In cooperation with...
how did you start here what brought you here because this is not the first time
you've been you are here in Prague so I can't remember the first time but it
seems to have become an annual invitation and I think at least four or
maybe five times I've been here once to do a solo in this very room play another
time was to work with the trio in the music festival that was either last year
or the year before and also I was invited to make a quintet piece which
included two great musicians and a selection of excellent dancers from here
here being not just the Czech Republic but also Slovakia Slovenia and that also
was if it wasn't last year it was just the year before and Here I am back again
mm-hmm and well how is it different or why did
you accept the invitation now this year is there anything different or with what
maybe expectations do you come why do I accept an invitation usually accept an
invitation because they can write a good mail okay and because there's something
that I feel when somebody writes a good mail that it is gen is a genuine
interest the interest is direct from them to the work and they feel that
something I might bring has not only relevance to the space to the local
community to the dance community to the local public who might watch but also I
rate it on whether there is a fume of space where my work can resound and be
received so it's a it's a it's a mutual interest and working from both sides and
I've always found that people have organized here and arranged for
things to happen it's just top-quality it's as simple as that it's it's a
pleasure to do the business side of things
and that very often is an artistic indication because if that's if that
side of things is complicated very often the artistic mind and the atmosphere
artistically is also complicated and here I feel the people in charge are
creative and they they take risk they have interest and those that combination
is very attractive to me I feel welcomed and supported which of course any artist
is hungry for okay and can you tell us a little bit more about the performance
part of your day yes this year and then later we go for the
workshop as well okay so what can we see if the public looks for the program and
see they'll see a piece called interview yes this is Tony and it's all in
capitals which is different from interview in in capital I am small
letters the piece itself is called interview because it's an interview I'm
quite a simple artist on some levels I like the title to be full of imagination
but also it doesn't need to be cryptic or confusing having said that there is
only one of us and I am both the interviewer and the interviewed and I
interviewed numerous different people and I asked some very particular
pertinent questions and the answers they give me I look forward to receiving and
I also get up and dance quite a lot and then sometimes I interview from dancing
and sometimes I am interviewed from dancing and sometimes I I don't know
exactly who I'm going to interview this Saturday but there
a wealth of interesting men and women that have touched me over the years and
the wonderful thing about interviewing them is that I find out more about them
and that interests me also especially those of whom who are dead because I can
interview them as if they're still alive and find out how they're doing and what
what their what their inspirations are a
I think in solo work the beautiful thing about a solo is that the whole world is
seen through the individual there's only one on stage and when the whole of the
world is seen through an individual it appeals to something individual in the
watcher and this is a particular state that any individual in the public has is
they're dealing with their perceptions of the world and they know that those
perceptions are different than their neighbors but they're still dealing with
their own perceptions so to see anybody in a solo form touches that particular
nerve in a piece where there's a group of people say 8 or 12 or 50 you know 3
or 4 then they're dealing with the world and the perception of the world as a
trio or as a duet or as a you know an octet so the base of a solo is that
you're speaking to the individual and how the individual is proceeding and
handling their life okay and you said you are the only one on stage are there
any other people behind the scenes so maybe some people that you would like to
work with when you work on the solo I mean there will be there will be
somebody doing the lights the lights yes and that is a very wonderful duet
because the creativity from the lights sees the piece from a completely
different angle and therefore makes decisions
in terms of lighting in a different way than I do from being on stage and that
gives the piece a richness because you have two points of view but apart from
the lighting guy and myself no it's just us - okay okay that was the performance
we are able to see and let's go maybe for the workshop because that's very
interesting and we have the participants of the workshop here so maybe from your
point of view with what do you approach the workshop do you have anything in
mind or maybe could you just first describe it what's the typical
day of the workshop or do you have any structure or you just approach it maybe
without any preparation or just let yourself be surprised the preparation is
intense and it's gone on for the last nearly 40 years and what that means is
that there is evermore a delicate and fierce and demanding specificity about
the pedagogy because the pedagogy the subjects all of the subjects that I
teach come from the experience of making pieces and performing that's where they
come from and that's where they're aiming to what the people do with the
