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An interview with Rio Rutzinger, artistic director of ImPulsTanz Workshops+Research, about programming the world’s largest format of its kind, about dancers’ passion and precariate, the importance of social exchange as social and political necessity, and the possibilities of theoretical work in dance pedagogics.
corpus: At
this year's ImPulsTanz, you offer 200 workshops. How do you prepare the
programme? How do you select the instructors?
Rio Rutzinger: Our programming is composed of different viewpoints. We have such a
wide spectrum because we really want to address many people. We want to bring
many people to dance, and to present dance in its entire multiplicity. There
are matters which I myself find very intriguing and others I'm personally less
interested in, but of which we know that it's good if we offer them.
Principally I find it important that the workshop supervisors themselves have a
certain interest, a concern they want to explore. That makes for another kind
of communication.
corpus: How
did this programming develop?
Rutzinger:
Actually it began as a festival like from a dance studio. With the same things
dance studios still have today: Modern Dance, Jazz dance, a bit of Afro dance – and therefore percussion, too. Today's percussion courses still are a relic
from when we began. There always are people – professional dancers, too – who
like to sit in on a drum class in the evening in order to calm down. That's why
these classes have kept their place.
We had to give up others, like Flamenco or
step-dance. The visitors of those classes never were interested in other
courses or even went to the cafeteria to have a talk with others. However,
exchange is an essential part of our festival. It's important to me to have
everything take place in Vienna's Arsenal area. It's the only way of creating
easy possibilities for lots of encounters. I want the doors to be open and that
the cafeteria is situated on the way in the centre. Encounters should take
place effortlessly.
Strong life concepts
corpus: How
did you get to programme the workshops?
Rutzinger: I
started out in the workshop office – but I'd never had anything to do with
dance before.
corpus: And
then you began to take workshops yourself …?
Rutzinger:
(laughs) Never! In the beginning my motivation was a purely social one. I like
being together with people, and there always were lots of very amicable and
exceptional people among the dancers. I wanted to know what these people do:
Why do they want to dance, why choreograph? I watched and listened a lot, and I
asked very, very many questions. The way how choreographers and dancers lead
their lives, how they handle life, seems to be a really strong social concept
to me. They enter precarious life circumstances because they follow their
desire. Those life concepts are only possible if someone is filled with passion
and has urgent concerns.
corpus: Have
people, passions and concerns changed in the course of time?
Rutzinger:
What has changed in my view – and of course that's a generalisation, also
because I'm continously confronted with such masses here – is that now the
dancers and dance lovers begin much earlier to choreograph and to think about
making pieces. In the past I met dancers, now I meet a mixture of dancers and
dance-makers. This reflects in many ways. In former times the "big dream" could
maybe last longer. If you immediately begin to choreograph and to do stage
work, you soon realise that you have to become part of a system.
corpus:
Especially the dancers in the stipendiate programme "danceWeb" come from all
over the world. What knowledge do the different people have about contemporary
dance?
Rutzinger:
We often have seen that, e.g., danceWeb people from Africa who were living near
a French culture institute knew more about dance than many Europeans because
they's watched all the institute's videos. It's very intriguing for the
danceWeb mentors to meet people who know their stuff and therefore ask
questions. People want to learn from each other – and mentors, too. I also
discuss these things with them. Dealing with such a large group of young people
for five weeks only makes sense if they themselves are really interested in it.
corpus: Do
you know how the biographies of danceWebbers go on?
Rutzinger:
Yes, we're very interested in that. There are participants who take exception
to this supersize of dance at danceWeb. Here they make the experience that
there are 40 people apart from them who every day would give up everything for
dance, and they maybe find out that they're even more interested in film,
architecure, or their family, so they don't go on. Some may not continue
dancing, but are active in the field. There's more possibilities today: You can
do research or write, there are institutions and Internet media. It's still
precarious, but there have been some changes. Alas, the space for art and dance
in newspapers becomes less and less, but on the other hand there are more
possibilities of writing and reflecting.
Dancing as theory?
corpus: You
once said that you're critical with regard to theoretical formats because you
don't want it to become "too scientific". What do you mean by that?
Rutzinger:
In a sense, we certainly offer too little theory. On the other hand, theory
isn't so easily accepted at ImPulsTanz. People want to dance.
corpus: This
leads to another question: What does one understand by theory? One could also
call the 200 workshops theory. There is no mediation without theoretical
claims. Mediation in itself is theory already, and in this case the physical is
part of the theoretical discourse.
Rutzinger:
We hold discussions with the danceWeb mentors in the Arsenal. We take up issues
like the discrepancy between dance production and education or ask questions
like "What is authenticity in work?" or "What are titles?" I find this kind of
discourse immensely important. I also want to develop this form of discourse
further.
