Wim Vandekeybus

English translation of excerpts from an

Interview with Wim Vandekeybus by Ruud Goossens

De Morgen 29/01/2005
(…)

“I was raised on a farm in the Kempen (note: a sandy region in the north of Belgium), my father was a vet. The atmosphere there had a very intense influence on me.”

‘All my dreams take place in the landscape of my youth’, you once said.
“When I dream about people they are very often placed in that period. I grew up there with Tist and Lena, two retired farmers who were constantly around. There also were cows, goats and horses, I found that all incredibly exiting. Every moment things could go wrong. The farm was right next to the Nete (note: river). When the dike broke, everything ran under water and we had to protect them with bags of sand and keep watch for nights. Often I also accompanied my father at night to assist with the deliveries. We would then arrive deep in the night at a dark farm where a dog would lie moaning at a chain. That atmosphere of uncertainty, of tension, of adventure, one never loses.
“When my mother sees Fernando, she always that as a child I had even more energy. I would always be busy with a hundred things at the same time. My mind works in an associative way: when I see something, it immediately makes me think of something else. Often I read four-five books at the same time. At home we weren’t really busy with culture. Often I would be horsing around outside, playing with knives and branches. When I was lying in bed at night, I would hear the earth tremble because the horses would be running through the meadows.”

Animals are often present in your performances, but apart from that there a very little allusions to your farmers’ roots.
“The farmers’ life is often also just very boring. On stage that is not interesting. What stayed from my youth is the energy, that state. It has to do with a way of looking at things. A child that lies in bed with fever, can be staring at the crack in the ceiling and see many things in it, leaves, or all kinds of shapes. As an adult you know what you see and because of that it immediately passes. As I child, I would lie in the grass with my friends and we would start talking about eternity. How could something be eternal? Later you just ‘accept’ that. When you lose the child in yourself, something dies. Not that I start to think in a childlike way when I make a performance. But it is important to find back part of that child.”

Would you have been able to make a performance with children before you became a father yourself?
“I think so. In fact you are already a father before you really become one. It is inside of you. When your child is born, it all comes out. Often you then also realize that you look a lot like your father. For my next performance, for which I will start from the myth of the killing of the infants, we brought together a lot of children with their young mothers and fathers. Then you see really see physically that they already have in them what they will later become.

“That is why I will make a leap in time in the performance. The stage will be the hereafter, while the projected film, will be about life on earth. The characters on stage will recognize themselves as a baby in the past – in the film – while they have never lived themselves. They died before they were born. Someone in a coma has everything inside but can not do anything anymore. There are there, but then also not. Do you know these stories about comatose patients? A child comes to visit and throws a ball ah the bed. Suddenly the hands grab the ball. In a shock, in a reflex. I think that our mind works in the same instinctive way. Everything what you have lived, is in your head. But you don’t know where to find it. During a dream suddenly everything is back.”

Do you often dream?
“Recently I have been sleeping better, but for a very long time I had sleeping disorders. I would sleep two hours and then lie awake. A lot depends on my body. I am 41 in the meantime, but during Blush I dance during the entire performance. I feel that I have to push my body to extremes. Then it is difficult to crawl into bed afterwards and to let all that go. On the other side: I also need that. If there is no physical tiredness, my mind keeps turning.”
“A lot of my performances grow in bed. I wake up in the morning with images in my head. The image of the frog that - in the Blush film – swims out of the mouth of Ina (Geerts, one of the actresses, RG), was also suddenly there. Afterwards a lot people told me: ‘ Ah that was a symbol for the prince’ or ‘that was the soul escaping from the body’. (laughs) I had never looked at it that way. I just woke up with that image and during the rehearsals we involved a frog specialist. He advised the Australian tree-frog because these animals are not poisonous. We then started: frog in the mouth, we did not think too much and filmed. That was very beautiful because the frog seemed to be warm in the mouth of Ina. Finally it swam out very calmly, very elegantly. But what it means. That doesn’t interest me.”

Why not?
“I don’t like adding a whole symbolism to it. In our culture a black cat means bad look, but it doesn’t even know itself that it is black. I don’t like that people ask me in an after-talk “What did you mean with that?” An image is strong just because it is an image. On stage you of course need a dramaturgy, a line, but if that line becomes too obvious, I rear. I hate performances in which you get a kind of moralistic lesson about the bad world.
“And of course I want to talk about the world. Sonic Boom was about the power of the media and radio. But we did not talk about the war in Iraq or the genocide in Rwanda. On stage we created a medium that started to manipulate everybody, until they were bleeding. Theatre is strong when you limit it to the stage. Of course references to the outside world are necessary, but the reality on stage is something different. The more you’re conscious of that, the easier it gets to talk about the spirit of the times.
“That is why I want to get started with that story of the killing of the innocents. I think it is still very topical, but it already was topical 2000 and 5000 years ago. In fact it is about a meaningless murder that is committed out of fear of losing one’s power. I want to work around this ‘loss’, and around the people in power who did not have to justify themselves. Tone Brulin, who is 78 in the mean time, will perform in the piece. I look very much forward to that. Tone has lived many, many things, but he is still a little kid.”

