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DANCING "SETTLEMENT" AS A WORKSHOP PROJECT. AN INTERVIEW WITH HANS VAN DEN BROECK
By Helmut Ploebst
corpus: What is the intention behind your "Choreographers' Venture" project "Settlement" at ImPulsTanz?
Hans van den Broeck: I think it comes from my love for fiction, narration and concreteness. I have never been very abstract in my approach. The other thing - which is maybe even more important - is that, as a creator, you always make your performances in a studio. This is a process I like, but in a way the conditions under which you create are always the same. And you create and create and create. But you also have questions. So it is good to have some independent time. Every choreographer has these questions: How do you evolve? How can you observe other things? At a certain point, I started doing shorter projects apart from the main creation, which can be more risky, and do not need a long-term planning. Actually, the workshops I did were often combined with public showings, even if there was just a small audience involved. I think we all want to be on stage, this is why we are doing that. So it is good to have a public moment.
The idea for "Settlement" was born when I was invited to Australia. It was this combination, of them having more money than for just a workshop, but not enough money for a creation. Okay, what can we do with that? Australia is a very old country, with a lot of history and migration. The concept of settlement gave me a specific idea: the settlement as a field of action, a frame, an arrangement.
corpus: So you came up with this idea of a settlement from the conditions you found there?
Van den Broeck: I was there twice. The first time, I was there to teach. Then we said that it would be nice to continue, because we had started to build stories. Then the idea for "Settlement" came up. It is important for the participants to understand the setting: it is a performance, a fiction. We make things. We do not live together 24 hours a day. This would be something else. It is still connected to the idea of the workshop. We extract some things, which we think could be part of our "Settlement". It is a semi-constructed performance.
For us it was also interesting to take a performance and go somewhere else and redo it. What will happen? So the procedure is always the same, but the outcome is always very different, because there are different people involved. The different cities, the different political situations, all these things have an influence. It is also important to mention that I always go together with a crew. We are four people. So that gives us four different perspectives.
corpus: What are the different tasks when you are four different people?
Van den Broeck: The warm-up for instance. The kind of communication systems you give to the performers to approach movement is very important. I personally rather prefer the game part than the technical part of it. So we share that. One person is doing release technique and my part then is already more part of the "Settlement." It is also very important to discuss a lot. And then we take decisions together. We also perform ourselves, so it is also a bit of a confrontation between the participants and us. It is almost like two settlements coming together. (laughs)
corpus: How do you start working with the people?
Van den Broeck: I do something I call "silent day," which I also do in my creations sometimes. It means the participants come in and don't know what will happen. We are busy with something. We don't speak. So they start to invent something. What happened here in Vienna was very nice. We went on for four hours, which is a long time. There was a microphone and we used it, but never just to say: Shall we do this or that? We used it in a fictional way. And for me it helps to be with them, to share a reality and not just impose a narration on them.
corpus: What are the parameters of the structure?
Van den Broeck: In a way it is very scattered, but there are key words that we find important, for example: hierarchy. What is the idea of hierarchy in a settlement? Rules. There are rules. So there is somebody who breaks them - like in real life. The compositional idea of settlement is that moments switch very quickly. It is almost edited like a movie. You cannot really play things out. We create more moments than situations. So I have to tell the people that they have to really be in the moment, but not for too long, because otherwise we would need hours. It is also a different way of dealing with the reality of the stage.
corpus: To what extent does your background as a psychologist have an influence on your work with people?
Van den Broeck: I think it flows more into the perception of life in general than into the workshops. I mean, of course, it is there, maybe more indirectly. I like the different layers of personalities. Every person is full of contradictions. This is something I also find interesting in exercises and performances. That the reality on stage is sometimes less complex is a pity. Sometimes I feel it is too sober. I say: Let the people see you, your ambiguity.
Yesterday we did an exercise, which was very good. There were two people and we had to manipulate them with very little movement in a fictionalised situation. For instance, I put your cigarette there, so now it points to that lady. Now what do you think of that? How does it feel? Some people went with the changes so quickly that you could not read what was really there. You did not read the potential of somebody sitting there and the ambiguity of the person suddenly being in a strange situation. So the group realised that it had to be small changes. Like just eyes looking up can signify boredom, fear, so many different things. But you have to go step by step. It is important for me that when we do the "Settlement" we still have to provide a workshop experience.
corpus: What are your ideas about workshops?
