Reasons for Moving

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

--Mark Strand




Six weeks paid vacation is a magical thing, people. Enough time to listen to that Lil' Wayne album 67thousand times. Enough days of breakfast, lunch, and dinner across the table from Fred. Enough hot Italian sun and Berlin vibes and green Kassel trees and brushing the cats against their will and taking the rugs to the cleaners and watching Weeds. All 4 seasons. Now it's time to go back to work.

Over the course of the last season, I collaborated on a book about the Tanzensemble with my colleague Brea. She shot candids of all 15 of us in rehearsal; I interviewed each dancer. One excerpt and one photo for each dancer were chosen. We wanted to find - in both the text and the photos - small, internal, personal moments. We wanted to show something behind/before/inside the finished product you see onstage. I asked the dancers about process, about performing, rituals, and risks, and how a role is developed, what falling is like, and about reasons. We've all got them.

These excerpts became the last page of the book.

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I'm living dancing. I don't just want to walk. I don't just want to talk. Leyla + I don't dance for anyone, somehow. Dance is something I know I have to do. I'm meant to dance. It's meant to be. Szu-Wei + I do dance for the audience. It doesn't matter how many people there are. But if there are no people at all, nobody, I cannot dance. I need the connection that I'm saying something to somebody.Evangelos + Dancing is a bit like talking without using your voice. Speaking. Speaking without using your voice. Saying many things about yourself without your voice. Kristin + I dance more for myself now. I do it because I enjoy it. I can feel part of something that somebody wanted to say. Cesar Augusto + Dance is the one language where I try to tell you what I say. To communicate with you. You don't like it, you don't take it. You like it, you take it. Pin-Chieh + I'm not dancing because someone else said I look cute when I do it. I think the end result of why I dance has to be me. Brea + When I feel the most clear and honest in my movement, I am dancing because I need to at that moment. Whoever stumbles along, discovers that, engages and relates to it, I am then dancing for them. Julian + Why I dance now has to do with creating real human experiences on a stage for people to have a real experience of. Jason + Art is there for people. I don't mean it has to be simple, or it has to be funny, or it has to be clear. As an artist onstage, I'm doing it for somebody. Ekaterine + I think I dance mostly for myself. If I don't enjoy what I'm doing, why should I then dance? Mats + I have a very complicated relationship with dance. Dance is for me like a person. It's like a commitment we have. It's hate and love. Elisabetta + I hope that through moving and dancing I can connect with myself better, and with people. That's the main wish. To use it as an instrument. Roberto + I feel at the same time like I never chose to dance - I just had to - and I made the choice so many times. I keep choosing it, every day. Lillian + Dancing is das Glaube auch. I think this is schoen so. Benjamin +