‘Two bald men sitting on chairs’
There will be only two chairs on the stage. Dancer and choreographer Jonathan Burrows and composer/ musician Matteo Fargion will perform a series of carefully choreographed gestures in casual dress. «Both Sitting Duet» will be one of the features of the 14th Kalamata International Dance Festival, which starts tomorrow. It will be staged on Sunday and on July 22 at the Municipal Cultural Center. It is an enjoyable, uncompromising work that redefines the boundaries and the possibilities of contemporary dance today. Burrows, one of Britain’s most prominent choreographers, will make his first appearance in Greece. He talked to Kathimerini about the performance. How did «Both Sitting Duet» come about? Matteo Fargion and I have been working together for almost 19 years. At first he wrote the music for pieces I choreographed, but six years ago I challenged him to create a work where we would share everything, the composition, the performance, the organization, even the expenses. That is how «Both Sitting Duet» started. We decided to sit on two chairs, because I am a professional dancer and Matteo isn’t, so if we stood up that difference would become the focus. But when we are seated we could just as well be two musicians, which evens the performance’s playing field. What is the game? A lot of people who have watched the show have said that they find music in silence and in this way an intriguing sound confusion. We also play with ideas that make the show familiar and often funny. It is the first of the three duets we have created together – each continues where the last one left off. They all explore ideas that have to do with rhythm, movement, sound and performance and push it all a bit further. The second duet is called «The Quiet Dance» and that is where we are pacing up and down. The third one, «Speaking Dance,» finally introduces words. As a professional dancer, how do you coexist with Matteo Fargion on stage? When we talk with the audience after a performance, I always say that Matteo has been rehearsing and touring with these choreographies for six years, which is double the time of basic dance training. So you can’t say he has no dance education. What has happened in this case is that the two of us have developed new physical traits that stem from these works and it is difficult to understand where each of us comes from separately. We just look like two middle-aged bald men sitting on chairs… What is important in the communication between the two of you? One of our principles is to behave as we feel, meaning that if we make a mistake or if a phone rings we can laugh it off. If we get nervous we don’t have to play it cool and if a fly appears on the stage we can look at it. We also try to sit the way the audience does, which means that we try to feel their energy and that they are the ones giving us the permission to dance. There are no mistakes, in other words the performance is not about perfection, and that encourages us and the audience alike. Our latest motto is that we can pretend, meaning that it is not about «truth» but we can follow anything that may come up. Are you referring to the relationship between music and dance? The text we wrote for the program says that this work explores the boundaries between music and dance, but I’m not so sure I am interested in that. I am more interested in Matteo as an artist, in his ideas, his questions and his enthusiasm. He just happens to be a composer and that is how we have this meeting of these two art forms.
