Ultima Vez, nieuwZwart (new black)

Photo: Pieter-Jan De Pue

Supreme dancing, so so dance, and mediocre choreography. Yes, there is a difference between the three. The piece, which was clearly driven by the existentialist and evolutionary themes that you often detect in Vandekeybus’ work, was comprised of live music, set design, theatre and dance – kind of like a musical, yet not quite. The first scene, in which the dancers appeared naked on a dark stage, was definitely the most sensational – the mood was creepy-crawly and very exciting, but then this mysterious vibe disappeared and the rest of the piece seemed a bit like a run-of-the-mill. Although, one dancer, a blond Icelandic girl, managed to keep me intrigued the whole way through by her incredible stage presence.

Random Scream & Davis Freeman, What You Need To Know

Photo: Davis Freeman

Short, but handy. We learned how to gun someone down – Davis F. thought it might save our lives one day, so he practically gave a demonstration of how a pistol, semi-automatic, revolver, rifle, shotgun functions. Then came the funny bit: we got to shoot the dancers on stage. Was he trying to tell us something?

Ann Liv Young, The Bagwell In Me

Photo: Scott Newman

This is the most outlandish shit I’ve ever seen. It was freaky. But it had to be: the piece was about slavery and how the first American president, George Washington, allegedly fell in love with his own slave maid. As an unfortunate byproduct of his hyperactive presidential loins, she became pregnant, a fact that he consequently kept secret like any good politician. Ann Liv dealt with it in such a kinky, but also surprisingly serious, way. It was frightening, shocking, disgusting, and Ann Liv, the most eccentric performer I’ve ever seen, made the performance so intense that it is haunting – The Bagwell In Me was the last thing I thought about before falling asleep last night, and the first thing I thought about when I woke up this morning. It must be good.

Trajal Harrell & Sarah Sze, coaching project: Visual Art, Choreography, and The Practise of Performance.

This was a 5 days 6 hours a day workshop at ImpulsTanz festival – and one of a kind. We studied Trajal’s and Sarah’s work, a bit of Tino Sehgal’s and Santiago Sierra’s, plus talked about and discussed many many more. We were given texts from, inter alia, the book: The Swedish Dance History (really cool – and it’s free. Order it from: marten@inpex.se or have a look at www.inpex.se). Main themes of the workshop were: concept art, relational aesthetics, installation art, and choreography (thinking of it not necessarily being a dance). It was incredibly interesting, thought-provoking and revealing. It was 5 days of pure stimulus. It was fun. This is a picture of me and Trajal on the last day.

I’m the disciple, he’s the leading light. Cute, huh?

Image: 1968-10-19: Dancer Merce Cunningham (John Launois)

First we lost MJ, then PB, and now MC.

Depressing.

Loosing great influential people always seems so unreasonable and unfair, we kind of need them. On the other hand, they’ll be remembered forever and in order for new talent to grow, I suppose old have to go.

Thanks Merce and Pina, thanks for everything.

During the ImPulsTanz festival there are so many performances that my eyes are about to fall out. It’s fantastic. Here are some snapshots of the performances of the first week.
Kerstin Kussmaul & Jan Burkhardt, Vexations : Wir nennen es Arbeit

Photo: Laurent Ziegler

If you like solving puzzles, this installation is right up your alley and was definitely an interesting method of involving the audience (as the performance). For every task you did, the price of your ticket was reduced. Great. Well, since my ticket was free this didn’t exactly apply to me, so I got away with not doing anything but observing everyone else that chose to move around the space. I did give myself the task of listening, so I did. Very carefully. Ah, music – I did not even realise that I was listening to the same piece over and over again. This is the beauty of Erik Satie’s Vexations. But I didn’t stick it out for all 840 repetitions.

Savion Glover Productions (the opening of the ImpulsTanz festival)

Photo: Savion Glover Productions

The Tap Master: Savion Glover. Or Happy Feet, if that suits you better. It suits me better, but I couldn’t actually see his feet because of the sea of people in front of me. His locks are cool though – they were bouncing around his head and face, while he was tapping along to the jazz music, played live by his band. Happy Locks, perhaps?

Rosas/Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, The song

Photo: Michel Francois

Dance (performed by incredible dancers with incredible physiques), sound (resourceful, live sound-effects) and light (like silent fireworks when a silver cloth descended from the ceiling). Together. I enjoyed this. Some bits were drawn out too long. Others right up my street, although the spectacular effects sometimes seemed to be dominating the aesthetic of the piece – almost too much for my taste. But only almost too much, because the piece was unpredictable… So I guess specularity won in the end.

Random Scream & Davis Freeman, Investment

I will never buy a lottery ticket, bet money, play poker or any game of luck in my life again. Not that I ever really did, but I now know enough to regret that I even thought about it. The responsibility is simply to great – if you win that is. If you don’t, it’s just stupid that you tried in the first place. Investment deals with the issue of money and responsibility by investigating the hypothetical event of sudden wealth. They even handed out lottery tickets. This piece is a good response to the current social climate, still in the aftermath of the economic crisis. We panic, we become greedy, we forget that money is not just fun to have. If you don’t have money, you don’t have responsibility.

Yeah, that didn’t make sense. I take it back; money is fun to have and if you’re poor you still have responsibility. But thanks to this piece, I do not want a lot of money. Just a little bit, please.

Last Christmas I applied for the danceWEB scholarship… And was lucky enough to get it, together with 62 other dancers/creators. So now (and for the next 4 1/2 weeks) I find myself in Vienna with dance classes/courses, performances and parties, ad libitum. The danceWEB scholarship is a 5 weeks residency at the ImpulsTanz/Vienna International Dance festival, which takes place every summer. Anyone can apply.

Up until now we (the danceWEB’ers) have had the pleasure of meeting/getting to know each other in various ways – it is a bit like a trip back in time to when we were all still in primary school going on a schooltrip or to a camp somewhere. In a good sense of course (we don’t spend most of our time roasting marshmallows). It’s actually liberating to just have everything arranged for you in the way that danceWEB is doing it. They even feed us sometimes.

Throughout the festival, I will keep you updated on this blog.