Dance Techniques 2010

Anouk van Dijk — Countertechnique
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And how does that translate to your classes?
People who see the class for the first time, especially the
first half, might think it looks like Cunningham,
Limón, Release, even like ballet. We work, for instance,
on becoming aware of the space, aware of the people
around you, and aware of the trajectory of your weight,
your breath, and more—doing this while you do
plié, while you turn, while you swing your head, while
you détourné. We work on really seeing what is
around you, really sensing the floor underneath you, on
a very direct and immediate presence. This immediate
presence will lead into double presence, which leads into
scanning and working with directions and counter
directions. The movements and steps simply accompany
the dancers in this process–oriented way of observing
what’s happening, and in making decisions. That’s why
a format using the same exercise progression for the
first part of every class is so important; the class serves as
a skeleton. Within that skeleton, you can focus on
what you want to be working on.
How do you see the future of
the Countertechnique? We are, in a way, only at
the beginning. The formats on how to use it and in which
circumstances are in the process of development.
We teach in different places. We have a four-year relationship
with Codarts / Rotterdam Dance Academy
to implement the Countertechnique into the curriculum
of all first, second, third, and forth year students. In
the beginning we only taught senior students, but our
experience showed that a dancer has to unlearn so many
things in order to be able to move in multiple directions—like
having false assumptions about themselves,
fear, or being over–judgmental—a lot of things that
are basically in the way of just being here, so we thought
why not start in the first year so they don’t have to
unlearn all this? I am really curious what will result in
the next couple of years.
What background do people need in order to
teach this technique? At the stage we’re in now, the
people who teach this need to have a dance and an
Alexander Technique background. They don’t need to
be Alexander Technique teachers, but they need to
have studied it thoroughly. One has to be very smart in
analyzing what is happening in the body, and one
needs to understand the refined differences. This you
cannot learn in two years; it takes much longer.
What do you think has changed in the last years
in respect to technique in general? The whole
hierarchy has changed; dancers have become enormously
emancipated over the last twenty years. A dancer has
a different role in the creative process now, and bodies
have different knowledge. I am sometimes shocked,
however, to find wherever I teach in the world that people
still have similar information in their bodies as twentyfive
years ago—very often not helpful to help improve their
dancing. That motivated me to really pursue the
development of this technique and to try to present it in
an accessible format. So I developed the Countertechnique
toolbox that, in the end, enables dancers to
work independently of a teacher. All this information
will eventually become accessible in the format
of a Countertechnique website, as well as a workbook
for dancers.
Are there new influences on the technique?
I am teaching more into the details of specific Countertechnique
skills, peeling back more of the layers, and thus
discovering more about the essence of it all; this leads
to interesting discussions with young and inexperienced
dancers, and leads me to think further about what
needs to be developed next. The other day I had a discussion
with a young dancer on what ‘thought’ is. Is
thought coming out of a feeling or an observation, a judgement?
Is it coming as a response, or is it an initiation?
If we are talking about directing your movement by thinking,
for example, and I think, ‘I release my arm joint
and I take the weight from my fingers in space,’ is that a
thought or an image? Or is it the observation of
what is going to happen? Those are things that I find are
important to be able to clarify.
Language seems to play an important role. I found
that the language we use when teaching is crucial.
When something is being explained in dance, we all assume
we hear the same, but in practice most dancers interpret
what’s being said differently. I think this is a problem we
cannot completely solve in the dance world. What is
different in Countertechnique is that we specifically address
the communication problem so students and teachers
are aware of it and communicate about it. I want all
the teachers to really know why we do which exercise
when, and how, and why it’s there. And to share this gradually
with the dancers so they, too, deepen their understanding.
Therefore a Countertechnique class is extremely
detailed. I want to use some sort of common sense language
that is least likely to be misunderstood.
What do you want to give to young dancers?
A smile, first and for all. That they trust themselves.
And that they feel confident to use their own mind. Not
as something rational, not as something holy, not as
something apart from the body. Your mind is your body!
That’s what I love about the Chinese character for
mind: Mind is heart, and heart is mind. I wish we Westerners
could express these two notions in one single
word because it says everything about how we are, in essence,
connected with ourselves.