You/Them

You should be able to separate your own perception of the work, from that of the audience. Both are valuable and important, but they don't mix well. I feel it's important to be able to travel between the two freely, in a way that allows them both to impact the evolution of the work. 

Visualisations

Man made systems and processes, are inherently related to questions of ethics and morality. Choreographies in that sense, can be viewed as visualisations of ethical and moral inquiries and stand points.

Break the rules

The mastery of a certain technique, process, way of working, is usually bound to the ability to bend its rules and step out of its logics when the need arises. That ability though, is usually linked to authorship. As in, it's usually only the people that were involved in developping the original process (that in itself is yet another issue, questioning the definition of authorship), which have effective access to this capacity.

Hierarchies

Dancers should resist playing the hierarchies game. It's them choosing a choreographer to work with, just as much as it is the choreographer choice to work with them. If dancers are being auctioned like cattle with numbers pinned on them, so should choreographers. The notion that there is a distinct hierarchical order putting choreographers above dancers, is the root of most evils within the art form. 

What is it about?

- What's the work about? 

- Well, it's mostly about how it's made and performed. 

- Yes, yes, but what is it ABOUT? Like, what's the subject or theme? 

- Hmmm, just what I said before, how it's made, and how it's being performed each time.  

- I see. So there's no theme. Like, it's abstract?

- No no no no no. Not at all. People doing things, mechanisms, systems, that's all very concrete.  

- Yes, but it doesn't speak about any specific theme, right? It's like open to be interpreted.

- Yes and no. It's open to different readings, but it's because when looking at how things are made, you're actually touching all the existing themes and subjects. So it does speak in a very direct way about many things, but it's up to the viewer to decide which he wants to think about.  

- Hmmm, never got this abstract dance thingy really.  

Negotiation

I think my choreographies, to a large extent, are the result of allowing dancers to nagotiate freely with each other.

Ha Ha Ha

Most of the time, most of the people, won't get most of the jokes when they come in contact with a choreography of mine.. It's a shame because it makes everything seem so heavy and important while actually, most of it is just joking/playing around.

Ok?!

I choreograph interactions, not movements.

Taking sides

I rather take the side of dancers, than that of institutions, organisations, companies, schools, teachers, choreographers, rehearsal directors, artistic directors, etc. The existing hierarchies must be constantly challenged. Otherwise, it will only be more of the same. I believe dancers should be emancipated. In more than one way. 

Time Time Time

Choreographies are layered temporalities.

Stop bothering them

Most of the time, the best choreographic choices, are the result of being able to resist making choreographic choices. Best thing you can do as choreographer (most of the time, not always though...), is get the hell out of dancers' way.

Art education

When working within the institutional education system, I often feel that most art schools and academies are a colossal waste of resources. That they are thought of in a way, which produces artistic clerks. A good artist coming out of an art school, seems to be an accident of the system. I think art education should be personalized, and handed back to be the responsibility of the student. It should be the student choosing His/her teachers and curriculum, and not the other way around as is the case now. It's the young artist's task to look for an older artist's guidance and teachings. Professional art teachers, in any domain, are many times suffocating any chance for real artists to emerge, they'll usually, with exception of course, be the first to block any sign of true talent.  

Most art students would have never ventured into art making in the first place if art schools, as a survival mechanism related mainly to politics and power, were not engaged in enabling people who aren't artists to become ones. Paradoxically as it may sound, the best interest of the students and the art forms, is not their priority. 

Sadly enough, some of these young students will grow to become teachers themselves, once they come to terms with the fact they were not meant to become active artists in the first place. What a vicious cycle...

As I see it, the driving force in art education, should be the students themselves, not the schooling system. This shift, will allow schools to move from being systems of control, to ones of support, which is what reall, effective eduction is all about. In that sense, there shouldn't even be art students, just young artists.

I think older artists have the duty to come up with alternatives to the existing education system. Artists need context, and a community. Thinking about young artists and educational models, is an urgent task all dance makers should embrace. 

© Julia Gat

Channeling

I channel dancers energy and creativity. I can't be bothered with managing them. I rather be the banks to the water they are. Managing each drop of water to create a river, is inefficient. I rather just channel them and their flow by giving them clear banks to flow freely between. 

How, not what

What ultimately makes a dance work contemporary, is to a large extent the manner in which the different elements are assembled, edited and presented.

Innovation

The more I look at it, the more I think choreographic innovation can only come from playing with the forms, structures, creative processes, choreographic strategies, presentation means etc, never really from the content. In that sense, work that is solely based on making direct political/social comments (with rare exeptions), is always bound to be reactionary, old, familiar, tied to the acceptable artistic norms of its field at the time, and inherently un-innovative. It's a type of propaganda to what is fashionbly right and just to express at a certain time and cultural circle.

Critical, subversive, boundaries challenging work that offers resonance and existential value, contrary to what is commonly argued, usually plays around with how things are made and assembled, rather than with the 'things' themselves. I feel that ultimately, the way in which we make work, is the key factor in moving the art form forward and making it evolve. 

A following thought on this, would be to say that content, naturally resides in, and emerges from well structured systems. 

These people…

Chemists who think that just because they can analyse the content and chemical structure of a drop of water, they can actually have any insight into what being a fish means or feels like.

Le roi soleil

Creating material, setting it and then teaching it to dancers as is, is a form of choreographical tirany/fascism. Why would anyone think other people should move like her/him ? (Louie XIIII anyone?). I find asking people to imitate you perfectly, to be a weird way of finding choreographic interest and satisfaction, The fact this is still the most practiced and acceptable form of choreography making, is mind-bugling.

Counterpoint

Choreography is counterpoint, it's ultimately a musical event, and both these phenomenas (choreography and music), are basically an organisation of simultaneous ideas happening over time.

Mind the gap

You need to choreograph both the solid and the void. The dancers, as well as the constantly changing spaces between them.