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This episode is a conversation between dancers Kerem Gelebek and Soa Ratsifandrihana. Soa is a Franco-Malagasy dancer and choreographer based in Brussels, and Kerem is a dancer from Turkey based in Paris. They discussed their featured work from Dance Reflections. We'll hear them discuss how they use the term interpreter in place of choreographer or dancer, and how their work integrates personal and cultural archives. They'll also speak about the challenges of creating work, which incorporates their heritage without exoticizing it.

Find out more about Kerem and Soa on our People page.

To the Glossary Kerem donates Interpret To decide what the intended meaning of something is..

And Soa donates Groove The word groove is originally a slang term that originated in jazz music and more specifically in swing at the end of the 1930s..

This series is produced and edited by Hester Cant.

The series is co-curated by Emma McCormick-Goodhart and Martin Hargreaves, with concept and direction by Martin Hargreaves and Izzy Galbraith.

This episode is a collaboration with Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels. This initiative supports choreographic heritage, nurtures contemporary creation and engages the widest possible audience in conversations about dance.

Transcript:

MARTIN:

Hello and welcome to þ thorns a sharp prickled growth on flower stems, found on roses., a podcast where we bring you conversations between artists in relation to concepts of the choreographic the choreographic can refer to choreography, and to the writing of dancing bodies, but it can also refer to modes of generating and circumscribing movement that do not register as dance, or as art works.. þ thorns þ is produced by the Rose Choreographic School at Sadler’s Wells. This episode is a collaboration with Dance Reflections by Van Cleef and Arpels. This initiative supports choreographic heritage, nurtures contemporary creation, and engages the widest possible audience in conversations about dance. To find out more, follow the link in the episode description. The artists you will hear in this episode presented their work at the Dance Reflections Festival in London in Spring 2025.

I’m Martin Hargreaves, Head of the Choreographic School, and as part of the ongoing imagination of the school Gathering places for teaching and learning. Also, a school of thought is an idiom that suggests the sharing of traditions of philosophical and intellectual practices. , we are compiling a glossary of words that artists are using to refer to the choreographic the choreographic can refer to choreography, and to the writing of dancing bodies, but it can also refer to modes of generating and circumscribing movement that do not register as dance, or as art works.. Every time we invite people to collaborate with us, we also invite them to donate to the glossary, which is hosted on our website. There is a full transcript available for this episode on our website together with any relevant links to resources mentioned.

This episode is a conversation between dancers Kerem Gelebek and Soa Ratsifandrihana. Soa is a Franco-Malagasy dancer and choreographer based in Brussels, and Kerem is a dancer from Turkey based in Paris. They discussed their featured work from Dance Reflections. Kerem was the soloist in a piece by Christian Rizzo titled Sakinan Göze Çöp Batar (An over-protected eye always gets sand in it), which was first shown in 2012, and Soa performed her own solo work g r oo v e.

This conversation was recorded with Kerem in a studio in Paris, and Soa in Brussels. We'll hear them discuss how they use the term interpreter in place of that of choreographer or dancer, and how their work integrates personal and cultural archives. They'll also speak about the challenges of creating work, which incorporates their heritage without exoticizing it. The transition sounds you will hear in this episode are field recordings from Soa’s radio creation Rouge cratère: from a rice field in Madagascar, and an escalator in a Brussels train station.

KEREM:

I'm a dancer. I'm not a choreographer. In French, there's this word called interpret, interpreter, which is about language normally I think in English, but here it's used for dance, which I really like this form to represent myself.Interpret as an interpreter. I listened to one of your recordings, you sent?

SOA:

Oh yeah? Yeah, it's a Radiophonic creation. It's like a documentary. There's only one episode. It was when I went to Madagascar in 2023. I went there to meet different artists, historians and also storytellers to get to know more about the culture there, because I got really interested in the 19th century in Madagascar, and most of the archives that I have here are mostly written by Europeans, and I was wondering what was like the gaze from Madagascar. So, I went there to get to know more about the story. Oh, thank you for listening to it!

KEREM:

Did you find things, did you find archives or…?

SOA:

Yeah. Yes, I did. Yeah. And I, I found like a very interesting historian and she gave me so much information and, and this somehow like, helped in the creation of my last piece. And the title of the piece is in, in Malagasy it's called Fampitaha, fampita, fampitàna and it means in, in English, it means a comparison, transmission, and rivalry.

