November
Imre and Marne closely collaborated with Dutch visual artist Boris Acket for the scenography of the work: November. Together they choreographed the kinetic sculpture that is the heart of the work. Based on Boris previous works on the manipulation of wind interacting with fabric the work speaks to the element of air and its relationship to the dancers on stage. November is the penultimate month of the year, the moment where wind is visualised strongly as it reshapes our environment. Symbolising change and the need to let go of the old.
The choreographers were interested in the juxtaposition of the physical, the real, and the intangible. Boris Acket’s set lies between these poles: it consists of a semi-transparent, shimmering curtain that hovers in the center of the stage, reflects light, and is moved by a motor and fans. Acket’s curtain is at the center of the action, interfering with it and thus becoming an independent protagonist of the piece. The billowing of the curtain, despite its careful choreography, is only predictable to a certain extent. It expands the dancers’ gestures and influences their choreography, as they must adapt to its movement. On the other hand, his choreography is influenced by the air current created by the participants and by the atmosphere in the audience.
Interview Boris Acket
How did your collaboration with Imre and Marne van Opstal come about?
Marne and Imre contacted me, and we met before one of their premieres in Amsterdam. As we discussed our respective work philosophies, we noticed some similarities. We both like to create complete ecosystems, i.e., worlds of our own with their own rules. I do this with objects and movements, Imre and Marne with bodies. We wondered how we could combine our work in a joint project. Purely by chance, Kinsun Chan emailed Imre and Marne about two weeks later and suggested creating a piece in Dresden.
November is about wind, a theme you’ve worked on several times before. What interests you about it?
In my work, I like to explore the contrast between control and surrender. I really enjoy working with objects that can only be controlled to a certain extent. That’s why, a few years ago, I started creating installations with fabrics moved by artificial wind. The dynamics of air and fabric are never completely predictable. Even if you program the fans the same way every time, the fabric will react slightly differently each time, and that fascinates me. For November, we chose a curtain similar to my previous installations, as it makes it possible to make visible the wind, which is invisible to us. Wind is everywhere, but you need an object that it moves to see it. I think the fabric acts as a guiding force in the piece, showing you the different effects of wind, which are also translated into the dancers’ movements.
Did you have any experience working for dance before this collaboration?
My relationship with contemporary dance is quite new, and I’ve never created a stage set for a dance piece. However, while working on November, I realized that I am a kind of choreographer myself, because I make materials dance in my installations. Furthermore, in my works, I try to translate an abstract narrative into movement, light, and sound, without the presence of a dancer or actor. I like to think of these installations as performative; they are performers in themselves.
How does creating installations differ from working for a dance stage?
My installations are usually exhibited in museums or large factory halls. Visitors can, for example, change the distance between themselves and the work; they can make the work grow by approaching it, and they can walk around it and feel what the work does in the space. It’s an autonomous object, so you can choose your own relationship to it and also decide how long you stay with it. The human body doesn’t really play a role; there are other visitors, but they aren’t part of the installation. When working with dancers, it’s very interesting that the body becomes part of the work, and you can explore the relationship between the person and the fabric in many different ways. The two enter into a dialogue. Our task is to create a balance between the dancers’ choreography and the movement of the fabric, combining them into a single ecosystem. In doing so, the fabric essentially becomes another dancer. Another difference between an installation and a theater performance is that you only have one perspective. You sit on a chair and look at the piece, which is framed by this constellation. This creates a new, interesting relationship with the work because you can observe the interaction between the fabric and the people dancing with it. Finally, the atmosphere is also different, partly due to the lighting. I usually develop very systematic lighting concepts myself, in grid or line form, that follow the installations and fit in with them aesthetically. The lights are visible as are the fans and all the other components of the work. I am very excited to be working with a professional lighting engineer for November, Tom Visser, who specializes in theater and whose minimalist style I really like. The lights are hidden, so it suddenly becomes much more about illusion, creating a special kind of magic.
How did the choreography for the fabric panel come about, and what will it look like?
Imre, Marne, and I worked together for four days in Utrecht, and it was a lot of fun imagining the piece with just the curtain. What I particularly liked about this collaboration was that we think in similar ways—we start from the world and the ecosystem we want to create, rather than just thinking about the set and choreography as parts of a piece. In November, I’m using a curtain attached to a rotating beam for the first time; this allows for a particularly wide range of directions of movement. It starts with a very small panel of fabric, which then opens up and becomes a huge wall. A little later, the fabric is brought to life by the wind we blow into it. Towards the end of the work, there’s a storm sequence in which wind is blown into the curtain from both sides at high speed. The fabric begins to ripple and entangle, and you lose your sense of direction.
How do you think the audience will experience the result of your artistic collaboration?
With November, we want to create a piece that can be discovered and explored by gradually unraveling its various components. You can slowly discover what is happening on stage, how the fabric moves, and what relationship exists between the dancers and the curtain. You also discover what kind of story you can invent and what memories the piece triggers. Although it is essentially just a moving cloth and bodies on stage, these can evoke associations in the audience that make them see all sorts of things in it, such as leaves or a waterfall. This is connected to their individual experiences, memories, and expectations. For me, it is always very exciting to talk with the audience about what they have seen in my works.
