Talk 19th Nov 2008

Željka Sančanin

Marjana Krajač

Željka Sančanin is an author, choreographer, and dancer, as well as a co-founder of the dance company Combined Operations. In 2008, she was selected for participation in the educational training program for young choreographers ex.e.r.ce at the Centre Choréographique National de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon. Since Željka is at the beginning of a new creative phase, as she describes it herself, we focused in this interview on her working structures, new methodologies, and recent performances.

I would like to begin with your recent residency at the ex.e.r.ce educational program. How did you focus on your work while participating in the program?

My work as an author was in the background, since I spent two months there working on the reconstruction of other people’s projects and I was more or less a performer or a collaborator within a team of twenty people. In such circumstances, I found myself in the situation where I had to collaborate with people I didn’t know and with some of them I didn’t even share the same artistic convictions. In such conditions, my position as an author was very controlled, since nobody wanted to emphasize his or her ideas too much. Instead, we placed an accent on cooperation in which one’s own and common interests had to meet at some points. In Zagreb, I mostly work alone or with two or three people I know and trust. There I was forced for the first time to collaborate with nineteen people. In that respect, my position as an author was rather dispersed. As for my own work, I started with it at the end of the second month, but it also included other people and I had to act as the carrier of certain idea rather than someone who wanted to use the collaborators. Someone was always that main carrier of knowledge and ideas, the one who was pushing the things forwards. My position as an author was very porous and could not be relieved, which was an excellent experience in a way, one that I had never had before. I tend to have a very strong artistic position, but there it became rather flexible under those numerous influences.

How did it actually feel, entering the system, not even re-entering it, but entering for the first time? Did you find those defined structures interesting? And was it the thing you were looking for when joining ex.e.r.ce?

I found myself in a completely different context – generally, in terms of art scene, but also regarding how dance functioned and how we approached work. The entire structure and the way of working were completely different than here. When applying for the project, I didn’t have any precise idea of what it would be like, but I was expecting and seeking a new working principle, since I needed it. It was also a challenge in terms of adaptation, since the working methods and the daily program were very intense. I had to get new ideas about how I should work in such conditions and be efficient at the same time. Within my company, I was used to deciding each week on what I wanted to do and how to achieve that. There we never knew what would happen that day and what idea would leak out. As a collaborator and performer you simply had to be ready for everything and take the maximum from collaboration. You had to see whether you had something to say or not and which position you could assert. Because positions were constantly dissolving and transforming.

You mentioned in our previous conversation that you were having a moment of reload after ex.e.r.ce. Do you need rest after such an intense experience, a physical reload, or is it a spontaneous reaction to your encounter with various personalities and different conditions, as well as the fact that you gained plenty of new impulses, inputs, and topics?

It is more than just one thing. We were really working very intensely there, so I came back very tired, but also full of new ideas. There were plenty of new things going through my head, new types of training, various reconstructions, working on other people’s projects, and various theoretical analyses. As for my personal reload, I was having a break even before I went there. I had been working in a certain way for a long time and in the past year I was not really satisfied with that methodology and the way I was working. Now I’m having a phase of reflecting on the possible ways of changing that. Another thing is that for the past year I haven’t been satisfied with the very medium of theatre, dance, and dramatic performance. I’ve been thinking of some things that would go beyond the theatre and yet concern performance or dance. I’m still thinking what that would be.

Do you have an urgent problem that you are currently solving, be it a practical or an abstract one?

In fact, I should start next year with a project related to sound performance, in collaboration with Damir Gamulin. I would like to merge sound performance with video footages and various other materials on empty spaces (from the project on “Archive of Space”). Currently I’m thinking in which direction that project could go, since it will not be really performative, or rather, it will be less corporal.

Do you think that you have become methodologically exhausted in regard to your previous work?

In my work so far, the main ideology consisted in physical activity and choreography. It was the corporal experience of moving that I wanted to continue. I was rarely or never relying on a text, for example. That is the main methodology that I would perhaps discard or radically change. In France, we were more or less working on certain paradigms that we were then enacting. There was no physical research, but rather a week of working on a computer, after which we would enter the studio and execute or try out certain things. These were the so-called scores that we were writing. I realized that such written material was essential in clarifying certain compositional solutions. Now I see that I would like to use more of such written compositional solutions, that is, apply a sort of “direct methodology”. Personally, I tend to go to the studio first and write it all down afterwards.

