my thinking is always quicker than my movement.

00:21:52 00:22:07

So I try to, what I do is, I try to pollute myself with images. And I just take any image that comes. It’s not interesting if it’s a very interesting image. I just…

00:22:07 00:22:15

You know, for example, I would imagine this dance floor turns into a tsunami and this tsunami comes towards me.

00:22:15 00:22:20

I imagine the backdoor explodes and hits me right here.

00:22:20 00:22:28

And I imagine that this dance floor turns into a grey liquid that I start to slip around and that I’m naked while I do that.

00:22:28 00:22:35

And I want to imagine that this dance floor, and this ceiling that come crashing down onto me.

00:22:35 00:22:39

And I want to imagine that this whole space comes and eats me.

00:22:39 00:22:47

And I want to imagine I’m a blond woman, long hair and there’s wind coming.

00:22:47 00:23:06

And I want to imagine… I pollute myself, I pollute myself with images, and I pollute and pollute and pollute until my brain starts to relax because it doesn’t want to have all this pollution anymore. And then you go, and then some movements just slip out of you.

00:23:06 00:23:26

And, I cannot do this now but the polluted, you polluted me, images are very quick movements that I will do now and pollution, pollution. The important thing is not to stop creating these images.

00:23:26 00:23:32

Pollution, you have to continue.

00:23:57 00:24:36

What a luxurious moment. Ah. Ah. Pleasure, pleasure. Oh. Oh. Oh, great to the face. Ah. This is part of my work. In some movements I just overdo it a little. And it gives me so much pleasure to do that.

00:24:37 00:25:05

When I do that I have the feeling I’m dressing myself with the movement. Feel like I’m overdressing myself with the movement. And it feels a little bit fake but, you know, it’s a fine line. Sometimes it’s hard to find this line.

00:25:06 00:25:09

So much pleasure.

00:26:33 00:26:39

Close-up of hand.

00:27:05 00:27:19

With all this stuff, I try to be abstract. And to do that, you try to be really perfect.

00:27:19 00:27:33

I like this position, because I like it when I can show that dancing is really working hard. I think you can see this in this position, that you really have to work hard.

00:27:33 00:27:52

What I can also show very easy in this position is that it’s easy to fail as well. Find this quite beautiful. This failing and struggling. Working hard is part of my job.

00:27:55 00:28:05

And what I also think is funny about this movement is that it’s one of the few movements I learned in school and I still do them.

00:28:06 00:28:22

But not many movements I learned and I still do them. Most of them I forgot. And then, I learned them again to myself. But this movement I keep teaching to myself.

00:28:22 00:28:48

I think it’s very interesting, which movement you forget, and which movement you teach to yourself. And I cannot tell why certain movements I cannot forget anymore, I keep teaching them to myself. And maybe this is the start of creating your own movement language.

00:28:48 00:28:56

You cannot forget anymore.

00:29:24 00:29:53

I have the feeling that working is quite an organic process. I feel it’s similar to breathing. When I breathe in, I feel I do a group work. Then I need to breath out, and mostly that’s a solo, a thing I interpreted for someone else, collaborating for other people.

00:29:53 00:30:08

Sometimes I take on purpose things to the next production. And sometimes it happens by itself without you realizing it. It’s like ‘stille Post’.

00:30:08 00:30:18

Sometimes you’re in the middle of creating a work, without even realizing it.

00:31:08 00:31:26

I want to imagine it, for every moment in my life, the movements to do. I want to imagine that I dance through my life.

00:31:27 00:31:50

I never thought that dancing is fun. Nice and beautiful bodies. But I always found it interesting to think about limitations. So here I am.

00:31:53 00:32:29

When I move, I don’t think if I’m a man or a woman. I’m a movement. I’m material. I don’t have any gender when I move. I think that’s about (…) often. Because when I meet a men on stage, it makes me so much aware about my own gender. I still have to learn that.

00:33:05 00:33:29

There was a boy in my class in school and he was very unpopular. Because whenever a teacher asked a question, he would just raise his hand. And we all knew he has no idea about the answer, but just wants to do that gesture.

00:33:29 00:33:55

And he’s confused, the teachers told to me, and also my colleagues. But I thought: This is a great act. So I tried to get a seat next to him. It was very easy to achieve that. And then I started to… You couldn’t tell when he would do the gesture and when not.

00:33:55 00:34:02

He impressed me. I had the feeling he has a goal, he takes a risk, he takes a chance.

00:34:03 00:34:17

In my movement vocabulary I call this ‘throwing shapes’. You just do a movement. You don’t think about the after-effect. You just throw it.

00:34:21 00:34:28

It feels like you take a risk and then let it go.

00:34:39 00:34:46

When I think about failing, I think it’s very beautiful that you have the option to fail inside a movement.

00:34:46 00:35:00

When I think about performing, I don’t think I’m a man or a woman, I think I can be an object or an animal. I think, I can have different ages when I perform.

00:35:00 00:35:05

When I think about going down to the floor, I think about standing up.

00:35:05 00:35:13

When I think about being strong, I think that I can be fragile.

00:35:13 00:35:54

I think about a movement, I think about something simple. I think about a simple form with details. I think about a movement with options. I think a movement by changing the movement.