InTimE - Artist's Diary

2013/10 @Auditorium

I am a choreographer, I have been creating pieces for 25 years now with my French-Hungarian company and I am still enjoying trying to figure out my place in the creation process. How it goes exactly inside of me, how can I decide in a piece like InTimE, where certain elements are needed, and others are not? What do I base my decisions on? It is truly not easy to explain.

I believe that we have an instinctive self in our own selves – or at least I have in my mine – which becomes dominant in given circumstances. If I were to consciously analyse something, I might end up doing it completely differently. Maybe it’s strange, but - if I worked with a rational mind, and used measured, logical steps to choreograph, then my pieces would probably be polite and kind, my dancers would present themselves on stage according to certain social conventions, and the audience would fall asleep or just would loose that precious attention and deep involvement that they usually have when they watch our pieces… So instead I trigger something and then I get lost in it. As if I’m in a maze for a time. And what is the driving force of all this? Artists are like animals, ears twitching, listening all-the-time, always turning, ready for the impulse to go after something. Yes, this deeply instinctive layer is needed, and one needs to let go, when the finest micro vibrations come to life … I am like this. But how things are decided, like what will finally go where, I can’t explain exactly.

Though there is always an important idea, a strong impression and intention, something physical and central to start with – like the main topic and the red sofa in InTimE. I was inspired by the colourful and confusing complexity of human relationships, the question of being similar and being different, the real quality of the connection, the illogically organic characteristic of our relationships, the relationships between men and women, men and men, women and women… but I knew I wanted to create something scenographically constructed to be used not just a symbol but also a physical entity in space that affects all the movements on stage. In InTimE the movement material is based on the intense, frontal, direct connection between the dancers. And the huge sofa became – as a “stage in stage” sign – the physical metaphor of all our emotional boundaries and obstacles. Sure, it was important to have something easy to connect with. It is a furniture, part of our lives, standing lonely in our living rooms, observing all our secrets and private lives, but in InTimE it sometimes acts like a wall, wall of our fears and questions, that we bump into, that we want to climb over. And sometimes it is an island, a shelter to hide away to find some intimacy, to find a safe place to arrive and stay calm and relaxed.

Yes, InTimE is physical, sexual and sometime seems to be provocative, but for me it talks about the fusion of people without limits. Being naked might be provocative for somebody, but I find more exciting to denude our soul, showing the human body in its pure perfection is just a tool to create a deeper layer of meanings. It might be true that my works are revolutionary, perhaps yes. They are definitely organic, sometimes erotic, always pulsating, physical and rather dynamic, they open up an associative word, where the spectator has his or her own responsibility to go deeper, understand more and connect the stage with his or her own life. It is all about the creative energy which basically comes from the capacity of being present, being there and comes from strong the attention towards each other.