I would like to go back now to your previous work, especially to “Dog Eat Dog”, “Bloom”, and “Solo Cycle 1/ On Work”. How would you articulate your problem field in those pieces? What was your primary interest in each of them?

I think that, generally speaking, I can say that the final product was influenced by the working conditions and processes, as well as my personal research, since two of the three performances were solos. In all of them I tried to develop a hybrid form, which generally went beyond the limits of dance performances. The by-product was not a classical choreography, type of movement, or composition, but a performance that people tended to see as dramaturgical. Movement was more or less personal, independent of the technique, or subjected; in other words, transformations of the dancing body were a copy of a paradigm from another medium.

Does it refer to all the three performances or is there a difference between working on a solo and working on other bodies that transport your idea?

“Dog Eat Dog” is a specific case, since it is based on materials that are not authentic. That is to say, the material was not obtained from the performers, but copied from another medium. It was not a result of improvisation, but rather imposed. In “Bloom”, the movement was authentic, but then again, it was subjected to certain corporal paradigms or media that were followed with greater or lesser precision. “Dog Eat Dog” was more radical in that sense.

You are speaking of authentic movement as opposed to something that is imposed, but during performance it probably gains some sort of authenticity according to that definition; then again, you differentiate between something that comes out of the body by itself, in improvisation, and something that is actually modelled on an external source and executed by the body.

The entire idea, both for “Bloom” and for “Dog Eat Dog”, originated in my own reflection that today dance was more or less readymade. It originated in my conviction that all types of dance form and corporal forms of expression were already seen or experienced somewhere else. I think that one can’t even define all those forms of dance expression any more. Currently, some forms of movement are extremely overloaded and one gets fed up with them. I am not talking about the aesthetic expression or the quality of performance, but about experiencing dance, when you’re actually attacked by that super-expressivity of dance and its virtuosity. Physical knowledge and the expressivity of movement can sometimes be too imposing in that sense.

Do you have a firm position with regard to that observation or rather a dispersed one?

In this situation, I’m highly intrigued by a question what to choose and what are my options, and eventually by making decision as such. I’m intrigued by this quest for the choice, the process of selecting elements among the things that I know. Normally, when I work, I do not decide firmly in favour of a certain type of work or an idea. In that respect, I’m not too radical, I do not set such firm frameworks. When I work, I proceed as if I were solving a puzzle. I place very many readymade elements on my desk and then I try to make my choice, and after reaching the final idea, I also keep it open or porous for various interpretations. In a way, I can say that some of my pieces are quite unfinished. And then these unfinished ideas evolve into a second or a third solo.

There is a statement by Paul Gardner, who said that a picture is never finished, it only ends at a point that seems interesting. So we can also speak of a sort of awareness that unfinished things have an additional value.

I think it has something to do with my artistic satisfaction. When I am working, I reach a point where I’m satisfied and if I see that I can’t go any higher or further from that point, then I stop there. I do not force myself, I’m satisfied with certain results and then some things remain unfinished.

How would you describe the process of your cooperation with others? What is the most intense discourse?

The most intense discourse is that around the question what is dance and what it could be. At the moment, we are detaching ourselves very much from the physical material and studio work. We are detaching ourselves from understanding dance and dance performance through performative material, sequence, or choreography. We work on performing a problem.

Is there a difference between the way in which you use and choreograph your own body and the way you treat the bodies of other performers?

There is no conscious decision about doing a solo. “Solo: Cycle 1/ On Work” was made after “Roland Barthes: Lover’s Discourse” and working in a group of seven people. The actual idea was not to make a solo, it came about by mere accident. “Vertigo/ Bloom” was supposed to be a trio in the beginning. During the working process, we simply realized that each one of us was going his or her own way. I have no special affinity for the solo as a form, it always happens by accident. Solo is a very specific form, a manifest expression of oneself through research and self-questioning. In that form, I listen to my body and its sensations a lot, and I’m in touch with my inner states and movements.
“Bloom” was made on the principle of transposing another body onto mine, but nevertheless it resulted in a personal story of a solo performer dancing alone on the stage in front of the audience. That shows the personal or fragile aspect of performing a solo.

