conversations in ten questions 2 : Karine Ponties - Every Direction is North (Ballet Moscow)
In this series of interviews we try to get to know the directors/choreographers who will be the international guests at the 23rd Istanbul Theatre Festival in November 2019. Our second guest is Karine Ponties.
Ayse Draz & Mehmet Kerem Ozel
Art Unlimited Performing Arts Editor & Writer
[The Turkish translation of this interview is published and can be accessed on art.unlimited]
What is the spirit of dance in your opinion? How do you define contemporary dance today?
I strongly believe that the body can't lie! So, for me, to dance requires a complete commitment and a constant questioning of how we translate the world.
I have the feeling that choreographic writing always comes from the body, hence the necessity to forge ties and work with individuals, each of whom contains their ‘writing’. Individual animal-like scoring processes which try to translate, and thus rewrite existing languages: sounds, words, gestures, colors and the excesses of the world that burst onto the stage. Raw materials to transform. In order to translate not ourselves in the world, but rather the world that is in us, as human beings among other human beings.
I find bodies more and more charged and at odds. They contain the world's violence. When they are fully engaged, I feel that in the dance itself. But there are so many other more fashionable contemporary dance forms that somehow look for comfort... I tend to disagree with that stance. Dance, to me, is one of the poetic ways of living and translating the world. I mean poetry not as the charming ornament that is usually connected to this term, but as the radical and intransigent manifestation of being in the world and thinking of the world. With consequences on all levels of life: social, moral and political. Poetry designates that state of raw consciousness that, fully open to the unknown and the unexpected, rejects any closed meaning.
To be poetical is one way of being political. Maybe one day, poetry will save the world?
Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How?
If art consists in cultivating singularity, for sure it is the best way to enter a dialogue with the others – those we face – because encounters are only possible if there is a difference – similarity bringing only indifference.
When you consider the current state of the world in every sense, what is the most important and urgent issue for you as an artist?
The creative process is a moment where the key is engendering faith, an engagement, a certainty, a need for the work especially.
Piece after piece, I keep trying to give new forms to a sharp and endless questioning of the world, and thus also put the spectators in motion. How do these forms emerge? It is in the material itself that I find something what I am looking for, without really knowing exactly what it is. A material that turns out to be even richer as it is composite, stratified, saturated by thousands of possibilities. And so, our work is to tune into that voice that whispers in the material itself and pave its way out. What is this work where we make, unmake, remake all sorts of possibilities to, then, liberated, get to an artistic form that is 'right'?
When you are working on a piece, what sources inspire you? Do dreams play a role in your works?
I find inspiration in painting, cinema, literature, photography and animation. Rarely in dance itself. And especially, animation.
Illustration and animation have always occupied a place of their own in my pieces. Since always, Jan Svankmajer, Stasys Eidrigevicius, Yuri Norstein, Alexandre Petrov, Gianluigi Toccafondo, Albin Brunovsky, Vladimir Kokolia, Stefano Ricci, Thierry Van Hasselt, Stefan Zsaitsis are endless wells for my research, and often are its starting points.
Illustration and animation open me up to very singular universes. They fascinate me, because they are like a thought in movement. And a story of perspectives and gazes.
They often are a means of expression common to many creators, and also a certain universal language present in all cultures.
The greatest strength of illustration and drawing is the fragility of the line, which pushes us towards our imaginations, and its intimate character allows us to dive into it.
These works contain secrets, folds revealing the extraordinary and the extravagant, in which we snuggle or take time. Works of art of an apparent lightness but that also call the eye, the gaze, that question, attract, since inside them are hidden stories, characters, relief, thoughts, associations of elements that lead to thinking – secrets, anamorphoses, faces, unsuspected shapes – and losing oneself.
Illustrations overflow with materials that are very much alive. They bring me face to face with a gaze, a way of thinking, of looking, of listening, that unsettles and enrich my own universe and creative process.
Animation films capture, in my opinion, the magic of movement. They feel somehow very similar to choreographic work. Chaos, diversity, that all of a sudden, through play and game, take shape, as heteroclite bits come together. In animation cinema, like in all of my choreographic research, poetic reality comes to life as we oppose realities through editing and metaphors.
