Conversations with Bagryana Popov

I've just started a new project that continues working with ideas surrounding "Conversations with the dead". The project consists of two new works created separately by Bagryana Popov and Helen Herbertson. The research and development blog is at http://conversationswiththedead.tumblr.com/

Questions from Alison Kirkmam for Dancing Times article

When did you hear about the Place Prize and what motivated you to enter?

I first heard of the Place Prize in 2006 when Nina Rajarani's producer at the time - Karen Feys - contacted me about the possibility of developing the video material for Nina's Place Prize entry. Nina and I had several conversations (allowing me to get a sense of how the Prize worked) but other commitments and travel plans meant I wasn't able to be involved. And then Nina went ahead and won!

My motivation for entering was really to get the opportunity to make a work. I didn't really have a sense of the vast scale of the Prize, I simply thought, '£5000 would be very handy to develop this work 'Gertrud'' that I'd been thinking about for some time.

Was Gertrude the original piece you wanted to enter?

Yes it was. Actually, it turned out to be one of those rare projects that stayed with the original concept (detailed in my Place Prize application video: http://vimeo.com/923658) very closely. This was, in part, because of the very tight timeline for the development of the work, but also because the idea had such a long gestation time (I've been toying with the idea of a 'conversation with a dead choreographer' since about 2003).

By the way, there's no e at the end of Gertrud!

Did you come up with the idea of Gertrude especially for the Place Prize?

Yes and no. No because I had initially (2003) thought about 'choreographing' an imagined conversation between Gertrud Bodenwieser, and her contemporary Walter Benjamin, whose writing I was interested in, and very stimulated by. This was because Bodenwieser, in 1924, made a work called "Demon Machine" that commented on the 'destructive power of the machine' (in simplistic terms). Benjamin's seminal work looked at the nature of art in the 'age of mechanical reproduction', and I wondered what they would have said to each other if they'd met. A little banal I know but it certainly seeded "Gertrud".

Yes, because although Bodenwieser is significant in my lineage as a dancer, the form-content of "Gertrud" seemed appropriate in a European context, in questioning how I might be 'present' on stage within the context of a competition, and also for the scale and timeline of the Place Prize commissions.

What was your inspiration behind Gertrude?

Tough question, because there are many angles to the work I think. First of all, I was interested in the past, in how the past might touch our present, and how this might relate to the nature of contemporary performance practices. Second, Bodenwieser was a significant European Ausdruckstanz choreographer, but because of World War II she was forced to leave Vienna. She ended up in Sydney, where she became an extraordinarily significant figure in the development of modern dance both in Australia and New Zealand. Europe's loss was the antipodes' gain! But, in many respects this upheaval erased much of her history and significance in European dance history. That idea of 'erasure', of forgetting, is a critical concern within "Gertrud". Third, one of the people who danced in Bodie's company – Shona Dunlop-MacTavish (a NZer) – was in Vienna when they escaped from the Nazis, and it so happens that Shona was my first dance teacher in Dunedin, NZ. It is her voice you hear playing the 'role' of Gertrud in the work. So, on a very personal level (and not one that I expect to be transparent to an audience member), the work is a way of my saying thank you to Shona for her extraordinary part in helping me consider the importance of dance in our culture, her inspiration as a teacher, and just for her amazing spirit as a human being. Lastly, I guess I am worried about how easy (and often) cynicism is present in contemporary and performance works. Cynicism, I think, is a way of hiding behind an opinion, of reveling in 'cool' as a currency, of nuanced ideas being replaced by emptiness or pap. I saw the development of the script in "Gertrud" as a means of talking to this concern I have, in using the voice of a dead choreographer to comment on my performance (as it were).

You have an interest in the effects of human memory – how did this influence and reflect in your piece?

I like the uncertainty and messiness of memory, the way in which it is constructed, or even reconstituted when it is needed. This understanding of memory allows for a tremendous fluidity in how we perceive our world, in how we experience situations, people and events, in finding ways to 'rewrite' narratives.

At the same time, I am rather tired of the way in which contemporary consumer capitalism generates a desire in its 'subjects' to be "in the now" – to constantly seek newness. I see this as a form of loss, and a forgetting of the past. By asking "Gertrud's" audience to listen to a voice from the past, and to accept the simple theatrical device of a conversation between a dead choreographer and a live performer on stage, I was interested in provoking a relationship with the past, in remembering not so much the details of Bodie's life, but in imagining how someone who died almost 40 years ago might comment on a 'contemporary dance' performance, and how mortality's ultimate presence is so beautifully memorable.

Actually, as an aside, the biographical details of Bodenwieser's life are not a critical concern of the work. I did not want to generate a documentary type performance. As is said in the work itself, it is a 'fiction', or perhaps a 'faction' is more accurate.

Why did you choose choreographer Gertrud Bodenwieser as the focus for your piece?

I think I answered this above!

There was a use of theatrical devices in your work, for example photographic projection. Why did you choose to incorporate such aspects and what effect do you think it has on the work?

Again, this question is complicated to answer because the choice to use a slideshow has many aspects. First of all, it was a simple device to bring images of Bodenwieser's oeuvre into the work. Second, the slide projector is very much old technology, and harks back to a time of sitting around listening to someone say "and this is me in Vienna" etc ... which was how the scripting for the slideshow section began. Also, I chose to amplify the sound of the projector 'clunking' each new slide. I guess I liked this as a subtle form of drama, a way of keying the sonic experience of the audience into the (now past) experience of watching slide shows on a projector. Actually, the sound in the work is key (which in part explains why I was interested in there being so much actual darkness in the work) .. by including (for example) amplified sonic events within a darkened environment I hoped to tweak how people listened to the work, to get the audience used to listening as much as watching ... and hopefully so they wouldn't be put off my having so much text present in a 'dance' work.