information that's up to them but they know that it comes from the Performing
world and it's arrow is aimed towards making performance that's the that's the
through flow of the mind of it but because after many years there's
different sections there's a section that deals with time deals with the
space deals with working with objects deals with the voice deals with word
deals with solo deals with group work you can't cover all of that in one week
without making it slightly supermarket alike or symp
a taster for something else so this this particular the title of this week's
workshop is called making dances and poetic richness and again it is exactly
as described it is about the act of making dances and about the issue of
what is what is poetry what is what is a richness that we could call a poetic
richness and how can we actually work and allow that richness and that policy
to be in the dances we make maybe in general can you say what what do you
learn when you teach the workshops or what experience is it for I learn an
immense amount that's why I of course I go to my workshops because I give my
workshops so I have to be there on that level but one of the reasons I don't go
to nearly anybody else's classes is because I just keep learning so much
from the action myself and the sort of things that learn that I learn certain
areas of the work become clear they become clear on an experiential level
but also sometimes on an intellectual level and then sometimes that
intellectual level will lead to another zone which then becomes an experiential
level sometimes I join up the dots meaning that there'll be a zone that
I've understood in another zone and they've gone and now I see how they fit
together or there'll be something more of a
perspective I'll have a different perspective on this issue this issue
with this issue and I've already already seen it like this but I've never seen it
from that angle and all these different angles they make they orchestrate the
overall experience of the work and they're always very fresh for me
they're revelatory in the sense that when they when that when that light goes
on it really is the first time or it has the illusion of being the first time
I've really ever realized that this might be because III don't have the best
of memories so so maybe it's just that I forgot it but on the other level that's
part of the art of working is that you you work always especially as you mature
not with a false naivety but with an openness to hear it or see it or realize
it for the for the first time and I'm lucky that that often happens to me I
will see something that will be a certain configuration of people or a
certain way something is happening and then I go now I understand how this bit
fits into that bit of the puzzle and I have a feeling that that could go on for
another few decades so you could you imagine you would be only creating work
and performing and you would not teach or is it would you miss it or would you
just or is it the best for you if you do both I mean though I think I think it's
a profession where you know like medicine and like a few other
professions where they go together wonderfully because you know performing
I love to perform and there's nothing like being the stage beast that you are
and having that severity and frivolity that you can have on stage and yeah I
wouldn't want that ever to be taken away but there's a certain intimacy which
happens when you teach which is not just about that day but it's also about the
future you're intimate with the future because usually you teach people who
especially for me now who are younger than me so you're talking to the future
wow that's a great feeling that's like passing the baton and then yeah then you
go wow this thing has got a continuation and you're in touch literally you're in
touch with the future and I don't mean the future like some feared or overjoyed
moment event I'm talking about a whole lineage of time because I'm very touched
by my teachers and by the lineages that I come from and part of the work is just
to continue that lineage and that's that's a great great privilege in
teaching because you give credit to and you understand more and more but in
order to be in your lineage you demand it to take it further that's that's just
one of the deals you've got to take it further because if you're not taking it
further you're regressing there's no so you can't stand still in this work and
so the chance to have younger Minds hungry and demanding and questioning
that helps pull it pull the whole thing forwards so that's that's that that's
the beauty of teaching but some I'm not planning to stop performing ever yeah
yeah that's it's quite because that this there's something that happens in
performance although I allow this to happen also in class where you can go to
a higher level of sense you can go to another level and that's accepted or you
can at least demand that it's accepted another another another layer beyond a
certain quotidian normality and I think that's just such a beautiful thing to
share I think we all hunger for it
it comes from my daily life but it also feeds back down into our daily life so
any chance that that stuff can be swinging I'm happy man
well I usually go home and walk the dogs and these last 20 years I've been
looking after my boys and and I keep sure that the the house is you know not
falling down and things like that I don't usually go to those cocktail
parties I'm not very social like that I never I'm very shy and also it's so rich
to meet people in performance that it's so very rich to meet them in the context
of teaching that those other areas I just I just find myself somewhere else I
just and I don't I don't find them a problem because I'm not there if at any