“Images are pure creations of the mind. They cannot emerge from a comparison, but rather they are born from the act of bringing side by side two more or less distant realities [...]. The more distant and balanced is the relationship between these two realities, the more the image that is created will be strong, the more it will be charged with an emotional power and a poetical reality.”
I don't have the feeling that dreams are a source of my inspiration. What is is rather how I translate the world in which I live.
When do you decide to give a title to a work you are working on if it already does not have one?
It never happens the same way. Sometimes, there is a title while the piece has to come yet, and other times it's the last thing that comes along!
What’s your favorite line (or moment) in this performance, and why?
Not any specific moment, but rather from the beginning, to the end, when they give all of themselves and go full in.
Is there any artist whom you can describe as "my master", or any person whom you think influenced your art the most? And if there is such an artist or a person, who is s/he?
Buster Keaton, Tadeusz Kantor, Pina Bausch, Yuri Norstein, Jan Svankmajer, and children...
As you are conceiving stage pieces with your own company, you are also frequently making choreographies to other companies. Are there differences in the design phase/process between the two?
Yes, it's very different. In my own pieces, I choose the people I work with. When I work for other companies, I'm not completely free to choose, but I adapt myself and listen to the people I meet.
The body is a marvelous volume, made of bumps, holes, lines, round shapes, breaking points, flaws, flat or curbed surfaces, soft and hard, prominences. To work on exploring, to rediscover this volume that needs to be reconsidered, is a way to come closer to our own humanity. Everybody has a body, they are used to it, there is a form of banality in having a body, but to reveal under a certain angle or a singular light reminds us how exceptional it actually is, whatever the team I work with.
How does the use of objects (for example, in this piece, dancers have small cubes) affect your choreography?
It's completely intuitive.
Is there anything in particular you want to tell people before they see this show? Is there anything particular you would like to tell the Istanbul audience?
"Everywhere, today, people's brains are ironically ceasing to understand that one's actual guarantee lies not in an isolated effort, but in solidarity among human beings. »
Ayse Draz & Mehmet Kerem Ozel
Art Unlimited Performing Arts Editor & Writer
[The Turkish translation of this interview is published and can be accessed on art.unlimited]
What is the spirit of dance in your opinion? How do you define contemporary dance today?
I strongly believe that the body can't lie! So, for me, to dance requires a complete commitment and a constant questioning of how we translate the world.
I have the feeling that choreographic writing always comes from the body, hence the necessity to forge ties and work with individuals, each of whom contains their ‘writing’. Individual animal-like scoring processes which try to translate, and thus rewrite existing languages: sounds, words, gestures, colors and the excesses of the world that burst onto the stage. Raw materials to transform. In order to translate not ourselves in the world, but rather the world that is in us, as human beings among other human beings.
I find bodies more and more charged and at odds. They contain the world's violence. When they are fully engaged, I feel that in the dance itself. But there are so many other more fashionable contemporary dance forms that somehow look for comfort... I tend to disagree with that stance. Dance, to me, is one of the poetic ways of living and translating the world. I mean poetry not as the charming ornament that is usually connected to this term, but as the radical and intransigent manifestation of being in the world and thinking of the world. With consequences on all levels of life: social, moral and political. Poetry designates that state of raw consciousness that, fully open to the unknown and the unexpected, rejects any closed meaning.
To be poetical is one way of being political. Maybe one day, poetry will save the world?
Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How?
If art consists in cultivating singularity, for sure it is the best way to enter a dialogue with the others – those we face – because encounters are only possible if there is a difference – similarity bringing only indifference.
When you consider the current state of the world in every sense, what is the most important and urgent issue for you as an artist?
The creative process is a moment where the key is engendering faith, an engagement, a certainty, a need for the work especially.