KEREM:

Yeah. I, it was funny because its like three words that I see that looks like similar kind of sounds like similar, and have this three different meanings. Yeah. It’s funny to see it in, in certain languages that we have. This thing looks similar. From our side, but completely different context in it.

SOA:

Definitely. And I really loved what you said about like being a dancer and being an interpreter. I don't know if it, yeah, I think it works in English as well?Interpreter.

KEREM:

Does it? I don't know.

SOA:

I don't know really. I think so. I don't know. But yeah, it's like a translator somehow. So it's, it's really beautiful. Like how, yeah, the, the relationship that you have with some work and how you somehow like get to translate this work through your body. And it was really beautiful what you're saying actually. I was like, oh yeah. I never thought about it before

KEREM:

These radiophonic works were, I think it was the first thing that I, I was really a attracted as a performative creation. I remember listening to some theatre pieces, which I had no idea if they were classic or modern, but I remember listening on the radio when I was kid, especially in my aunts’ houses, which they were living really in the countryside. Like there were no TVs. There was some TVs already around in the eighties in, yeah, but. In the village there was maybe one or two, so everybody was going to one house to watch this, whatever it is. So generally, there were radios around and I remember passing the time listening on radio and there were these theatre pieces. I remember just really sitting, just lying down in front of the radio and then you hear the door cracking and hello, you hear the footstep. All these sound effects and things I, I was so, I dunno, it was so immersive at that time. It was like 3D today!

And now I'm just, while I'm talking, I'm just realizing that I said that I don't do choreography, but the only choreography work that I did, it was a collaboration with my wife, Lorena Dozio. She's a choreographer and we did these episodes. Which they were live performance. At the same time, she was there talking, explaining what is going on or what is not going on, what is not visible.

SOA:

Ah, that's beautiful.

KEREM:

So we, we took some pieces, like the pieces that I, I danced and I was doing the part and she was, for example, explaining what the others are doing while I'm doing this. I took this dance from Ian Curtis. So I was doing this weird dance and she was taking texts from him and telling it live at the same time. This part of his life, what was going on with the audience? What was the expectation on him from others, what he was thinking to do and etc. So yeah, that was the only thing that I initiated to do, but it was a kind of radio piece, but visually, also there were some things that were going on, so.

SOA:

Oh, that's so nice. Yeah. And I guess like with the movement at the same time, like the audio happening, like, uh, it can be a subtext that it can be like a commentary as it can be an explanation. It's really nice. Like the status is changing with the, I can imagine, like with the sound. It's so interesting.

KEREM:

So, yeah, as you said, the, so the interpretation is, I think it's one of the words, I can send to the glossary? No, what's it called?

SOA:

Yeah. In the glossary?

KEREM:

Yeah. It can be one word because we can also interpret this word in other ways, so that's a very flexible word.

SOA:

Mm. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, and for me, we sometimes, to make like the differences between interpretation and, and choreography, being a choreographer or being an interpreter or a dancer. But somehow for me, I always say that I'm a dancer first because there's so much part of creativity that comes from the dancer and comes from the interpreter to make some work alive somehow. It asks a lot of imagination and, and, and creativity. Even though it's like, it's not the source of the project or the show. Somehow it, we can really, like, as dancers and interpreters like really shape or create a story, a different story every time we're performing a piece. And this is really important to me to.

KEREM:

Were you dancing in all of your pieces?

SOA:

Uh, yeah. Yeah. I'm dancing. Yeah, I'm dancing in all the pieces. Yeah. Yeah.

KEREM:

Have you ever considered like that's,” I'm gonna do work on something, but I really want to be outside to have a look at it or”…?

SOA:

Yeah, I thought of it at some point, but also I'm starting to make my own work.I did a solo and now a group piece, but I guess at some point I would like to step back and to look at it. But when I write dance, when I choreograph, it always starts with my body and my own intimacy, and it starts out with what I want to feel in my body. Before something like having a theme or like, I want to talk about this or I want to talk about that. It's more like I want to get something out of my body somehow. And it starts with that and then comes the writing and comes the context and all those things. But I think it always starts with my body. So yeah, so that's why for me, the interpretation somehow is the core of my choreographic work somehow. I would say.

KEREM:

And did you dance for other choreographers?

