Dance Techniques 2010

P.A.R.T.S. — Contemporary Positions
161
There was talk of imagining what you can do
and would like to do. Does language play a role in the
visualization of skills?
ML We were the first generation to dive so deeply into
an analytical process based on anatomy. I can remember
that I couldn’t even move my little finger without knowing
where the movement came from. I couldn’t improvise
without my brain not only observing, but also directing
it. That lead to a new awareness, not only physical
but also psychological. We have gone so far in this
direction that we have to find a way back.
JP It was a necessary step. Anatomy was necessary.
DH And it is still necessary. Coming back to my article,
which you mentioned earlier, one quote that I included
from Gertrude Stein said that a person ‘is an outlaw until
he is a classic, there is hardly a moment inbetween...’
This also applies if you want to find a language to teach
new approaches and ideas; teaching is a tricky matter
nowadays.
JP When I look at the students here—they are
chosen because they are among the best. I mean that they
are very, very good. Some already have degrees, and
they know it means something to have been accepted here.
We often have to teach them in the first year that what
they have learned so far wasn’t necessarily the best. That
confuses them and they lock themselves up in their
bodies, but everything comes back. And then you see the
whole process open and in front of you; that has an
impact on creativity. It is my goal to convert knowledge
into physicality until new knowledge manifests itself physically.
How that looks in detail at the end, I am unable
to say.
The idea that teaching is important for one’s
own artistic research is interesting.
SS It is enormously important for the students in this
training program to sense that the teaching is alive. It
isn’t a presentation of something that was once valuable;
it is current, now. And because everything is in motion,
it cannot be perfect. I teach to make things clear to myself,
and these things are taught to others by becoming
clear to me—it’s a reciprocal process. I can try out things
in the lesson that I can’t try out in a goal–oriented rehearsal.
My expectations are different each time, but both are
complementary.
ML Yoga and ballet have a set form. Contemporary
dance doesn’t. The process—I don’t want to call it
research—which I follow every day in my yoga teaching
practice is based on a form that has been around
for three or four thousand years. I stopped teaching
contemporary classes when I stopped dancing myself.
It would not have been a problem to continue, I
had enough material, but it no longer felt as it should,
namely alive in every moment. Our generation did
not start teaching to become teachers, they started
teaching while they were still actively involved in the
process.
JP And something else: We all love and are fascinated
by this art form. Each student comes to the lesson
with their individual personality and their own approach.
If that didn’t interest us, if we were not thrilled by this
give and take, we wouldn’t do it. We shouldn’t do it.
ML And we want to share that with each other.
JP What we all share is the ability to strip something
down to its bare minimum and make it new and
exciting time and again. This is something the students
should also learn. Artificiality interests no one.
I am interested in how repertory teaching
influences technique classes.
Steven de Belder (SDB) It is meant to influence
technical training as part of a process that the students
take into their own creations. Connections can possibly
be seen between a technique and an artistic process,
and how they come together in a historical context.
DH Repertory teaching has changed a great deal since
the school opened. Back then you dedicated yourself
to the works of choreographers you considered particularly
important: Trisha Brown, William Forsythe, and
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. I always thought of it as
a trip into the past that you forced on people for a
moment. The focus was not really on students’ own work.
But P.A.R.T.S. performed works by Brown,
Forsythe, and, of course, by De Keersmaeker
publicly.
SS What do you mean by that? ‘Of course
by De Keersmaeker?’ There’s no ‘of course’ about it.
Do you want to say that the school does not aim
to train dancers for the Rosas dance company?
SS Exactly. That is definitely not the case.
ML It is not intentional. It is just that recently she
(De Keersmaeker, author’s note) likes the people coming
out of the school, so she takes them.
SDB It is a question of efficiency; and it’s actually
logical for her as a choreographer to benefit from having
her own school—but that is not what we are working
toward.
JP Repertoire is a good thing; it gives you an idea
of what it means to work with people. It makes you aware
that learning does not end when you leave the school,
it is just beginning.