Talk 11th Dec 2008

Andreja Široki

Nikolina Pristaš

Andreja Široki has been dancing and performing for many years, cooperating with a number of local and international choreographers (Snježana Abramović-Milković, Katja Šimunić, Ksenija Zec, Marjana Krajač, Irma Omerzo, Jasminka Neufeld Imrović, Desanka Virant, Bebeto Cidra, Emilio Gutierrez, Alexis Eupierre, Martine Pisani, and others). In 2008, she presented her first all-evening choreographic solo project under the title of “Cartography” in Gliptoteka HAZU.

Several months have passed from the premiere of “Cartography”. Is there still something in that piece that has remained choreographically unsolved, or rather, is there an aspect of it that you would like to pursue further?

My inspiration were the body meridians, twelve of them plus two: the central and the coordinating one. Just like hands, the meridians carry subtler energies, so we can influence their flow by tracking them; some call them the power circulation system of our body. They were the motor for the movement and for developing the material. I think that I will use the same topic in my future performances, but I also intend to develop it further.

People have various motivations for dealing with the body, with organizing their own and other people’s bodies. I’m interested in the way you simulate the body methodically.

My intention was to deal with the energy of my body in relation to myself, to another body next to me, and to the audience watching us. I began to produce the materials by studying the meridians of my own body, the way I’m functioning, my experiences, and my feelings when I track them, when I’m focused on them. They have become the impulse for movement. The beginning was to track their form.

Does that mean that you’re describing the movement?

Sometimes I do and sometimes I only mentally pass through the images that are not outside of my own performance, but rather the imagined meridians of my body. I wanted to have a visual performance, through which I would pass mentally rather than spatially.

When you say that you wanted to have a visual performance and your concentration is internal, focused on your own sensory apparatus, I find a sort of contradiction there. These two terms are not quite balanced, to my mind. Does that imply an extreme voyeurist position on the part of the spectator?

I’m aware of that. When we began working on the meridians, one of Maja’s tasks, for she’s with me on the stage, was to pay attention to the way in which she shaped her lips while inhaling or exhaling. I provided a formal framework for the performance with the help of mythological figures – Sirens. That is where the idea of flowing hair, costumes, and hiding our eyes came from.

For me as a spectator, the show is about visuality and the construction of images, rather than about energy flows...

I didn’t want to engage in literal mapping, but rather to build forms; therefore, I approached the meridians only as something that was present in those forms, although visible only as energy.

When the subject or topic that made you engage in choreography remains concealed, it is far more difficult to put yourself into the position of the performer or to subject your body to these ideas.

I’m interested in the tension between personal presence and presence on the stage, that is what makes dancing interested for me. I wanted to have that experience both as a dancer and as a choreographer, in the same show. It is a completely different type of concentration.

But why did you decide, taking into account your intense physical practice, to subdue your body and to reduce the physical?

I wanted to focus on the energy of my own body, to work on its enhanced presence. I was looking for ways in which I could be present on the stage almost all the time and I wanted to see whether I could help myself to approach each performance more readily. That is why the beginning of “Cartography” is a choreographed dancer’s rehearsal for the show. Dance needn’t always be direct. Dance can be a dance of certain parts of the body, without the presence of the eyes. I was interested in the counterpoints of rhythm, rather than in our relations. I wanted to give Maja complete freedom to focus on her own body alone, on the experience that she was receiving through the meridians. Since we had hair hanging over our faces, we could also focus on developing our peripheral vision. I found it interesting how it was becoming primary and how it made you concentrate more and become more aware of the body that was standing next to you. We were more present. I also expected a certain type of presence from the audience and if it was not there – the show was not there either.

The process of communication requires an exchange of information. I think that the theatre process is rarely communicational in this respect. Have you reached certain conclusions about that after “Cartography”?

I was not guided by the question of an ideal dance event and I was not burdening myself with the end product. I was interested in successful communication within the team of authors. I was looking for the ways in which I could bring my idea and my reflections closer to the others. I was offering myself a chance to concentrate on the process. I wanted to be honest to myself and the work I was doing. I focused on myself and I didn’t feel any need of humouring the audience. I wanted to direct the spectators to reflect upon themselves and their own position during the show. I wanted to leave them enough time for that. That sort of communication is what I am interested in.

Is there a continuity between your first work and the present interests, or rather, what are your current preoccupations? You have mentioned the inner approach to the movement, the relationship between two bodies in space, the reduction of bodily expression, the elimination of face, the sonority of performance... Which of these processes are still preoccupying you?

I’ve been working on a new show for some time now. This time I would like to cooperate with three dancers, three completely different bodies. I’m interested in the way in which different bodies function in the same sort of physicality and what they produce differently. The topic of the meridians will still be present as a part of the process, because I want the performers who work with me to have the same experience. I will keep working on the presence of the body on the stage and insist on such tasks. I’m interested in corporal expressivity, but not the expression that is imposed from the outside, especially when it shows on the face. I’m interested in the way the movement itself conditions the facial expression, without it being imposed from the outside or caused by emotions. In “Cartography”, I approached this issue with the hair theme and with hiding the face, but here I want to achieve it with physical action and reaction.

If you could change something in your everyday practice, what would that be?

My everyday practice has been mostly physical. Dance training and rehearsals. What is still missing is the choreographic practice, dedicating a certain amount of time to the recapitulation of the process, to preparation, reflection, and documentation. To be sure, all that is going on, but still not in a sufficient or satisfactory measure that I could call systematic. There are notes that only I can decode, but they do not track the process in any reusable sense. Dance training implies specific everyday work that is rarely questioned, since you have already mastered that part, but when you take more responsibility as an author, it is necessary to shift the focus to those activities that this responsibility implies. I want to shift my focus in that sense. But that is a process that will last for some time and I don’t want to falsify it or to accelerate it artificially. It is a part of my path as an artist.

http://andrejasiroki.wordpress.com