SOA:

Yeah. I started when I was 19. I started with James Thierrée - physical theatre, circus, dance, all of them at the same time! I started with that and then I worked with Salia Sanou. Do you know Salia? Yeah. I used to work here with him, and it was really, it was between Burkina Faso and France. We did the start of the creation in Ouagadougou, and then I moved to Brussels and I started working with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker in the Rosas company. And then I started making my own work.

TRANSITION SOUNDS: rice field in Madagascar

But actually, you know what? In 2012, I saw you dancing and I think it was a fabric. No. It was in the festival of Avignon.

KEREM:

In Avignon? Yeah, in the festival. Okay. In the garden, they do this bar and this meeting point, and then this big studio inside. Yeah. It's like a fabric or something.

SOA:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Oh, I have a very strong memory of this piece because you're sitting at the beginning of the piece, right?

KEREM:

Yeah, it's true

SOA:

Like in a high chair. I don't, I don't… ah, it was like a long time ago! But are you on a chair or it's, it's like a…

KEREM:

Big box. Yeah, it's, it looks like a big cube. It's not a cube, but something rectangular. Yeah, I'm sitting on it while people are entering.

SOA:

Yeah, I remember that. Now, I have a very strong memory of this piece. I remember watching you when I was entering this theatre and I saw you on this white cube and also this white floor, right? And yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, you have your like, a pretty simple costume with a t-shirt and trousers, right?

KEREM:

Yeah, with the shirt and the trousers.

SOA:

Yeah. Shirt and trousers and very simple. I remember I sat and then I was like. It's crazy. I'm so happy to finally meet you because… its a recording, so we cannot see movement, but there's especially one movement that stayed in my mind and I still have it. And I remember I was in school at that time. I was studying dance in Paris, and I imitated you. I remember, I, I tried to imitate you, one movement, because I was like, wow, this move, it's like… Okay, now I'm showing you, and then I will try to describe it with words, but it's this, like, you're doing this with your hands and with your foot… you're, you're doing a little jump and you slide and you do like this. I don't know if it's, if it's real or maybe it's my imagination. Maybe I'm telling something. Is there a movement like that?

KEREM:

I think I understand where, yeah. I, I see the part, I work a bit on this kind of movement that it kind of floats a bit. Yeah. Like jumps.

SOA:

Yeah. It's a floating movement like this and, and it's really like as if you surf on the surface of the floor. It was really, and it really travels. It really, and I was really amazed by how far you went, like with just one slide and it felt effortless and yeah, I really have this in the back of my memory. It's, yeah. Still strong.

KEREM:

Yeah. I, I remember the period, it was 2012 Avignon, I was a bit stressed. Honestly, it was like. We had, I dunno, five days present presentation there and people are coming. It's Festival d’Avignon. Like it's a huge pressure and it's a solo. You're alone. There's no one to hide. There's nothing to hide behind. And it was burning hot. And it was super hot. And very cold inside. Very hot. I outside. Well, it was weird and very nice memory. Yeah, I remember. I was so tired and happy at the same time.

SOA:

And was it was the premiere in Avignon, or you danced it before it?

KEREM:

I danced it I think maybe couple of times before. Okay. So it was really new. It was starting to take shape, really. Like we had the piece of course written, but written in a sense of, not every movement is written, but like blocks of things. Big chunks. Because it was how we worked also with Christian, with the choreographer. We didn't start, let's make a piece and, you know. We just started to make, we called them etudes. We were saying, okay, a man with a table. Simple, just men with a table. No introduction, nothing, just let's work on this, da da, da, da, da. Materials. We were making up some, um, materials and, and more than materials.

It was more like creating a quality of movements, like what can it create also in a, visually, what does it give? Just doing a table and a man like next to it, on top of it, under it, lying down, lying on it, lying under the table. Like, what are all these images? And then working completely with another type of material, which was, it was very, some basic things like simple things like saying, okay. One movement at a time. Just one thing, and another other thing, and another movement. And what happens if we overlap them, whatever. If I stop the movement before it ends, I initiate another, then I continue the first one. And then I continue the second one, and then third one appears- this kind of gymnastic-like exercise. So they were, yeah, we were creating some little blocks. So, and the piece was succession of all these materials. And with years of, because we dance, this piece quite a lot. I mean, I don't know, maybe it's more than a hundred times and times maybe we dance, but in, in a long period. And I'm still dancing this piece.

SOA:

This is beautiful.

