ACE IgorMoreno IdiotSyncrasy 750 x 459I was lucky enough to catch Igor and Moreno’s ‘Idiot-Syncrasy’ at The Place as part of Spring Loaded 2014. For 50 minutes they jumped, they sang, they became tired, they persevered; they shared their beautiful, delightful attempt to change the world. Their work settled into me powerfully and clearly, and didn’t need explanation. Nevertheless, I was curious to hear these eloquent dancer-maker-thinkers elaborate on their journey of making ‘Idiot-Syncrasy,’ and on some of the influences behind it. Soon, we were mulling over not just jumping and folk songs, but concepts of ownership and agency, the cycles of history, and the importance of time in the creative process. This is an excerpt of the full interview, as a preview for tonight's show at The Place, London; for tickets, please visit www.theplace.org.uk/igor-and-moreno-0

 

Elise Nuding: I’d like to start by asking you about are some of the folk influences behind ‘Idiot-Syncrasy’. In the context of the work as a whole, the folk songs that open and close the work really seem to fit, really seem to make sense—at least, to me. But I’d love to hear a little more about why you started exploring them in the first place.

Igor Urzelai: Well, when we started, we started with the idea of doing portraits of ourselves. But we soon realised that there was no point in us doing a portrait of ourselves if we were really to embrace the essence of the work. However, the research we had done into our own cultural backgrounds gave us lots of material that influenced the performance. We had also been going to see traditional events in our homes, so these influences have been very present throughout.

The idea of celebration that underlies so much of folk tradition—this is something we started looking at from a very different point of view when we moved on from the portrait idea. And with the idea of celebration comes the ways that dance has survived in these traditions for so many years; dance is not a new art form. Although it is new to galleries and is a new contemporary ‘art’, it is actually so ancestral. So we were exploring that, and something that we kept coming across was the idea of jumping. And with this jumping there is the build-up of energy, the idea of coming together; of socialising as part of dancing.

Moreno Solinas: Yes, I think for me this idea of oneness, of coming together, together we can do it, together we can get through it—this was something that was very important from the beginning of the process. And it feels like folk dance, and folk music, is very much about this meeting of people, about doing one action together—whether that is circle dances or singing together.

EN: Later on in the work, during the—what shall we call it, the cool down? The recovery from the jumping?—there are some partnered steps where you are both turning around each other, holding each other as you turn, which, to my mind, recalled the folk influences from the beginning of the work.

IU: We weren’t consciously referencing folk steps.

MS: No, not consciously, but actually, I know what this step is because I’ve done it before. One of my backgrounds is also Latin American dance, or partner dancing anyway, and that step is a way for couples to turn around. So I can understand how there is a folk connotation there as well.

EN: I felt that it connected into, and referred back to, other parts of the work wonderfully.

MS: Again, I think it came from our desire to explore this coming together. And it was also a way of steering the energy—bringing it in, pulling it in, but without losing it.

EN: I like that phrase, ‘steering the energy’...

MS: I think that this is really where it came from…but it is true that technically it has some folk connotations.

IU: But also because we were talking about the idea of steering, and the experience of almost becoming one, we felt that the turning has a strong impact on the viewer in this way: two people turning, turning, turning, and you start not being able to distinguish one person from the other as clearly—

EN: As a viewer I was also very aware of the strong force generated by the rotations that physically pulls you both in towards a shared centre point.

IU: —so the idea of momentum again, and of energy, and how that energy carries on, and carries forward through the work. When we were thinking about creating a kinaesthetic experience, or sensation, for the viewer, we found that the turning also really helped that connection between audience and performer. And again, it is a simple action that I think everyone can recognise and empathise with. Although to say ‘everyone’…maybe that is saying too much…

EN: Connected to what you said earlier about the energy carrying forward as ‘Idiot-Syncrasy’ develops, I felt like there were a lot of circles in the work. Not necessarily in the sense of a shape in space (although there were those too), but more in the sense that the work circled back on itself, and connected back to places you had visited earlier in the work. And this brings us back again to what Igor was saying: that to move forward is not always to do something new.

MS: Yes, the idea of cycles was really present throughout. And again, here is another idea that connects into the folk traditions—although again I would not say that is where it came from for us—because the cycles of the seasons are very important, and this is reflected in the structures of songs, for example. They revisit places, but of course they are also different each time. So yes, this idea of repeating cycles was really present.

IU: The idea of history, too. The fact that, for example, the song we use at the beginning of the work is 220 years old, but this song is still talking about very similar things to what we are talking about. And the fact that we go on in cycles—that is so important to keep in mind. First of all because we should learn from the past rather than thinking that we are completely new. And secondly the idea again that yes, it goes in cycles, and so it is our turn now and it is going to be someone else’s turn after. And this is connected to the idea of wanting to change the world; how many times do we end up getting really disappointed because nothing ever seems to change? But this is not true.

EN: This talk of changing the world—are you referring to the world of yours within the work, or is there a wider world that you are looking at here, and trying to change?

IU: That’s a hard one!

MS: Yes! For me, I have the hope that our changing of our world that we create on the stage through really little interventions—where we keep doing the same thing, but try and bring a new energy into it, or new life, or show it from a different perspective through very simple changes—I guess we hope that this can be transposed by the viewer in a more general sense. That it can communicate in a very broad and open way that, in fact, everything is already there and available to you; sometimes you actually don’t need to look for answers elsewhere. You are in control, and just by bringing attention to specific places you can actually really make a difference.

EN: Yes! I like this because you are talking about changing the world through changing our own perspectives on the world, which recognises that way that we mediate the world through our perception and create our own understandings of it as we do so, rather than dealing with some objective reality that is external to ourselves. Which, as you say, means that we have the power to change our worlds by changing our understandings, or perspectives of them...