moment on some level I've sensed those sorts of things two things one I ask
people to just be sincere so I will ask them if somebody's you know if somebody
says oh you know how you work is like a guru or something now that I said what
do you mean by guru I want to know you want to say something like that I want
to know what do you mean by that and very often it comes down very
quickly to something that somebody really wants to share and but the
opening door of it has gone into this other level which is really not so
important or interesting and is not it doesn't do justice to me and it doesn't
more importantly it doesn't do justice to the people who are saying it so I
just tried to ask the very obvious question you know just yes could you
could you say more about that or and it just brings it down to something usually
very very concrete and heartfelt the people in the
want to say in the end the only other thing I would say is you know it's the
work it's the work it's the work that's what's interesting you know I don't go
there for the people and in the end they don't come there for me they're there
for the work and this I was taught by some wonderful old dancers well they
were much older than me there and she they they were then younger than I am
now but they were too mean the old wise dancers at that point and I remember one
of them saying Julian don't worry about the students you know they're not there
for you they're there for the material and you don't need to go there for them
you go there for the material and that's where we meet Valda set a field used to
dance with most Cunningham she told me that very clearly and I found that so
simple and so generous actually because then there's an openness that people can
come for the material not for somebody or their personality or their whatever
and vice versa of course we like each other's
personalities at times or not but that's not the main reason that's what happens
at moments but the most important thing is this immaterial so as soon as I focus
on the material a lot of those things never rise up to even be issues
yeah it's not a it's not a professional way you can get away with being mean no
no this is a generous professional are just the very idea that you throw your
body about for years and years for hardly any cash I mean you know I mean
it you've got to be dedicated to something but what I find beautiful
about the the dancers they are incredibly generous all over the world
they you know they'll come and I'll ask them to do this all this and they're
ready to do it you know even even more than some other groups of people dancers
are incredibly generous they bring their bodies if it wasn't for the generosity
of the bodies and minds of dances in the last 50 years dance wouldn't have
evolved how quickly it has done in the last 50 years yes they've been great
teachers but great teachers are nothing without quality students and quality
means that they bring and they dare to experiment they dare to follow they dare
to go to the edge of their understanding and that that is a without that
generosity their whole machinery of the evolution of our of our dance work and
fear to work they just wouldn't have wouldn't have evolved at the speed it
has so yeah I think it's something deeply in the profession and I find that
very it's held together by generous people but people will have you staying
on their floor you know as Michael Moore said the whole thing is fragile but it's
through that fertility that actually lives and I think probably always did
live now this year go for it
the art work together I didn't actually say financial I said
business at least if I if I like I hope I said business where we can check on
the tape what I mean by that is as my dear friend bar Phillips says you know
you got to keep the business together you know you gotta you got a you got to
do your business as an artist and that doesn't mean to say that it's cool or
only economic that's to do with human relationships and when you turn up and
when you answer your emails and all of those things and that's that's taking
care of business and I think that there might be some romantic exceptions in the
late 19th century in some very famous town or other where you know artists are
eccentrics but all the artists I know are incredibly well-ordered and well
able to take care of business they might have a little weakness here or there or
the next place yes then that's understandable but no in this profession
especially you got to be able to take care of business and I do think that
when you do that what you're actually celebrating is the the sacredness nearly
of the time that doing good business allows you to have you know this space
were in this didn't just happen somebody organized and allowed it to
happen that takes working that takes co-working that takes colleague ship
that takes people with a vision that takes turning up on time for the meeting
and finding somebody to look after the kids you know that that's really what it
comes down to and I'm aware that all of my work and that's why I love to go to
the places that mostly I'm invited to is because it's really heartfelt that
invitation that that's that earned they've earned their right to want to
invite somebody and I find that that of course that's that that develops a
quality of person you know and let's not romance if I how artists are that
they're you know all over the place or they're constantly drugged or they can't
it's such a you know 19th century Romanticism of the situation artists
especially dance artists they have to keep their stuff together as well as the
drugs you know as well as that out time as well as as well as going off into
other worlds that they also had to be back in time for the contract and and