Lastly, the photograph has become synonymous with remembering (e.g. ads for hard drives saying "keep all your memories in one place"). It seems to me like humans have forgotten how to remember, and have replaced the experience of remembering, of observing, with the act of taking a photograph. By including a photographic slideshow I was thinking a little bit about the impact of the photograph in archiving human experience. From the script of the slideshow: "This is an indifferent photograph, it records nothing, and feels even less".

More broadly, the decision to include any kind of technology (old or otherwise) is certainly not one that I take lightly. The way in which is might shift and enrich the form-content of the work, and its dramaturgical implications are very complicated.

Do you think there are increasing demands within the dance world to challenge boundaries choreographically? If so, did this enter your thought processes when approaching your work?

I am not sure about "increasing demands within the dance world". I don't think I set about to challenge boundaries. I am more interested in finding ways to express and represent ideas within the space of the theatre. But, at the same time, part of the challenge for me as a choreographer is to have a strong sense of the history of performance and dance practices and to consider how those practices inform the decisions I am making, and how the poetics of a work emerge during creative processes. I hope this doesn't sound rather banal ... the process is at once 'rigorous' but also uncertain, confusing, and more than a little haphazard. I love that in making work - the play between knowing and not knowing, between being aware of my decision making, whilst acknowledging that I can never really ever know how the work will turn out or be experienced by a viewer.

When creating Gertrude did you intend to provoke a certain audience reaction? If so, what was it?

See above. I suspect that I was aware that the tone of the work was 'introspective', or 'sad', but it's impossible to expect that an entire audience will have the same experience. I think this idea undermines the complexity of individual human experience, and also to a certain extent reduces an audience to a form of group marketing exercise.

You chose Sergei Rachmaninov to accompany the piece. How did you go about choosing and why did you settle on this piece?

I spent a lot of time researching the musical influences of Bodenwieser, including listening to as much as the music she used in her choreographies (particularly during her years in Austria before the Anschluss). But, none of these seemed 'suitable' to the work (it's hard for me to articulate what I mean by 'suitable'). Instead, I turned to some of the composers she was inspired by, or even simply liked to listen to. Rachmaninov was one of these, and his "Elegie" seemed entirely appropriate because of its tone, and not least of all because it is an elegy.

Actually, I was very concerned as a performer about dancing to a piece of classical music. I haven't done this for a long time, and when I first started working with the "Elegie" I really was worried about it being emotionally manipulative. Also, because the history of using classical music is so strong in the dance world, I wasn't sure I wanted to 'call on' that history, or to refer to it. This is particularly because I am fundamentally an improviser, and sometimes this feels a long way from the world of dancing to classical music. But, in many respects my decision to use this piece of music was because of my perception of that distance ... to begin to revel in the experience of improvising to classical music, and to celebrate the small presence of classical music within the text-laden silence of the piece in general.

You have worked extensively as a choreographer. What have you gained from your choreographic experience in this competition?

Well, because I am relatively new to the UK, I have had the great fortune of meeting a lot of people working in dance in and around the country. I think this is why I am involved in dancing – I am constantly surprised at the 'goodness' of the people working in the industry, and also just how interesting they are. I enjoy listening to what they have to say, in hearing their thoughts on the state of dancing, and sometimes even considering future projects/collaborations based on those discussions.

I think though the Place Prize was not a different choreographic experience for me. I went about making the best work I could possibly make (given resources, time etc), and tried not to second guess what the competition would be like. The only real differences started to emerge when the voting commenced, and I became acutely aware of the extraordinary vulnerability of presenting work. Not that this vulnerability is a surprise to me – making and presenting work is always an exercise in trust, in patience, in being uncertain – it was just that the voting made me feel uber-vulnerable!

What plans do you have following your place in the finals of the Place Prize?

I have just headed to Australia for a number of projects, one of which is developing two new works with choreographers Helen Herbertson and Bagryana Popov. This is still working with the idea of 'conversations with the dead'. In this case though I have commissioned them to each make a solo 'on' me as a performer. I start this on Monday. I am also making a new dance film project called "Anamnesis", and then I'll be re-presenting a performance installation called "Inert" (www.skellis.net/Inert) that premiered in 2006. Hopefully, some things will come out of my time in The Place Prize as well when I get back to the UK.

What advice would you give to future entrants of the Place Prize competition, or aspiring artists and chorographers in general?

Forget about the voting, focus on making a 'good' work (whatever that may be), keep digging deeply into the 'why' of your decision making, try not to settle, be uncertain, be prepared to adapt how you view your own material, plan well, and keep asking yourself about how the body is able to represent the complexity of the moving human.

no cigars

The winner of The Place Prize was announced last night: Adam Linder won for his work "Fois Gras". Place Prize website announcement. I never got to see Adam's work because it was directly before Gertrud in the running order, but it definitely seemed to polarise people's opinions!

It's fair to say I feel a bit disappointed right now (probably not surprisingly given the build up etc), but it was a great privilege to get to perform Gertrud over these last two weeks, and I feel quite strongly about the integrity of the work, its concerns, tone, and relevance. Developing the work also provided me with the great pleasure of working with Helen Cain and Amy Woods, whose work, care and responsibility for how Gertrud evolved just can't be overstated. It was also not particularly surprising to find that my performance was upstaged every night by the extraordinary voice of Shona Dunlop-MacTavish who managed to give the work both warmth and gravitas.

I am away for a bit now, but will update this blog as various things come to hand - images etc.

And Adam: if you are reading this ... congratulations mate. I enjoyed hearing your 'post-match' analysis each night as you and Lorena came off stage! You should be able to get an excellent home entertainment centre for £25k.