Friendly Fire
La Fête
Final Fiction
How do you do?!
real deal
match
Into the Blue
Wish I was Real
Who knows. Maybe Tennessee.
Wish I’d be here
Please help yourself
Until the cows come home
Games
Scope
Wish I’d be here
Interview with Jan Pusch on the occasion of the Premiere in Greifswald, Ballet Theatre Vorpommern, Tanztendenzen 99
What is dance/dance theatre for you?
"Looking for means of expression for certain situations - the optimal way to express this certain situation, which can be movement as well as spoken word. Regardless of a certain dance technique or style, I go into a fundamental research: what do I want to express and which means of expression is closest to that. The aim must always be: greatest possible freedom in style and greatest possible consequence regarding content and statement.
The dance theatre in the seventies and in the postmodern era represent two different approaches. One line worked on the bases of emotion, sometimes through psychological approaches, the other on the bases of geometry and space. I want to integrate these contrasts to trigger emotion through different approaches."
Can dance theatre portray the present world - is it limited to showing relationships?
"I come from the freelance scene. Because of limited budgets a flood of duets [man - woman relationship] have been created. Obviously it's the oldest topic in the world. But in our culture we are currently facing completely different questions: utopia, aim, truth."
How does working with a ballet company of a National Theatre differ from your other work?
"I'm not used to dancers being involved in other productions during the creative process. They have to adapt to different styles, different ways of working and developing.
Usually I devote one month to improvisation with the dancers. In the course of this you get to know their personalities very well. The most thrilling moment, actually, is this kind of intimacy during the work. I certainly don't want to just demonstrate, but to provide impulses: let's search together. This is more difficult here."
How defined are your suggestions that you confront the dancers with -
is improvisation a main feature of your work?
"My improvisation technique - without getting too detailed - strives the confrontation between body and the outside. Following certain rules, the dancer imagines the outside in concrete terms and adapts his or her movements to them. The result is a specific movement quality. Therefore the task for the dancer primarily is a physical one. For a simple reason: it's not about emotion on stage, it's about creating emotion in the audience. The deciding factor is not what the dancer feels but what the audience experiences."
When are you developing your choreographies, how much scope is there in the rehearsals?
"That depends on the situation in the rehearsals. What exactly will happen on stage evolves from there. For some parts I have very concrete ideas, some parts result from constellations that cannot be foreseen. But anyway, whether I know material beforehand or not, I try to spend some time on improvisations as a stimulus and as an approach for the dancers. This is how scenes change. That's what is exciting - to remain open to the very end, to change, to question again and again."
"I took approaches from two existing pieces, but also anticipated a concept that will be realized in autumn. These elements have resulted in one comprehensive subject: in what ways people want to feel themselves real. It is a basic longing, a need in every day life that one is rarely conscious of."
Do you use music, how do you choose it?
"During the rehearsal period the dancers have to feel movement at the same level as music. In the course of this, music should at first only support a certain feeling for movement or rhythm.
Music becomes important to me when the piece is transferred to the actual stage. I then act more like an arranger, who newly composes the different "voices" on all levels, including the choreography."
How do you find your subjects, are there stimula?
Is there always one theme that is varied?
"One is a child of one's times, observing certain attitudes, questioning, discovering. Actually this time the piece is about the generation after my generation, the now 20 to 30 year olds. About their longing for reality and effects. Their relation to themselves, to the outside world, their need to feel at home. Drifting along because you feel unable to formulate an aim, aggressively searching for sources of friction in order to feel that you are there. The subject was a discovery rather than planned.
I'm interested in the question of the feeling of being alive taken literally. Not the quality of feeling of being alive - rather the fact that you need the sensation of being alive at all."