and I love that I love that about dancers they'll they'll they they bring
themselves and they look after themselves and they all the dance that I
started to do was organized by real intelligent women to put it really
bluntly and without those ladies and that's a
continuing story we wouldn't be here doing this it's really really really
simple as that
daddy berrykin in silicon they're
talking to you know what was my worst mistake God what was my worst mistake
well there was that party in about 1987 which was yeah I really shouldn't have
stayed so long or I should have stayed much longer I think it's not I would
have I would have left home earlier and yet had I done that I wouldn't have
studied English literature for three solid years and so I would have been
lost without that poetry in literature or a bit of big bit of me wouldn't have
been able to have the material to throb around but I I was I was ready to get to
get going straight away put it like this when I started I didn't lose a second of
time you know what is strange about those so-called mistakes is that they do
become less mistakes in the sense that you are demanded to actually use their
energy and at that moment of using their energy its alchemy you change them from
being a mistake you change them from being bad vibes into good vibes so it
feels difficult to look back and say that was a mistake not simply because
you protect yourself but literally because you've changed the past history
or you've changed the influence of that past history as it living now you know
but in order to do that yes you probably have to go oh yeah yeah made a mistake
there or it could have got out earlier or it should have left sooner
or I shouldn't have been so shy at that
moment because during the workshop you used a few times were pragmatic yes and
it's pretty funny because in context of art doing car dancing it's not very
usual to hear this word actually but IQ it's important important so I
just wanted to ask you if you can say something about it because that's what I
mean public maybe might think that art is something which is flying somewhere
in the air and it's crazy and artists are you know those crazy okay what we do
on stage is not the same as what the people receive that's the deal and in
order maybe for them to receive the empyrion heights or the you know the the
Faustian depths or to go way way off on a universe higher or lower that that can
only be received by them if we deal if we deal with the vegetables you know if
we deal we've got to deal with real solid actual things if we get that right
then what can come over is this beautiful privilege that the audience
has to go beyond those things but I don't think it's for the people on stage
to just immense just wallow in the idea of going beyond
because you're they're never going to get beyond unless they're actually
dealing with those practical things I love these old blues songs that says
make it real babe one more time make it real make it real but us in the audience
we're as high as kites we're getting we're being taken to these wonderful
different levels but the guys on stage accounting if it's eight bars or nine
you know and that's that's that that's the beautiful deal about playing the
music you know they're counting okay maybe they count in this way or that way
but that that they're taking care of the pragmatic
you know and the fury feud if you're dealing with if you're dealing with the
stage with space you deal with every meter you deal with one of the great
dancers Fred Astaire you know he divided up the stage into something like a
hundred by a hundred tiny little squares and numbered them so he could turn and
put the foot just on 58v that's dealing with what you see is this wonderful
light and airy did that lets practice down to the millimeter you know and if
it's really practiced well the people in the audience they don't get that the the
weight or the or the years or the hours of that of that pragmatism but body is
pragmatic and have no fear about it because if you go deeply into the
pragmatics you get to the poetic but you've got to go right into them you've
got to go deep deep deep into the into the not just the pragmatic details but
how they are being because that's the wonderment that's really the wonderment
oh I don't know if you've ever seen Japanese would joint Carl look at them
how about how the Japanese make joints for wood it's I mean you look at it and
it's completely pragmatic but it's totally poetic it's just you cannot
imagine how they how that happened and I I love making things just physically I
come from that tradition and I like to build things and I feel that when we
make things in theatre those details are important and when you get them right
then something can fly way beyond those details if you don't pay enough
attention to them it doesn't work so well the word parables yes
probably the art but probably life like a bottle of private life or any other I
don't know he's full of paradoxes right and and
it's kind of like the main thing maybe in the art no I don't know that it's
constantly yes and cuz and also no like it's in computers you know in the know
in the quantum computer you know it works like that that there is yes and no
in the same time okay okay in the in the in the same time I think you to be very
careful with both paradox and irony they're there to be to be handled with
with delicacy you don't want to get too involved with those things in the wrong
mood otherwise they'll they'll string you up I think they'll they'll they'll
they'll tie you into a corner well they'll just throw you into some zone of
cleverness to try and survive what I mean is that when you go deeply into
