I always try to share as little as possible with the dancers about what we’re going to do, before we actually start working.

I do the same with myself somehow, I don’t follow through or try to clarify most of my preliminary ideas about optional strategies and processes, as they appear in my head. It’s not that I don’t have all kind of ideas crossing my mind, I do, I just don’t really go too deep into them. I notice them, I might write down a short note just so I don’t forget it, but at the same time, I also push it aside quite fast and forget about it.

What I’ve learned over time is, that once we actually start working, I will very fast be flooded with completely new ideas coming straight up from the thing happening in the studio. Most of them, I couldn’t have predicted or anticipated. In order to be able to stay receptive and available to follow the better ones, I need an open space. One that hasn’t been cluttered with existing ideas, a declared road map or a possible destination. I need to have a certain lightness in decision making, one that doesn’t have to push against an already declared plan. That doesn’t have to announce a change of course from the one presented, before we actually engage with the process .

I need both the dancers and myself, to be in a state of mind, which is un burdened with pre existing ideas about the thing we’re making, so we can freely navigate the process with lightness, curiosity and a mind free from the weight of trying to imagine the end result.

There’s nothing more boring and un creative, than knowing how exactly what you’re making will turn out.