The lingual body (as defined in my research carried out for Danslab Research Centre, The Hague, 2008) founds its source to move not on form or codes and space related actions, but on more deep sensations. Its aim is to disorientate the asserted knowledge, to de-construct it without loosing its reference, working on ways to construct scores, where set structure coupled by improvisation give space to the performer to re-experience his body. I investigate not the execution of movement material, but the process to arrive to that execution, what is needed in the body and in the mind, how the two relate with each-other, being in a constant what I call zigzag process. Thus an extremely expressive new material is created: the body speaks.
The encounter is the way of showing himself to the external world - a representation determined by personal story, temper and actual situation. In the dynamics of the encounter between two individuals, two bodies, play a determinant role the opposition of closeness and otherness, the precarious settlement of power and hierarchy rules, the dialectic of desire, seduction and fear.
I run away from the idea of a consequent natural body on stage, an organic unity; I believe the body is an accumulation of history, knowledge, social schemes and experiences, both of the body and the mind. I want to make visible the relation between mental and bodily activity.
The theme of the eye develops itself in a threefold direction: the performer's eye, the spectator's and the camera's.
The eyes of the performer and of the spectator intermingle; the third one, the camera's, underlines and amplifies the vision. The camera is both passive and active in its registering and rendering what it has caught. How far can the mechanical contribution become creative and acquire strength of its own?
I would endeavour, through the casting of image live, to emphasize details otherwise invisible to the spectator: a sweat drop, the throbbing breast of the fatigued performer, the glance of an off-stage performer. Thus the camera, still remaining a tool, offers new, unexplored possibilities for a further study on the body interacting with other bodies.
It may happen that an accumulation of different bodies, memories and thoughts offer on the stage a scattered 'I'. By inserting and using all these different 'I' as simultaneously as possible, I can get closer to the performer, to the human being on stage and find the three-dimensional vision I am looking for.
The centre of my research on the stage is, therefore, the interacting process between choreographer and performer, the interaction of mental and bodily activities.
I am not so much interested in making pieces with aesthetics based on the harmonious organization of bodies on stage; my primary interest is a deconstruction, which investigates communication, experience, and perspectives. The ultimate desire is that the spectator, through the experimentation of the performer, is brought into the position of re-experiencing his own body.
photo by Jochum Vrijiand
