PERFORMANCE AND VIDEO PROJECT in collaboration with DEGASTEN

In collaboration with the training group’s instructor Linda Bosch, the players and I developed text and movement phrases, based on the sentence: “When I act I…” All players filled in the dots, and came up with a variety of feelings and thoughts about their personal processes while acting. All players wrote a short text about the first moment they realised they wanted to act. Half of the texts were in Dutch and half was in English. This choice was to enhance the authenticity of the players.

Each player chose words from their own texts as a starting point for creating physical movements – a method Linda Bosch had already introduced to the players. In collaboration, Linda and I shaped the movements into 11 continuous movement phrases, so that each player had his or her own solo that would connect with their own texts.

I staged all solos in the players’ own bedrooms and integrated the existing furniture and objects into the choreography. All solos were filmed in collaboration with cinematographer Sergio Gridelli. The intimate setting was used to enhance the personal portraits of each of the youngsters.

After the filming, each of the players recorded their own texts, in collaboration with sound engineer Niek de Wit and I, which was later used as voice over.

From the video and audio material a series of 12 short dance clips, a 1 channel video installation and a 3 channel video installation was created.