…I wish we could manage something similar with contemporary dance!

IU: The way we see dance?

EN: The way those outside dance see dance!

IU: Yes…hmm...but you know I think we are getting there! It seems to me that it is a very important time for dance. It is becoming more and more acknowledged–

EN: Yes, it’s true.

IU: —but also...how do I say this?...It seems like more people outside of dance are looking to dance, are borrowing a lot from dance. And I think that dance is both becoming more mainstream, and being acknowledged as a source of new ways of communicating.

EN: And as a source of knowledge, too.

IU: Yes, of knowledge, as a way of experimenting, of breaking down barriers. Theatre has been doing that for a very long time but I think there is a new revival of the body, and interest in how the body can be used. This idea again of the individual trying to understand things in a new way…and dance focuses so much on the body that I think it is a way of reminding us of the individual’s ability to do that.

MS: And also, it can communicate beyond language barriers, which is important in this hyper-connected world that we live in. This seems a very valuable thing. The very same work can be presented across the world without losing too much of its communicative ability in a way that text-based work cannot.

IU: But there is of course still such a long way to go with dance. Contemporary dance is so niche! Marginal, in a way. But hopefully…

EN: It doesn’t seem like this was the reason for exploring jumping in ‘Idiot-Syncrasy’, but—and this brings us back to something we touched on earlier—this action is so accessible. It is much easier to relate to; most individuals in the world, I think it is safe to say, have jumped at some point in their lives, in some way. So was this ability to empathise with the action of a jump part of the reason for its prominence in the work? Or is it just part of the larger ethos of the work that reflects your values as dance makers and practitioners?

IU: I think it’s all of that. That’s why we jump so much; that’s why we got so excited about it. The ethos, the physical exploration, the choreographic exploration that we wanted to undertake, but also that it is something that so many people recognise. It seems to connect to so many things; it had a place in so many conversations we were having. And as we did sharings in many different places, so many people were recognising the jumping as something important in their experience of the work, so I think we got very carried away with it! I don’t know… [to Moreno] maybe you disagree?

MS: No, no, I don’t disagree! For me, the reason for choosing the jump was because it was doing what we wanted the piece to do. We started with an idea, with a concept—the idea of empowerment. We tried several things, and, quite simply, we were not finding them very empowering! And then we started jumping, and we felt it actually had that quality. It is energetic, people can empathise with it, it can be mesmerising...so it really did what we were interested in doing. But it took a few attempts to get there!

IU: It did, yes.

MS: In the beginning, for example, we were exploring circling. We spent a very, very long time circling—which is now what happens at the end of the piece. But it wasn’t doing what we needed it to do, so it became just one section of the piece.

EN: It has been quite a long research process hasn’t it? I know this, in part, because months ago you were teaching classes in which we were jumping, and at that point you had already been exploring it for a while.

MS: Yes, it was quite a long process: about three months to start understanding what we wanted to do, and then a year and a bit to make it.

IU: In that sense it was such a great process. It’s exactly what you are saying; it seems that sometimes, or at least most of the people I know who work in dance—I don’t know exactly what their experience is of course—but it feels that we allocate between two and six weeks to make something. And part of that time you devote to ‘research’, a little bit of time for reflection, and then the making. And for this process, we really didn’t rush it in that way and it feels very...well, it was a great process, and it feels like taking more time paid back somehow. We had the time to explore something and discard it, and also we had time to have Simon [Simon Ellis, Artistic Associate for ‘Idiot-Syncrasy’] come in and question us so much!

MS: Yes, that was actually amazing.

EN: And, returning to the starting point for Idiot-Syncrasy— the idea of empowerment—I think it is empowering for us as artists to remember that we can take control of our processes in this way, and not fall into existing structures—research ruts— if they are not right for us, or right for the work, at a particular time.

I hate to say it, but we should probably start to wrap up. But do you have other dates lined up for ‘Idiot-Syncrasy’?

IU: Yes!

MS: We are going to Italy next, to Sardinia. And then after that we give Idiot-Syncrasy a break, but we will hopefully be performing it more in the autumn.

EN: Oh, interesting! I wonder how different it will be to perform it in Sardinia...because the first song will be understood. That will frame the work very differently! Is the song quite well-known?

MS: Yes, I mean, in Sardinia, everyone knows that song. So yes, it will be very different!

IU: But also, hopefully, people will be able to understand the work beyond that, beyond the absurdity of our using that song in that context—

EN: To not let the song frame the work completely.

IU: —yes, because it is really not about that song. It is really not about folk or anything. Hopefully we are creating a context for people to see part of themselves, and to open conversations. For us, it is not only about us giving the audience an experience; it is also about acknowledging the way that all of us are there together, about understanding that as an audience member I am sitting watching this surrounded by all these people, about becoming aware of myself, of my place in this evening. This is the idea of assembly (which has been around forever—the idea of theatre has been so much about catharsis and assembly!). It is about creating conversation around the things that matter to us. And in this work we don’t point specifically to things that we think should be talked about, but we hope to create a context of and for conversation.

As we leave, Igor makes a point of noting that they are by no means the only people exploring the action of the jump. He cites Jan Martens’ 'The dog days are over' as a current, well-known example, but there are certainly many others too—in fact, I have performed in a work where the second section consisted entirely of jumping. But what Igor’s comment does is to highlight one of the concepts that underpins ‘Idiot-Syncrasy’, and that really sums it up: there is a lot to discover in what is already there and available to us; moving forward does not always mean doing something new, but rather being able to look at it from a new perspective.

 

Watch a trailer of Idiot-Syncrasy below

{vimeo}http://vimeo.com/88986783{/vimeo}