KEREM:

Which is funny and I'm really happy doing it because. It's the same piece, but at the same time, for me, it's not the same piece that I was dancing in 2012 now. Because I'm not the same person.

SOA:

Of course. Yeah.

KEREM:

And, and I have the same physicality. In the other hand, I don't have exactly the same. So there are some pluses, there are some negatives. But for the piece itself, I find today that I can go to the core of the piece more because I get older and I think this piece needed also to, to be more mature, a little bit more, yeah old, let's say. Also from outside, I think people read differently, seeing someone with like a grey hair that gives another image from a young dancer as doing thing because it talks about exile.

SOA:

What's the name of the, what's the title of the show again?

KEREM:

The piece is called, Sakinan Göze Çöp Batar, it was a Turkish title. Sakinan Göze Çöp Batar which is an expression in Turkish. If I literally translate, ‘the eye that you protect will get a piece of wood in it’. It might get hurt, basically. So, it was an expression to say, if you protect something too much, it's probably gonna hurt it. Like, mm. It was this balance. The protection. Like what do you protect? How do you protect? So yeah, the title was a Turkish one.

SOA:

Oh yeah. So yeah, it's about exile and yeah, I guess also like it was in 2012 and now in 2025. It's crazy actually. It's beautiful that you get to, to dance it still.

KEREM:

I think it's a good thing for a dancer, for any dancer really. I really wish to, for any dancer who loves this job, like to have a piece that you can dance for a long time. Maybe not a lot, but you know, once a year. Like once a year to, to take again this piece and show it to really understand like what happened, what was the idea without necessarily changing it or adapting it. Because the context changes constantly. So our reading changes, it makes, it makes sense anyway. And also as a performer, we have this luxury of revisiting things that we did - not recalling, not trying to redo the same thing - but going through the same thing and have another outcome, which is not completely different, but is a feeling. It's completely different.

SOA:

Definitely. Yeah.

KEREM:

I think it's a luxury for a dancer, I think to have. I'm, I feel really happy I'm, I feel really lucky about that. I hope it will continue. I wish I can do it, I dunno, still in 10 years I would love to.

SOA:

Oh wow. But I want see it again! It really moved me and I'm wondering how it is now and what do I remember from that. Will, I don't know if if it'll be, it'll feel completely different and… Yeah, for sure. I guess, and you're totally right, like about the fact that anyhow, the context is changing. Do we have to change a piece when we tour it years later? Not really. Actually. It's the context change and at the same time. I find it difficult because I asked myself this question with my own work because now it's been like four years that I toured my solo and I know that in between I started my new piece and I see my body changed and I thought at some point, ah. Does it still relevant to dance this solo? And I, I think yes, but I was like, ah, maybe I should change a few choices that I've made before. And I thought that at some point, but then I tried and then I was like, yeah, no, maybe it doesn't make sense to change anything because you have some sort of script and the people who are coming to the audience coming to watch the piece - is discovering the, the script at the same time you are delivering it. And it's weird to change the script when somehow, like all the choices that have been made on a certain time, which was for me in 2020/2021, mean something. I don't know if it's clear what I'm saying, but it's just that…?

KEREM:

Yeah, I think I understand. I'm trying to. I think like what, what would it be applying the same, the this what you were explaining to other things. Like imagine that you wrote a book and like after five years you want to change some phrases in it. Which is possible, but then would you do it?

SOA:

No, because then you lose the core of it. Somehow, we lose the, yeah, yeah…

KEREM:

Yeah.. This is said at that time with that context, this is said. Okay. This is, and plus what we do is already as a spectacle vivant, it's a live spectacle. It's already live because the body changes anyway and even though it doesn't change, like when we do two shows, one after another. They're different. Yeah,

SOA:

Yeah definitely,

KEREM:

We, we always have a preference. We say, ah, the first was better or the second was better. Um, even for the audience, maybe it was the opposite. I don't know, but it's already so many let’s say different parameters in it. And yeah. Plus changing in it, it's true that then it change, that it moves everything. Yeah. It's a bit risky.

TRANSITION SOUNDS: a Brussels train station

KEREM:

But I'm curious about how, because you are doing your pieces, and as I understand there… this cultural backgrounds kicks in, right? Yeah. Like it's there and, and how are you dealing with that? Because this was always one of my questions, if I would like to, if I want to make a piece, then using these cultural elements that I have, somewhere, and how to put them on stage that… without making them exotic? You know?