When I try to keep everything else in the
Arsenal in a flat hierarchy then this also holds true for the theoretical
discussion. I want to create an encouraging approach. Reflexion is an extremely
important issue in contemporary dance creation. In the research projects
there's lots of collective thinking and research. Aesthetic and sociopolitical
questions are being discussed via the medium of dance.
corpus:
Theory may offer models for thinking differently about the various techniques – structured formal techniques, techniques which offer more open systems or that
deal with perception. One could also maintain that ballet was a theory-heavy
method, a closed formal (language) system and a contemporary technique, that it
was wild poetics creating connections with other disciplines.
Rutzinger:
Yes, that opens up other vistas. At the same time I wish that contemporary
dance would put theory in motion, too. After all, the really exciting thing
about contemporary dance is that it's no longer just about pure forms but that
something new is created out of those forms with the help of different methods.
Moreover, contemporary dance is only rarely codified but mostly personified.
The question is not whether I'm offering contemporary dance at all, but rather:
contemporary dance by and with whom?
Technique and open systems
corpus: How
does one prepare a programme for the needs of dancers and choreographers? How
can you account for future possibilities, the future itself? Or do you believe
that pedagogics can only show what's there and that the artists themselves have
to develop it further?
Rutzinger:
In my opinion, this question cannot be answered today. I'm more interested in
breaching it again and again. Every year there's this argument: What is
contemporary dance? Should we even call it dance any longer? Every year we get
questions like: Why are we doing dance courses? What is the profession of the
contemporary dancer? What does this profession have to do with "dance" as we've
been understanding this term for a long time? Or: Does it make any sense at all
to keep learning technique?
corpus: "The
body as an open system" – what's your opinion on that?
Rutzinger:
There are so many ways of learning. In Jazz or Modern Dance you're learning a
form. With other techniques you're learning that it's important how you're
doing something and how you yourself can evaluate and accept it. No
contemporary teacher nowadays will say: "You'll do it now like I say" but
rather: "Do it like you do it". It's a conscious effort of mine to invite many
teachers who esteem technique and have different approaches to it, and who are
very convinced of their cause without being exclusive. It's very important for
me to find people who'll also have a look at the lessons in other classes.
corpus: Do
you think that through dance technique one may learn about different
possibilities of translating content?
Rutzinger:
The beautiful thing about these contemporary techniques is that they offer open
systems without imposing or enforcing anything. But this needs teachers who can
take it. Any form of openness makes it more difficult, any form of subtleness
makes it more complicated. In our research projects the different levels of
reflexion are formulated and collectively explored, too. Thus people with
different needs can choose what's important for them at the moment.
Exchange of opposites
corpus: How
do you see the relation between amateurs and professionals?
Rutzinger:
Naturally, lectures where there's lots of moving and dancing get booked more
than those which devote more time to reflexion. I think it's important that
both exist. Basically, dance should reach as many people as possible. Once they
come here, they might decide to try out something else the next time around.
Through dance they explore the body, and that's important for our society. You
don't have to go to the football ground every time you've got to relieve your
aggressions. There are people who want to sweat because it feels good. They're
not coming because of the art, but they still get in contact with art. Dancing
is different from bicycling or running. I hold this alternative kind of
physical discourse to be very important because it opens up a lot.
corpus: So
you wish to create possibilities with this heterogeneous, integrative setup
where people can discover something new.
Rutzinger:
Yes – we're also creating a potential audience for this field of art, and at
the same time we want to enable people to get into contact with themselves and
others in a different way. In a sense this is my social or political concern.
I'm thinking about this a lot when I invite teachers and think about the scene
in the Arsenal. Therefore I'm also interested in keeping the wide distribution.
Otherwise, it would become preaching to proselytes. Of course, the discourse
within the art field is very important. But others know better how to do it
than I do. What I'm good at is creating a setting where encounters and
communication take place which otherwise wouldn't do so.
corpus: But
you don't want to imagine a symposium as a place of encounter?
Rutzinger:
What I don't like about symposiums is the formality. You talk to people with a
microphone and a table in between. I think the circle is a fitting format for
ImPulsTanz. Or people sit together on the floor and exchange themselves.
Without mike and table. Where else have you got the chance of so many people
with similar interests sitting together … Naturally that's very heterogeneous.
But there rarely will be such a clash of opinions just because there's so
different people there. I really believe that's the only chance of getting on.
Perhaps then we'll be able sometime to answer questions like: "What does it
mean to be a contemporary dancer in the Zero Years?"
(This interview was held by Sabina Holzer
and Helmut Ploebst,
and published on July 6, 2008)
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