WN/Braunschweiger Zeitung 06 de MAY de 2005
WN/Braunschweiger Zeitung
Wolfsburg, Germany
06/MAY/2005
By Andreas Berger
WORLD PREMIERE OF "KNOT" AT MOVIMENTOS
The power station in the auto factory town of Wolfsburg, Germany is once more stage to the Festival. International dance companies are showing at the Movimentos their latest creations.Yesterday was the world premiere of "Knot" with the Deborah Colker Dance Company.
"We’re constantly breathing desire" Interview with choreographer Deborah Colker.
From a partnership between the Autostadt and the Deborah Colker Dance Company, from Rio de Janeiro, the spectacle "Knot" was born, staged for the Wolfsburg Movimentos Dance Festival. Before the world premiere yesterday, our staff writer Andreas Berger talked to choreographer Deborah Colker.
Knot. The title is the base of an abstract composition, or is there concrete action?
My work deals with the "strings attached" of relationships, the bonds involved, of dominion and submission. A knot is a movement; we need first to tie it, join the parties. I like that in the title. Even though we don’t tell a narrative story, the scenes aren’t abstract, once we can glimpse very concrete actions and situations behind them. You use, for example, vertical ropes, but also a red string with which the dancers wrap themselves horizontally. How did you rehearse that?
We rehearsed it in the normal, usual, quite classical fashion. But, for instance, we’ve had knot classes for two months with a sailor. This is important for the dancers not to actually strangle
themselves. It all depends on concentration. We also experimented with erotic bondage. There you can get, with ropes, tightly controlled sensations of pain and desire. This may be transposed for all our relationships. We are constantly choosing domination and submission. And the roles may switch.
Many times, our subconscious desires are transposed into objects and fetishes. The ropes in your choreography point to that. The transparent box in the second act does so, too. We can see the object of our desire, but not touch it. This voyeurism is typical of our world. For a dancer, the body is his fetish, each part of the body is closely watched, cared for, and trained.
How much of the inspiration for your choreography comes from your own experience? My personal feelings and experiences are always an important part of my work. That way I can express myself more sincerely. All the issues pertaining relationships and relations of power fascinate me. We’re constantly breathing desire, and it’s good to be aware of it, to be able to break free. I have always been keen on which metaphors, surrogates and replacements I find for my own yearnings.
About the interviewee: Deborah Colker was born in Brazil. She studied psychology, played volleyball, and performed many times as a concert pianist. She has always danced, and after a personal crisis made of dance her central mode of artistic expression. In 1980 she joined the Curinga Dance Group and created her first choreographies. She has already staged music shows, video clips, and a samba school parade in 2004. Since 1994, she directs her own company.
Twists of Desire
World premiere of ?Knot? at Wolfsburg
A rope tree, that opens into an entire jungle: among the swinging ropes, the dancers twist into human yarn balls. Many times a partner held strings attached to another doing handstands or crawling. And the manner a ballerina exercises on a vertical rope, her limbs twisting and twirling in ever-new ways on the rope, or others hold onto the ropes, reminds one of tying-up and bondage game play. At Deborah Colker’s choreography’s world premiere yesterday, however, the whole thing is so esthetic, that it does not voyeuristically evoke the hell of obscure desires. In order to do that, the clich?s are all missing, such as black leather. The swinging ropes do not become whips. On the contrary, what we see is ritualized - a purposed game with the very concepts of desire. It is more a demonstration of confidence, when one dancer allows another, on a rope, to lower him to a horizontal position. If the former would let go, the latter would fall, face splat on the ground.
In the second part, a female ballerina flings herself off the structure into the arms of a male dancer. They move in a glass box. They elbow against the wall, and do not let the other escape. All that is done with vaudeville movements. Shown in all their beauty, they satisfy the audience’s desire, as on TV. Relationships portrayed as a fighting match.
The Dance Company reveals itself remarkably focused. At times the dance moves interrupt for a moment, in the vertical rope numbers. The symbolism of "ropes and knots" is very close to the eternal theme of relationships, but the choreographic ideas that Colker wrings from this are multiple and hypnotizing. The spectator is also drawn, and applauds with loose abandon.