SOA:

Definitely

KEREM:

Like, this is where I come from. Like, we know that there are many things like this. Yeah. We don't want… we want it to be in the same level of things. It's just the rhythm, the music, the presence, the appearance, the plasticity of the bodies and etc. How do you deal with this thing, because it's a huge subject?

SOA:

Yeah, it's a huge subject and it's true that sometimes we cannot escape from the perception and the gaze that we can like impose on us. And even though I avoid like this idea of exotifying myself, somehow. Sometimes, anyhow, whatever I do, I will have this gaze on me. But it's just that also if I've decided to bring my cultural background is because also it's a matter of context, because I'm from the second generation of immigration, of… my parents came from Madagascar in the eighties and they came to France, so I'm French. I was born and I grew up in France. Yeah, I I wasn't born in Madagascar.

In being a dancer for others, I somehow worked on, how do you say that? On…belonging to a certain way of dancing, for example, like the last work I've been part of was with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and you know, the movement is pretty… like the shape of the movement and the heritage of the movement it comes from postmodern dance. And its coming from modern dance, coming from classical dance, coming from baroque dance. Like all those these lineages of movement and this is what I studied, but at the same time, at the same moment, I was still dancing with my family or also in cultural, in celebration of the diaspora of the Malagasy diaspora in France. And I felt like at some point that I was going on stage with only part of myself, one part of myself, and I was thinking, ah, but at some point I want to come with all my references.

And I felt also like in the history of dance, in the books of history of dance, we still have this separation. Actually, I dunno how it is in England for example, but in France we still have the distinction, like the differences that we make between like, I dunno, what's the word in English though? Like intellectual dances, I would say. But it's not really like the right term for that. But it's intellectual dances that somehow comes more from a European lineage. Compared to other dances that are more like traditional, like community dancing or recreative, like for example in his, in the dance history in France, we talk about the dances of recreation. Somehow that are not really serious, that we cannot take really seriously, and this is something that's always felt weird to me because since I've been dancing, like Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker or I don't know, something like very popular. I felt like for me, I could feel within my body the same joy and I don't know why we would have to make this separation or make this distinction between those dances and this comparison. And so that's why I wanted to, with my own work, to let my cultural background kick in. Even though I know that in the context of theatre, and knowing what is dominant on the context of theatre, I can… my work can be seen like as exotic or sentimental because I'm talking about my origin or all those things. So yeah, it's always delicate, but I feel like there's more and more work that are critiques of that. I think with my, so wasn't so much the case, but with my group piece, somehow I play with that and uh, so I think, yeah, I'm trying to find my ways in that!

KEREM:

How do you manage this material of having your own personal archive, plus cultural archive, and then work on something, and then working in a way that it's so pure then it's not about that culture only. But that it can be about in any culture everywhere.

SOA:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But actually in my work, I really work in the situation of being from the diaspora. I'm not saying, like, for example, when I work, I'm not like, oh this is like a dance of Madagascar and this is a dance that we dance in the diaspora, Malagasy diaspora. That's more that, for example, like in, in my solo than when it comes, for example, for the new piece, I'm not dancing any dance, like any older or traditional dance from Madagascar. It's just with the musician that actually comes from Madagascar that the musician, though he grew up there and he moved to Belgium 10 years ago and we met in Brussels. But when we spoke in, during the creation, the idea was to, in the group piece, to somehow find the spirit, the energy of what those dances could bring, but not to perform the movements or to create the movements again, or it was not about that. It was more about the spirit of it. It was more about, I think somehow like the culture, cultural background came more in the way I was thinking the movement of the piece, how it goes, like how I build the sequences of the piece. Yeah, I think it was more in, within the writing, within the spirit of it, more than like the dances themselves. I wasn't really what yeah I was focused on

KEREM:

Now you're only doing your own pieces or you also continue as an interpreter?

SOA:

Now I'm mostly working on my own work. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I'm helping out for the projects of friends of mine, but I'm not, I'm not dancing so much for others now.

KEREM:

Do you miss it?Is it something that you miss?

SOA:

Yeah definitely! I think at some point I will have to, to discover other things. And I, I'm really interested in performance also, I really like performance and people working also in theatres like text or like, I like to sing as well, and this is something that singing becomes a part of my practice as well. So yeah, I think I want again to work for other projects. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how about you? Would you like at some point to, I dunno, make your own work. And because you did this project and how did it feel? Do, do you feel like you want at some point to create your own content or?

