Rehearsals in Cologne and Arnhem
In the beginning of the rehearsal period both choreographers paid attention to mainly two aspects: to get to know all the dancers and to build a group. Hours were spent on exercises to reveal and question the knowledge of each participant about dancing, inducing possible links or confrontations in a group of people working together for the first time. Whereas Iván Pérez integrated into this process the music by Benjamin Scheuer from the first day of rehearsal, Georg Reischl decided to bring the music by Christiaan Richter into the studio after two weeks of building the group and working on musicality as a theme.
Both choreographers shared an approach to dance in which form and position are not a goal in itself. Rather, the choreographers offered space to break out of known patterns, to open up to surprises and failures or to conjure internal sensations. As such, improvisation, in particular, was an important means to achieve this in both processes.
Reischl’s working method includes exercises designed to foster dancers’ awareness of their own bodies, use of focus, tempo, and the possibilities of personal interpretations. Throughout the entire process Reischl explored with the dancers concentration exercises, scene sequences and group exercises encouraging an understanding and self-contained engagement with movement principles. When he did not get the results that he was looking for he tried to approach the situation from another angle.
Pérez had a different approach towards improvisation which centered around imagery. The dancers were asked to explore the psychology of behavior created by the image given, to identify with the image as directly as possible rather then analyzing it intellectually. Improvisation thus became a vehicle to dig into what you are as a dancer and ultimately as a person. The challenge was to keep a kind of childlike enthusiasm and spontaneity going along with the improvisation but to be mature at the same time.
After two weeks – in which Reischl’s cast had worked in ArtEZ in Arnhem at the same time Pérez’ at the Centre for Contemporary Dance / University for Music and Dance Cologne – the groups swopped locations. During the entire project students were asked to adapt to new surroundings.
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