Van den Broeck: In workshops, people present a very specific approach to work. Here at ImPulsTanz you get very different approaches. I think this is good. Not that you're gonna be doing exactly what they're doing. That is impossible, it is always their way. But I can really try to become somebody else for a week. I can do this in a physical way but also in a dramaturgical way.
I like eclectic approaches. For variety's sake, we should not lose that, also not in the stage work. In a certain way, art is something - this is a cliché, but still - so personal. So why should a certain approach take over? That's why things in dance, in particular, will never finish. I also like the idea of recycling. When I studied psychology we had a lot of dance courses at university which we could take. We had classes with Steve Paxton, then I did tap dance and Graham. Whatever our level was, we went through it. I am very happy that I did a lot of moving before narration came in. You have a different starting point than you do in theatre work.
As a teacher, I think it is important to know what my "department" is. I work with the dramaturgy of the body and the movement. It is different from teaching dance technique. If you have a dance technique, you have certain guidelines. If you work in the fictional part, it gets more tricky. It depends so much on the perception. But at the same time, when I teach, I have to find a way of transmitting something. It is important to me to bring people to perform in a group. It is a very hard thing to learn, how to provoke, not over-provoke, to stimulate, how to give in.
I want to create a situation where I can witness something, to get an awareness of potential. Like if you take a cord and stretch it so much that it nearly snaps. I like this tension and vibration. It can happen if two people speak to each other. It does not have to be anger. It can be quietness, happiness. These are the certain vibrations I am looking for in exercises.
corpus: What do you mean with dramaturgy of the body?
Van den Broeck: It is a way of trying to canalize your energies. Of course you also need to do this in your personal life, but we are doing stage work, so I have to do it in a way that the other people can see it. So an outsider has to see what is me. In order to make that possible I have to canalize my ways of moving and behaving. One needs strategies for that. Sometimes it is about movement technique, but one can also have an action plan. When do I go into action and when not? How do I master the energy I use? It seems so evident, but it is so hard to do. It is also hard to isolate things. So when you are teaching, you're trying to convey an awareness of the parameters. I think the exercises have to be a kind of surgery.
corpus: How do you transport the people form an everyday state of mind into a performance state of mind?
Van den Broeck: I like it when there is an atmosphere for a game. Sometimes I miss it when people analyze, or they try to do something, which is so important or right or authentic. It takes the energy away. I think that a game is very important. It does not have to be silly, it can also be very sad for example. I like to create an atmosphere of "not me" or "what if." With the group here in Vienna, when we started out, the people came in and we didn't know each other. I said: "Don't put your work clothes on." I sometimes feel that when people put their work clothes on, lie down and stretch, something is gone. I like this edginess you get at the beginning. Although they stay in their normal clothes, it is somehow easier to get them into a game. Because if everybody changes clothes, we're establishing a clear situation: we are warming up.
Sometimes you have to help them to get into a fiction. Once I started to talk to them as if we were alcoholics. So we sat down and I said: "Thank you for being here, and for going through this tough period of time with me." And, of course, they don't know what is going on and they listen and nobody asks questions. I don't want them to know in advance that it's just a game, because then it wouldn't be a game anymore. I like to set up situations which are destabilising. Because then people retreat to their conditional reflexes. They do what-do-I-know and what-do-I-not-know. You see them reacting, you start to see them thinking hard: what am I doing here?
corpus: You make them go to their "life strategies" and not to their "art strategies."
Van den Broeck: Yes, I think we are actually feeding ourselves from life experience. Not just our own, but also our uncles' and fathers' and mothers' and cousins'. All our ancestors'. They are all very welcome. What kills me the most is to be in a completely white space and the people warm up and stand in front of me and look at me like: What are we going to do now? Of course you have to warm up, because we work very physically. But not at the beginning. The beginning is very important and precious.
Sometimes it can also be difficult. When I still had fewer years behind me, I was sometimes in a position that the people were walking around and you could see: this is not working. This can always happen. But with time you learn how to canalize these energies. You can bring them back with practical interventions, which can be brutal. When people don't see anymore, they start constructing. Then I say: "What are you doing?" This is weird for them, and they say: "You put me in this situation that I don't know and now you're asking me: what are you doing?" I don't mean it in a bad way, because afterwards I talk about it. It is always important that you know what you are doing. There has to be a reason. Otherwise I cannot go on.
corpus: And what if they overact or construct a theatrical situation?
Van den Broeck: I always say: "Don't think, look first." Look what is there, then we take it from there. Body and rhythm give you very concrete ways to play. It is not about a rational or psychological approach.
Transcribed by Sabina Holzer
(August 10, 2008)
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