KEREM:

I think this is all, I mean, since I would, since I started dancing, since I was a student, I always had some ideas like, oh, you kind of imagine things in the beginnings. Couple of years later, you start to dream on some other things. Which you realize that your first idea was crap, and then you are just happy that you didn't do it! And, and then again, some years later you're like, oh yeah, that was also crap! Or some, some ideas you just forget about it. Kind of I'm happy that I didn't do anything, like I didn't do anything saying that, well, this is my, my work, you know? Yeah.

SOA:

Yeah, yeah. I get it

KEREM:

Yeah. But at the same time, they have, I know that this, it's, uh, it's boiling somewhere inside - you want to do things. So what I hang on was trying to meet with, not good choreographers in that they have ideas, but they're open to listen also to other dancers. So, I would consider myself lucky in that way. I work with choreographers like Christian Rizzo, like Boris Charmatz, like.. like they were, I managed to create in it. They gave me some space that I could create things inside the piece, but as I said, I think being a choreographer or even teaching giving a class or teaching… I like for instance, giving classes or making a workshop, which is great, but I know that it's a different job, I can't do it constantly. Like I can't do it as a work. It's a hell of a thing - I will get cancer! Like it's stressful and doing something does not necessarily mean that you are, you can also transmit it. Transmission is completely another thing and plus constructing as a choreographer, it's again, another job. And I see also there's this, the official part of this being a choreographer, which is looking for money, arranging, finding dancers, plannings, and… The responsibility of people around, and it's a hell of a job. I don't see myself handling, doing all these things. Basically, I think I was lazy enough not to do it.

SOA:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's true, like yeah, it's being an entrepreneur somehow. Like it's too much! Yeah, yeah, like writing like dossiers and like writing files and no, it's, it's a lot of work. Yeah. It's too much!

KEREM:

Yeah. I see my friends, I see, yeah, my wife, like they are like, ah, they cut the money from there! And so I don't think about, I mean, of course I think about all this, what is going on in the country, which is not great right now, especially in France. There's like huge cuts. I think in many countries, I don't know details, but in France, like we have really huge cuts that even a hundred percent cuts in some regions. A hundred percent, which means, well, you don't have the money anymore, deal with it. What do we do now? Well, do something else. It's a bit like this situation and seeing all these people dealing like, wow, what's gonna happen? Oh, people, they don't know how to, how they will continue. Some good dancers… the dancers that I know, they're like, Hey, if you hear something like I'm looking for a job, I'm like. You looking for a job?! you're a great dancer. How come you're looking for a job? Like people should be running behind you. And I think it's a difficult situation also for, for choreographers and for dancers, which there's less production I think. Or even though there are productions, but the duration is getting shorter. Like maybe you could do research for, I dunno six, seven, eight weeks before till the premiere and now you have to do your research at home. I don't know.

SOA:

Yeah, they're doing it without being paid! Yeah, it's, yeah, it's getting difficult. It's true that in terms of the economy, somehow, it's really like, it's not the same as it was like in the eighties or in the nineties, and it's getting, it's shortened like more and more and, and we can see also, when we see the pieces now that are being, like, produced today, it's really, yeah, it's less flamboyant or extravagant than it used to be before, because there were more money to, but at the same time, like in terms of necessity and in terms of, I don't know what, what is, what is said on stage also could be very interesting today. Like nowadays I think so, yeah. It's a different period of time, definitely. And yeah, it's difficult.

TRANSITION SOUNDS: rice field in Madagascar

KEREM:

That difficulty also brings a certain creativity on. It creates, in a way, all the difficulty creates something which is also exciting, but without – I hope we just don't get used to anything worse. You know? Yeah. We have this huge capacity of getting used to things. The concept, the situations, the… we saw it closely in, in Covid periods, like how we got used to it. This was extreme in the beginning. Like doing certain things, not going outside or not touching people and so on. And yeah, two years period. And now it's so difficult. It's that difficult to bring it back to, to certain things. Like contact. We lost contact. In London we gave a workshop just before the shows, and at one point we talked about this and I said, I think what I see is we already had a certain distance to each other. You know, people, they're not really in touch to each other, which I was saying that it's a bit different than Middle East culture, which there's a little bit more contact. Tapping on the shoulder. Taking their hands and so on. Or kissing, like men kissing each other, like men, woman, et cetera. Like you, you have this more contact physical relation. Which is not nothing. It's really like exchanging energies. So it might help a lot to a community to just physically being close to each other and how we lost it. It was a huge cut and now we can't bring it back. 

