The relationship to my collaborators is a fundamental element of my work. By being together, practicing together, eating together, spending time together we create the common ground. Everything we do together matters and will shape the development of the practice.

This space is about the ideas that feed the formation of a common ground, a safe environment that facilitates collaboration as a space between giving orientation and offering freedom for emergence.

Here you will find some thoughts on collaboration, that give some context to how I approach it. Also, take a look at some thoughts I mapped out around authenticity.

As a tools to create a common ground I developed some icebreakers that helped me facilitate what I was looking for:

The common ground wishlist as well as the we constitution came into being in my collaboration with David Kwiek, Albi Gjikaj and Joseph Simon. In the wishlist we share our wishes for collaborating and in the we constitution, that we wrote together, we defined how to work and behave in the studio.

The training that I offer before a session is described here:

my training framework

And in drawing our flow I share some material around an experiment where we visualized our ways of connecting movements.

If you want to go back:

to the starting point

We…
…are who we are.
…negotiate our common ground.
…observe what the others do.
…share a common story.
…do no half stepping.
…establish relationships with our movements.
…are all the same yet very different.
…feel the vibe.
…are responsible for the vibe.
…create a tension between us.
…act dynamically.
…can choose for the support of the music.
…stay awake.
…offer ideas without insisting.
…identify and develop motifs.
…avoid to imitate the mondane.
…stay authentic.
…let go and get affected.
…have fun.
…are always in movement, even if we’re still.

Describing our flow through a drawing

In order to give a haptic experience about how I perveive the flow of my movements I drew a line. This line represents how I connect movements and how my thinking in movement unfolds.
I asked my collaborators to make a drawing as well with the task of drawing one line.

The result was intriguing to reflect on in terms of collaboration and the personalities of my collaborators Albi Gjikaj, David Kwiek and Joseph Simon:

Click on the image to read my interpretation of the drawings.

click here for a video  where I draw my flow

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on collaboration

The matters of the world with which people deal and about which they speak are what we are accustomed to calling their ‚interests‘, from Latin inter (between) plus esse (to be) (Ingold, 2015).

This research was also a research into collaboration. In the sessions I had with Albi Gjikaj, David Kwiek and Joseph Simon I saw my task as a choreographer to facilitate a safe environment with a culture of trust. By defining and redifining each collaborators tasks the sessions were shaped by working independently, contributing ideas, taking responsability and appreciating the others. Through dialogue we identified our common interests, brought in expertise and created a space where one was being heard and where ideas could emerge. I strived to create a base where my collaborators could strongly identify with the work.

Inspired by Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the opressed I aimed to create a flat hierarchy in the studio with a rhizome-like structure, in which each collaborator becomes an authority in their field of expertise. The space between the individual interests, the leading topic and my ideas was negotiated and framed, based on dialogue.

In the gap between what you each agree with, and what you disagree with, is a place where you discover something new. It will most likely be something you recognise when you see it, but didn’t know that you knew. That’s the reason to collaborate. (Burrows, 2010)

Just as Burrows describes I was interested in this in-between space and what would happen there. This way of working changed my work drastically, juggling all the different ideas and finding a way to channel them. What happended between us became something new and unexpected.

Difficulties I had were the issue of time, staying on track, decision making and keeping momentum. That’s where sometimes I had to intervene and push decisions. Even if that meant to compromise on the idea of a flat hierarchy.

authenticity is some sort of ideal, highly valued and sought by individuals and groups as part of the process of becoming[…] authenticity is socially constructed and best understood not as a static, essential quality, but rather as a dynamic process that is open to intrapersonal and interpersonal (re-)vision. (Ochmann, 2013)

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common ground wishlist

do what we do best

go beyond and learn

share stories

be close to our origins

fill the dance with magic

represent ourselves

create your own

develop the matrix of the dance

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