Dance Techniques 2010

64 Interview
Do you follow a strict concept in class? Already in
the early beginning—inspired by Charles Czarny—
I decided that the first part of the class should always be
the same, with exercises that you can dream. As professional
dancers we need to train our bodies in order to
rehearse and perform the work. And assuming the work
you’re doing is interesting enough by itself, you don’t
want to be busy in class with picking up someone’s steps
or choreography. Therefore I was determined, at a
very early stage, to never develop a class based on my own
choreographic material.
So the first part of all classes is exactly the same?
We have, of course, more exercises than can fit into
the approximately thirty minutes, but a teacher picks
x amount of them so the progression within that timeframe
remains the same. In the first part there are
always elements that prepare for the rest of class, and
where exercises change every two or three days. All the
exercises have a clear purpose and a specific name,
and there is an entire rule system in how to choose exercises
for class. This one is for this, the other one for
that, and if you do more of this one, you do less of that
one. It might sound dogmatic, but the whole point is
that the exercises actually serve as a framework for the
dancers to free up their mindset.
How much has the teaching changed over time?
First, there were teaching exercises and movement phrases,
classes, and finding out that people could not do it.
Then it went through the phase of helping dancers find
out how to do it, figuring out why they could not do
it. Now we are in the process of breaking it down even
further. My main interest now is how we train communication
between our minds to our bodies, in movement.
And what effect does this have on understanding
and applying the principles of the Countertechnique?
What ideas or images do you use in your teaching?
Countertechnique is a task–oriented approach: it is
not an imagery–based or sensory–input approach, which
is really distinctly different from, for instance, the
Muller Technique and Body–Mind Centering. We don’t
use imagery as a teaching tool because it doesn’t work
with our task–oriented approach. I am not going to teach
the sensations of what I am experiencing while dancing
to somebody else. I teach the process, the way into it, so
the dancers will have their own, personal sensations.
Are dancers able to relate to that? Some dancers
ask, in the beginning, whether they are allowed to
feel anything because they come from a background that
uses imagery as the source of inspiration to move.
And I say to them, ‘Of course you can feel, you are human
beings!’ If one wants to use Countertechnique principles,
however, he or she should not start out with a fixed idea
of what the experience is going to be like. That is the
big difference. When you use our task–oriented approach,
you can go into a complicated multidirectional turn
with a fall and then, while you are in it, you can experience
the sensation. Of course.And the sensation can be totally
trippy. But you cannot accomplish the same movement
sequence by trying to predict beforehand how the experience
is going to be; then you are not in the moment of
the process.
What is so crucial about this kind of presence?
My aim is for the dancer to establish a quality of movement
that is so sincere that both the dancer and the viewer
experience it as if it was really created in that moment
and can never be repeated that way ever again—
the dancer in dialogue with his body, the space, his
audience, fellow dancers. It is a presence very closely
related to improvisation, a presence where the
craft of the performer can really stand out. Through
Countertechnique the dancer can achieve that
same state in a movement that’s choreographed. The
person is not busy with the audience’s perception
of him- or herself, the person is in the process of ‘doing’.
In the doing, all the layers of putting up appearances
disappear. And if a dancer works from that, through that,
towards that, then movement always becomes more
interesting to watch. Always. And I think that’s the key—
the key to depart from and to aim for. It is both the
pathway and the goal.
How exactly do you accomplish that as a dancer?
In Countertechnique, only the process really counts.
Certain things you can only do in process, things are all
happening at the same time: You turn, and while you
do this turn, body parts go in different directions (head
makes a circle, right arm goes the opposite way, your
working leg is slowly unfolding), and you are also in the
process of falling horizontally from your central axis
and you change direction in space as well. Moving this
way, it is impossible to visualize or predict the outcome.
The only way it can work is to go into the process
of doing it. You cannot predict the end result; you
cannot control movement from one center or the body
parts are not able to operate independently of one
another. One can only let go. That’s why we say Countertechnique
is a very task–oriented way of learning
how to move. You are not judging yourself, or hiding
that you are judging yourself. You are just there
doing your thing: observing, making decisions, being in
the flow of the moment—all at the same time.