Shimmying with Friends and Strangers. By Fearghus Ó Conchúir

In September 2011, Fearghus Ó Conchúir wrote the following article focused on his experience during the research he developed at Dance Gate Lefkosia Cyprus.

My abiding memory of the research time I spent in Nicosia was of the last evening spent with some of the delegates of the Dance/Body conference on the Turkish side of the city. We followed the academic Stavros Karayanni there to a cafe in a beautiful old square that once a month hosted a ‘pink party’ for gays and lesbians. There, Stavros danced a delicious, friendly belly-dance and I felt in that moment the embodiment of the conference theme: Dance/Body at the Crossroads of Culture.

Here was dancing where politics, gender, sexuality and ethnicity shimmied and swayed. And it felt good to be there.

Interview with Luca Silvestrini

The italian choreographer Luca Silvestrini lives and works in London and leads the company Protein. Border Tales is the title of his modul-dance project, with which Silvestrini explores the idea of migration. Interview done during a research period at Graner, in Barcelona.

More modul-dance videos on Numeridanse.tv

 

“Episode”. By Frauke Requardt

On September 2011, Frauke Requardt wrote this text about her experience as modul-dance artist.

Creating Episode was an incredible rich learning experience to me. It has been the first piece of work as the sole director following on from three collaborations of different kinds. To be the only one who calls the shots, to be the one who’s vision is the centre motivation is a responsibility and a joy much different from sharing this position. It was a great reminder of what it is that I deeply care for in my art and also a pleasant surprise as I acknowledged the growth from these previous joined experiences coming into play when directing solely.

We had a residency in Dublin at Dance Ireland and a residency in Tilburg at Station Zuid as part of modul-dance. Each of those residencies brought out a surprise or an unusual perspective onto the work. There seems to be a ‘re-shuffling’ of the things you ‘know’ when placed into an unknown environment. The questioning of what I usually take for granted then seem to be what brings the new insight. There are a number of other important aspects to being away from your usual stomping ground: Firstly, there is an undivided focus for the work as interruptions from daily life are taken away. Secondly, there is an intense and intimate exchange between the people you work with. It has been a real joy and a great benefit to the work to get to know each other in this way. In which other profession do you spend three weeks in a packed house with each other, cook and eat together and share thoughts and, well, the bathroom? The residencies definitely provided for personal growth on an interpersonal level -meaning there was a learning process in the way we communicate with each other. Communication seems to be any way at the core of the creative process somehow.

The creation of “Home for Broken Turns”. By Ben Duke

We began the creation of Home for Broken Turns at Station Zuid in Tilburg. We had two weeks in their fantastic studio. It was a new group of dancers so it was a time to meet and explore ideas. To begin a process in a residency situation like this is, I find, invaluable. The process of getting to know each other is accelerated when you are removed from your usual environment and living together in a bungalow in the Dutch woods. I had an idea about a group of women waiting for a friend/fellow/outcast to return but those two weeks in Tilburg made it clear to me that this was a piece about a family and the dynamics of that family formed in the Station Zuid studio.

Our second modul-dance residency was more familiar to us. We spent a week at the Place Theatre in London. It was a privilege to have so much time in a theatre space and to work with the technical elements of the show.