Dance and writing. Can they go together?
On the one hand, there are the dancers, a troupe working together in the rehearsal room.
Social behaviour is a must. They are individuals, with their own personality, demands, sorrows and daily level of fitness.
Almost always under the guidance and leadership of a choreographer. Usually in conjunction with music.
Only possible under limited pressure and with limited rehearsal times, because the body can't just play Duracell bunny and dance, sweat and memorise steps for hours without a break.
Oh yes: And eating, drinking and sleeping anyway.
And there's the writing.
This ivory tower-like process. Alone with a notebook, in front of a laptop or PC. Just you, your brain, your soul and your words, sentences and syntax that can be patiently written down on a white sheet of paper, saved or erased again. No matter what time of day or night.
Some people write a book for years. Spontaneously publishing a book is probably more like utopia.
Dancing requires extreme time management. Hardly anyone can afford to tinker with a piece for years until it is published. Paper, on the other hand, is patient. Dancers and the theatre are rarely not. And certainly not the audience.
Dance, bodies, their forms and dynamics in space are so fleeting: only in the here and now.
The reverberation, an echo of an emotion, an image leaves its mark on one or the other in the auditorium, leaving behind a feeling, a trace, a realisation or simply an experience.
Irrevocably gone.
In the case of a text or even a book, I turn back the pages if necessary, look for the last sentence I can remember and read on. Ten years later, I pick up the book again and read it again.
Well, there are clear differences.
But fortunately not only: the way to create something, the plot, the initial situation, what you want to show, tell or trigger in the viewer, has exactly the same origin, the same starting point, as someone who wants to write and tell a book or simply a story:
Concept, dramaturgy, time and space, choice of title, visuals, setting, narrative style, ... everything is in the hands of a choreographer, just like a writer.
Handing over responsibility to the dancers after the premiere, letting them present the work on their own, leaving the stage to them, is just like sending the book outside, leaving it to the readers.
Without assistance, without being able to explain or even clarify anything.
What is read is understood as the reader reads it. What the viewer sees and feels when watching dance is just as subjective as when listening to music, looking at visual art or watching a film.
You have to let go. At a certain point, you have to leave everything to itself. It's hard, but it's also fascinating and if you accept this as part of the whole process and allow it to happen, it can only be enriching.
Keep on moving and writing.
See you then and goodbye!
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