In this May newsflash the Expanded Contemporary Dance (ECD) programme presents:
- ECD4 student Rowan van Sen is currently on her internship with Hofesh Shechter Company in London. We asked her a few questions about what she is working on currently!
What project are you currently working on?
I work at Hofesh Shechter Company, a dance company in London. This year we are touring with the performance 'From England with Love', which Hofesh Shechter originally created with the Nederlands Dans Theater a few years ago. We learned all the material in four weeks and we worked with Hofesh for two weeks to create an additional 25 minutes of material.
When and where do the performances take place?
We'll be touring Europe all year doing around 80 shows in the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Denmark.
What inspired you to work on this project?
More than five years ago I first came into contact with the work of Hofesh Shechter when I saw the performance 'Clowns'. I was hit in the gut and I immediately knew something clicked. The energy, the dancers, the music; everything touched me deeply. I immediately knew that it was a dream to one day work with him.
What are the challenges of working on this project?
The work is very humane and personal. You not only dance as a dancer but really as yourself, who you are. You use your own story, your own energies. This makes the work incredibly beautiful, but on the other hand also intense and intense. You cannot hide behind the choreography, because you are the dance and the energy. When I feel a little less, the biggest challenge for me is to still find my energy and strength that I can use for the piece.
What are you most looking forward to?
I was most looking forward to the intensity of the work, to diving into something 100%. In addition, to travel through Europe and do what I love most and share that with so many people. It really is a dream come true.
What would you like the audience to take away after seeing the performance?
I hope I can make people feel something, that's the most important thing to me. It doesn't matter to me if you understand or don't understand something about the performance. I hope that people feel our energies and perhaps be moved by it. In any sense.
- ECD teacher Jodi Gilbert will be performing with Meredith Monk in Indra's Net in the Park Avenue Armory in New York City from 23 September to 6 October 2024. She also performed in the world premiere of this piece past June in the Holland Festival. An interview will be placed in a later edition of the newsletter!
- ECD3 student Mia Malenica has received the funding of the AHK Cross Academy Funds on her project. We want to congratulate her with the achievement, and we are excited to see our students collaborate with students from other academies.
- ECD concludes the fourth block with the Critical Somatics Symposium, which took place on April 23 and 24. ECD students, teachers and staff, together with other guests, have focused on critically examining somatic techniques within the ECD program in order to creatively reform these techniques. Lindsey Drury kicked off the Symposium in the new building at the Dutch National Ballet Academy on Tuesday morning with her keynote and gave us food for thought. The day then continued at the Academy for Theater and Dance where various workshops took place. On Wednesday morning, guest speakers Patrick Acogny and Thomas Presto started the day with a "Round table" in the new building at the Dutch National Ballet Academy, after which everyone returned to the Academy of Theatre and Dance to continue with workshops around the theme. We would like to thank everyone for the fantastic turnout and the great first kick-off that we were able to experience together. The research continues; We're not done yet!