When you do a solo, is there a routine or does your work change from day to day?

I have a lot of experience with working on a solo. It looks like this: I practice at the studio, I subject myself to it and I decide which principle and training type is good for a certain solo. When I rehearse, I do it for two hours each time. That means that I am alone a lot, which is exceptionally important if you work on a solo or if you are a choreographer and first you want to try out the material on yourself. I also set myself daily tasks.

Let us go back to your beginnings. How did you get involved with movement? You studied comparative literature and art history. How did you start?

It is important for my choreographic career that I am not formally trained. I started when I was seventeen, when I joined the workshop of Milana Broš. That was the initial moment. She’s an excellent pedagogue. The student workshop that she directed at Sava was based on Cunningham and improvisation. I appreciate her very much as an author and pedagogue and I’m very happy with the fact that I started dancing with her. Later I participated in various workshops and at the same time I was intensely working on my authorship and developing my own expression, which was crucial. I was reflecting on dance rather than practising formal dance, since it never really interested me. Things that were of a conceptual interest to me at that time were directly linked to university education. From the beginning I stayed away from formal dance. Since I started rather late, I had a different attitude. I was interested in dance in terms of phenomenology. Not only dance, but also the body, performance and what it meant, the performer, and what the body could do on stage.

How would you describe your initial artistic motives? Is your creative process a result of empty space or an overload, or is it something else?

With me, it is always a result of an overload of influences. During my studies, I read a lot. I was loading myself with things continuously. At the moment I’m reading less than before, which influences my work significantly. I have a need to subject myself to various influences, such as books, the Internet, tabloid magazines... You look for your influences everywhere. I like to make collections and accumulate things in my computer regardless of the project. I collect and document the reality that surrounds me and then I create a story around that. Or I simply delete everything from the computer.

When I saw your “Archive of Space,” I thought of a remark on the “body in another space.” In “Archive of Space,” it is all about spaces that are not primarily meant for dance. These are spaces in which all of us squat, more or less, but in their technical or professional standards they are not intended for dance. They just simulate it. Is there a way of thinking the body regardless of the given ideal space for dancing, conceived and constructed for dance production and for working on dance and movement?

The fact that we squat with all our performances and our bodies in spaces that are not primarily intended for dance influences the type of production and the general impression of contemporary dance and of one’s own body. It is possible to reflect on the body regardless of space. We all actually envision our performances virtually. But then you have one day before the premiere to put up the performance on stage and it is all different. For example, when you enter the Semicircular Hall at &TD theatre, you begin to think of the body in that space. That is truly a political question. When you enter a European dance centre, the way and the type of working, the attitude towards the tasks that a performance requires, are incomparable with respect to those here. You have technology at your disposal, you have equipment, a timetable, you are included in a repertoire programme. Such a professional level of working makes it possible to think differently of choreography and production. It is a more professional type of work, regardless of its quality.

How do you deal with it personally? What is your strategy in that situation?

I think that after ten years of fighting for professional space, we don’t experience dance as an ideology of virtuosity and aestheticism subjected to the standards of the European scene. It is not that bad, since it makes our local scene subject to other influences and other media, as well as to the rumours on what contemporary dance means today. The fact that we have no ideal space for dancing produces a different attitude towards our bodies as ideal dancing bodies. Still, I think that dance performers  here do need a dance centre badly, because a new spatial framework would create new types of production and certainly also new types of work. A new space would bring about lots of new things in terms of creativity and in many other respects.

Do you have any long-term interests that you would like to focus on in terms of art?

I have neither long-term considerations nor a mission. I would like to explore forms that are detached from performances and to find a way to do something that is not a dance performance, and yet deals with performance and the theatre. I would like to find methods and projects that would take me away from the medium of performance and theatre, yet make it possible for me to continue dancing. Besides, I would like to collaborate with the independent scene on developing dance infrastructures and contexts. We must be aware that the local scene is extremely interesting, rich, valuable and well-known all over Europe. That is what we’ve got here already.

www.kombiniraneoperacije.hr