‘«HIGHER» evokes an ancestral dimension of dance as an individual and collective ritual.’
What is the genesis of the performance ‘HIGHER’?
‘HIGHER’ was born in 2014 during a residency at the Frascati Theatre in Amsterdam, where I was given carte blanche to propose a research project. At that time, clubbing was something that absorbed me completely, independent of any intention of aesthetic translation.
It was an intense and complex experience, with its many facets – the experience of the night, the music, the community that forms around that – that did not end on the night itself or at the weekend, but reverberated through the other days.
During the residency I tried to bring that enthusiasm back to the studio. I recall the word ‘enthusiasm’ and its Greek root evoking the feeling of being possessed, as if overwhelmed by the power of this experience.
In the studio, we soon realised that it was impossible to represent that type of set up, which is extremely specific in all its elements, and which are inseparable from the space where it takes place.
The turning point came when we realised that we should not work on a representation of that experience, but try to perceive an echo of it, to create a conversation, a dialectical relationship between the dance of the night and dance as an art form. I had recently graduated from the School for New Dance Development and was studying visual arts at the Sandberg Instituut meanwhile.
The idea of a dialogue between the two practices freed us from working on a representation of the clubbing dance experience: approaching it from a clinical point of view did not seem right to us. With this other approach, we felt we were not betraying its essence and were being less desecrating.
We came up with the idea of codifying small sequences based on our most typical movements, some of which were inspired by a type of ecstatic dance that was very popular in Amsterdam in those years (2012-13) called konijnendans, rabbit dance, a typically Dutch technique that in turn is derived from various styles.
Bringing together this ‘best of’ of our most specific movements in a single sequence, then repeating it, made us realise that working in unison helped us reach a state, not quite of trance, because the performance only lasts 35 minutes, but approaching it.
Although we worked in obsessive unison, our specificities emerged – different approaches, different bodies, different weights, different attack and release – and I think this became the fundamental quality of the work: in its uniformity, it releases the individuality of each of us.
It is symbolic of what happens in clubbing and raving, a collective practice where the individual, formative, spiritual experience is given extreme weight and is catalysed by the collective. The 2014 theatrical version of ‘HIGHER‘ took place in a black box, with a specific light design preceding the show to help the audience tune into this hypnotic unison of three performers, preparing the beat, the nervous system.
How did it come to be performed at the Stedelijk Museum?
In 2018, the Stedelijk Museum launched an open call to artists living in Amsterdam, as part of the Municipal Acquisitions programme. The exhibition was entitled ‘Freedom of Movement’ and was curated by Karen Archey. For the occasion I proposed ‘HIGHER‘, imagining together with the curator a reconfiguration of the performance for the exhibition space. The confrontation with the museum space was important for me because of the type of work I was doing.
‘HIGHER‘ in the theatre was rather hermetic, the performers looking down, concentrating on their own state of ‘trance’. Museum visitors were naturally more predisposed to perceive the essence of the work. Here, the viewer is ready to unfold his or her experience within the aesthetic space as an individual, to explore it as an individual entity, to make it an intimate experience.
Perhaps taking it off the stage and presenting the performance in the midst of people resulted in a different type of involvement. How was it changed in ‘HIGHER xtn’?
The choreography was modified for a 360-degree view, not a frontal one. However, it is still a performance, it has a fixed duration. The set-up is always the same and a collectivity is formed around it, so it retains its theatrical character. But because it takes place in an exhibition space, the intimate and personal dimension of the museum viewer remains. I realised that this way of presenting the work was much more effective.
In 2019 we presented the performance at the Stedelijk, where it took place on weekends over four weeks. With each iteration, the number of performers increased, from a minimum of three to a maximum of twelve.
Perhaps thanks to the word-of-mouth that the weekly cadence allowed, there was such participation that they decided to move the performance from a gallery room to the lobby at the entrance, opening it free of charge to a larger audience.
On this occasion, another new thing happened for me: the audience started filming, posting and sharing the performance. Suddenly a new kind of spectatorship opened up, which perhaps helped define this hybrid way of accessing work, which is special to me.
What kind of audience did the performance attract? People who saw themselves reflected in the clubbing experience?
The audience has always been very transversal, extremely varied: it is an accessible work, in a way simple, that is its quality. ‘HIGHER’ can also be perceived abstractly: not only as a work about clubbing, but also about dancing together.
‘HIGHER’ is rooted in clubbing, but recounts an experience that transcends this specific culture, evoking an ancestral dimension of dance as an individual and collective ritual. Music helps us enter this dimension.
I was lucky to work with Lorenzo Senni, who has a minimal, abstract, ‘pointillistic’ approach to electronic music. The music in ‘HIGHER’ is a total deconstruction of a techno track, designed to produce a hypnotic state. The music is as important as the performers; it is not complementary but fundamental.
How will the performance be adapted to the CAM spaces?
We usually work in a square area, but in this case the performance will be developed more along a length, adapted to a longitudinal space. The theme of inhabiting a space, building an atmosphere, is important to me.
To be a choreographer is to work with space, on movement, on the body in space, which goes far beyond the question of placement.
The performers’ movement changes our perception of space, creates empty and full spaces, dilates and shrinks it, makes it elastic. We usually perceive objects as emerging from the visual field, sometimes dance allows us to see the negative spaces between objects. It shifts the hierarchy of what we perceive and shows its continuity. I believe that this is the magical action that dance is often able to enact.