Does Wim Vandekeybus not want to transmit any ‘message’ at all?
“Of course I want to transmit a message. I do not make performances to entertain people. If everybody leaves the theatre with a good feeling, I go home with a bad feeling. But I do not want to explain a message. If you like a rabbit, you do not have to cut it open to see what it looks like on the inside. All the energy that is in my projects in itself is already a message in this un-physical world.”

Is this world ‘un-physical’?
“Don’t you think so? We go to a gym and work out – all alone, on our own little mattress – until we sweat. On stage we grab each other, we push, we pull, we fight, we hurt each other. We let all the energy that we have inside of us, stream out. Hopefully the people, who are watching that, get a little jealous. When you hear that more and more people start to take tango lessons, there seems to be a need to hold each other, to escort each other.
“A look can also fascinate me a lot. Peter Verhelst formulates it very beautifully in one of his texts: a boy looks at a girl, a girl lets herself fall and he begins to moves to catch her. From this one sentence the whole ‘falling scene’ for Sonic Boom grew: the dancers look at each other, they fall and catch each other with their bodies. By laying each other, without using their hands.”
(...)
“On stage indifference can be very beautiful. If I become angry at you on stage, it is not interesting that you also become angry at me. In a movement you have to create a shift, only then it becomes interesting.
“I don’t pretend to think of everything myself. I am the engine and the others have to react. But I notice that my fantasy is still working. If the ten of us are stuck, I can loosen it with an idea. Then we can continue. I like to work with people because they keep my fantasy ‘fresh’.”

Your dancers are more than performers. They also always have to fascinate and inspire you.
“Before I start to work with them on a performance, I want to observe them closely. I am very good at having people do something that they have never done before, but that they are very good at. When some years ago I was working with Jan Fabre, he would put very clear limits on me. He saw that I was very impulsive and decided to tie me up. (laughs) The limits were clear and then we could start working. I prefer to put people on a field where they have never been. Linda, one of the girls in Blush, danced for ten years, but she had never spoken. While she immediately gets all the attention when she does do it.”

Even when, technically, it is less strong?
“There are people who get annoyed, when a dancer does something with text. I believe that it often also gives something extra. I would like to make a feature film. Hopefully a lot of experienced actors will perform in it, but definitely also some of my own people who do not have any camera experience. Professional actors don’t get where we get. We set out for a different field where they do not come. Deep in the jungle.”
(...)

You are 41 in the mean time; that is a respectable age for a dancer. Do you have to take care of your health?
“I am better trained now than before. I used to be stronger though. I was the wild boy of the group. In La Mentira (from 1992, RG) I would run at full force, jump, open my arms in the air and then tumble down on the floor. In total I played 1200 or 1300 performances, with all additional the rehearsals. That is a lot. After a performance my body really troubles me. Nowadays I dance bare feet more often. That is much more pleasant for your body, because your shoes do not pinch. I have to think about that kind of things now. (...)
‘I am not afraid of age. When I see how Tone Brulin can still use his body, I think: ‘I will be OK’.”

It has to keep you busy. A cyclist who passed 35 also knows that the end is near.
“A cyclist can not go on. I become better. I mean that. It is not because I become older that I have to pull out. Now I still do the same as the others, at a certain moment that will not be possible anymore. But then I will get another importance on stage. It is very beautiful to see elderly people on stage. Titus Muizelaar and Joop Admiraal in Sonic Boom for example. They obtain the same intensity as the dancers with their voice. Fragility can also be very beautiful. Fragile dancers are often very beautiful.”
(...)
“I would like to make a dictionary of our ‘language’. I love dictionaries, I like to read them. It would be interesting to make an Ultima Vez dictionary, with our performances and our movements, and many cross references. Because our people teach workshops, the dance vocabulary of Ultima Vez has become much more precise. Maybe we should pour that into a very free, technical guide.”
(...)

Maybe you are political in that sense. Your performances are cacophonies that are difficult to interpret in Flanders, a region where the political thinking of one particular extreme-right leaning party runs rampant.
“My performances are often about fear. For many people fear is a great source of creative inspiration. But it can also go wrong of course. Fear can become very oppressive, as you see in Flanders. That is why they frighten people. For me it is a motive, after fear there is desire. That is a much stronger emotion than fear and it allows you to take risks. I want to embrace mortality. You know, if extreme-right is the prophet of fear, you can call me the prophet of desire.”

© De Morgen, 29/01/2005

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