Piece after piece, I keep trying to give new forms to a sharp and endless questioning of the world, and thus also put the spectators in motion. How do these forms emerge? It is in the material itself that I find something what I am looking for, without really knowing exactly what it is. A material that turns out to be even richer as it is composite, stratified, saturated by thousands of possibilities. And so, our work is to tune into that voice that whispers in the material itself and pave its way out. What is this work where we make, unmake, remake all sorts of possibilities to, then, liberated, get to an artistic form that is 'right'?
When you are working on a piece, what sources inspire you? Do dreams play a role in your works?
I find inspiration in painting, cinema, literature, photography and animation. Rarely in dance itself. And especially, animation.
Illustration and animation have always occupied a place of their own in my pieces. Since always, Jan Svankmajer, Stasys Eidrigevicius, Yuri Norstein, Alexandre Petrov, Gianluigi Toccafondo, Albin Brunovsky, Vladimir Kokolia, Stefano Ricci, Thierry Van Hasselt, Stefan Zsaitsis are endless wells for my research, and often are its starting points.
Illustration and animation open me up to very singular universes. They fascinate me, because they are like a thought in movement. And a story of perspectives and gazes.
They often are a means of expression common to many creators, and also a certain universal language present in all cultures.
The greatest strength of illustration and drawing is the fragility of the line, which pushes us towards our imaginations, and its intimate character allows us to dive into it.
These works contain secrets, folds revealing the extraordinary and the extravagant, in which we snuggle or take time. Works of art of an apparent lightness but that also call the eye, the gaze, that question, attract, since inside them are hidden stories, characters, relief, thoughts, associations of elements that lead to thinking – secrets, anamorphoses, faces, unsuspected shapes – and losing oneself.
Illustrations overflow with materials that are very much alive. They bring me face to face with a gaze, a way of thinking, of looking, of listening, that unsettles and enrich my own universe and creative process.
Animation films capture, in my opinion, the magic of movement. They feel somehow very similar to choreographic work. Chaos, diversity, that all of a sudden, through play and game, take shape, as heteroclite bits come together. In animation cinema, like in all of my choreographic research, poetic reality comes to life as we oppose realities through editing and metaphors.
“Images are pure creations of the mind. They cannot emerge from a comparison, but rather they are born from the act of bringing side by side two more or less distant realities [...]. The more distant and balanced is the relationship between these two realities, the more the image that is created will be strong, the more it will be charged with an emotional power and a poetical reality.”
-Pierre Reverdy
I don't have the feeling that dreams are a source of my inspiration. What is is rather how I translate the world in which I live.
When do you decide to give a title to a work you are working on if it already does not have one?
It never happens the same way. Sometimes, there is a title while the piece has to come yet, and other times it's the last thing that comes along!
What’s your favorite line (or moment) in this performance, and why?
Not any specific moment, but rather from the beginning, to the end, when they give all of themselves and go full in.
Is there any artist whom you can describe as "my master", or any person whom you think influenced your art the most? And if there is such an artist or a person, who is s/he?
Buster Keaton, Tadeusz Kantor, Pina Bausch, Yuri Norstein, Jan Svankmajer, and children...
As you are conceiving stage pieces with your own company, you are also frequently making choreographies to other companies. Are there differences in the design phase/process between the two?
Yes, it's very different. In my own pieces, I choose the people I work with. When I work for other companies, I'm not completely free to choose, but I adapt myself and listen to the people I meet.
The body is a marvelous volume, made of bumps, holes, lines, round shapes, breaking points, flaws, flat or curbed surfaces, soft and hard, prominences. To work on exploring, to rediscover this volume that needs to be reconsidered, is a way to come closer to our own humanity. Everybody has a body, they are used to it, there is a form of banality in having a body, but to reveal under a certain angle or a singular light reminds us how exceptional it actually is, whatever the team I work with.
How does the use of objects (for example, in this piece, dancers have small cubes) affect your choreography?
It's completely intuitive.
Is there anything in particular you want to tell people before they see this show? Is there anything particular you would like to tell the Istanbul audience?
"Everywhere, today, people's brains are ironically ceasing to understand that one's actual guarantee lies not in an isolated effort, but in solidarity among human beings. »
« The Karamazov Brothers » - F.M. Dostoïevski
Have a nice show!
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