anything you will find a lair or you will find a certain moment when the
truths seem to flip so for instance and on the Earth's crust every mountain
range that goes up of course because it's a mountain the crust gets deeper at
that point and there are many many even scientific moments when but there's a
certain point when you go in far enough or deep enough where the rules
completely change they flip and that that is this that is where this world
this world of paradox so for instance in the space work that we do when you
become really able to be physically what I call here right on the ground and
right in deeply relaxed in the actual daily life of the place where you are
there's a certain moment when suddenly is deeply available instantly and you
can actually dream about or images from where you aren't suddenly come into
where you are and the these flips are there are the paradox that there they
are they are the paradoxes but you I think you had to be very respectful of
that otherwise they become very dialectic is it this is it to that and
then you go ping pong ping pong and I think that's that's I think that's a
danger but what's important is that if you go deep and you meet one of these
moments where it flips you have to be prepared to change rules completely
because you're in a different state and every state needs a different way of
riding it it's just like a horse you know when you walk in you have to go
like this when you're trotting you have to go up and down or just lean back when
you're countering you have to go like this when you're galloping it you cut
you you have to change state to go to change your physiology to to go into the
different state so when you when you meet a paradox
you have to open something in your mind which is not just balancing around one
one perception of truth in one way
today
yes right yes yes indeed indeed the balance is the balance shifts and of
course this dependent this depends on which theatres you are in because if you
were in a theater that was nearly in the round or a semicircular then of course
what would be what would be developed or stimulated would be something where the
radiology of space is more celebrated it also depends on the weather the people
are sitting down or standing up often when they're standing up it's more
radial because they're they're just moving a bit it depends whether they got
a drink in their hands or whether they're sitting around tables like in a
jazz club you play in a jazz club and it's a different atmosphere so all of
these things onto the balance and part of the work is to be to notice those
changes of balance and to be realistic that they're changing but nevertheless
to not let that disturb you with what it is you want to do when I was in
Darlington in England there were great storms in the South of England over
those years and there was a Japanese shakuhachi player which is a kind of
flute that is very delicate with the embouchure and whenever it was a windy
night he would go out and play in the storm because the storm would just come
in gasps but he wanted to have that challenge to play and to get through
absolutely what what he his intention with his embouchure and his way of
playing in spite of the different balance of air that was going on in a
storm compared to a quiet musical inside situation so yeah the balance changes
and then that challenge is how deep how deeply you are familiar with what it
is you want to do so it's it's a great challenge and it's one to prepare for
but it's a live Beast each time yeah
oh yeah totally it changes everything but you change everything to remain the
same no I want to be changed I like performing that's why you perform
because you want to be in the live moment and in the live moment you're
changed it doesn't mean to say that you're dependent on the audience no is
this you interested in change it's like a sailor you know you want to go out and
face the sea in the wind how it is at that moment yeah and if you have
performer you just want to be in that environment and because it's live you
have a chance to be absolutely realistic with that live moment so of course
you're altered the question is are you thrown overboard by it I you are you
lost do you lose all what it is you want to share do you lose your ability to
hear and to perceive because those balances changed that's the I think
that's for me the critical question if it's too many if it goes too out of
balance for what you can handle then you're in panic and you're just
surviving and that's that's but those moments are so that are so beautiful in
performance I I did a show in Buenos Aires in a huge theater there that
they've just recently closed and this was at the beginning of when people had
mobile phones and in one half of the audience somebody had a mobile phone and
the other half of the audience somebody had a young kid and at one
point the mobile phone went off and another point the kid went off it was a
revolution between the two sides of the theater you know and it was so it was so
much fun because there was just this energy in the place they were about you
know they were yeah but you're good you get it was great you know and so I just
I loved that energy I just whipped them up I tried I tried to get it to be and
you know a quick Civil War before 10 o'clock at night you know it was great
it was because there was just energy there so it's always a case of
you can handle it it can also be something which is like a light it can
shine more light on what you want to say rather than disturbing you from what it
is you want to say okay well I think we can just finish here I think we heard
some pretty interesting things so thank you very much you're very welcome
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