SOA:

Yeah.

KEREM:

Just like that. It's not like a…

SOA:

Yeah, yeah. No, no. It's true. There's a distance. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

KEREM:

Yeah. There's this certain distance installed, and then. I don't know. There are several things going on right now, which is reading also this purity. We want to, you know, how we get rid of the colours? You know, it's a huge thing. It's not like it's huge. Yeah. All the brands becomes grey. The grey and white or black, which is a kind of the symbol of the new chic. I go, what? What is going on? What are we missing? Why? Why?

SOA:

Yeah, I think it's a period of time of disenchantment and also it, I'm so happy that you bring this subject up because I'm so interested in colours and it's true that now we call this period of time like the ‘greige’ era because greige is like a mix of grey and beige, and it's true that it's like that's only what we see. for example, when we look at the, do you know the brand? Pretty little thing. It's a fashion brand and they used to have like big colours and like, was really about inclusion and, and it was really like inspired of fashion from people of colour and it was really, really beautiful. And now they rebrand themselves. And it's really like beige and grey, and actually it follows a certain like fashion of today that is really like, somehow like some sort of conservatism of, of the colours and, and all those things. And I think it goes also with like the, the period of time that we are going through and yeah. So we see it.

KEREM:

Absolutely. It is related. But now it's, I'm just asking myself it's, is it the chicken egg thing? Like which comes first? If this design is creating it, or the expectations of people that create some design, of course there's some huge things that impacted, like minimalism, the idea of minimalism in the daily objects. Or even in the, with mobile phones like Apple designs or this like grey silver and the space grey. I call them grey rainbows, like different colours of grey, which was kind of sleek design. It was like, wow, it looks chic, it looks rich, it looks expensive, and so on. So this grey-black became expensive. And I think it also creates a kind of snowball, you know, like getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And then you have the cars now like this, and you have the clothes like this. It's one of the things that I'm asking myself today, each time when I look around, and maybe it's because of this word exoticism, like, uh, how the colour itself became exotic all itself.

SOA:

Yeah, definitely, like the choice of having colours. Yeah, it becomes like different, becomes as if it's like a big choice. Having like costumes with big colours. Yeah.

KEREM:

It’s like ‘wow, where did they come from?’ It's like, wow, it's just colours. We have it in nature. Yeah. That's normally everywhere, but…

SOA:

Yeah, I can really relate to what you, you were saying before, but the, the fact that there's some sort of distance and yeah also with the colours, distance, yeah with life, with others and yeah. It's really, it's pretty sad actually, but it's nice when it doesn't affect the creativity or the creative works and that, yeah, there's still some sort of resistance in that and using colours and using on being loud. Also, I think it's important to be loud also because, yeah, I think there's so much like to…

KEREM:

To be loud, you say?

SOA:

Yeah! To be loud. To be clumsy. To be, yeah, because otherwise it's really, yeah, it gets grey-ish!

KEREM:

And now are you working on a new thing?

SOA:

Yeah. Now I'm working on a new, on a short form, 30-minute piece with a singer. A very interesting singer. Yeah.

KEREM:

And, uh, are you gonna sing too?

SOA:

Yeah! Yes. And dance as well. We're gonna do both,- musical theatre! - both. Okay. With colours.

KEREM:

With colours and everything. Great!

SOA:

Yes. And what about you? Are you in the process of creation now or…?

KEREM:

I'm on two different creations for now. And one of the pieces also, it was a revived comeback of a piece that we did in 2013, which was also a piece from Christian where we were like eight people with two drummers. It was based on… the name of the piece – it’s called D’Après une Histoire Vraie. It's a requestioning of the folkloric dance, folkloric of the Mediterranean, I could call it. It's a bit, it's something about the Mediterranean, I think. We are eight male dancers. And so, it kind of revisits… we don't do the folkloric dance of anywhere. Like even though there's a… like I am Turkish, there's a Portuguese origin, there's an Italian origin guy, there's one Israeli guy, and then there’s one Peruvian, who’s not really Mediterranean!, but, so it's not really one dance of um, thing. But we were trying to recreate a new folkloric dance for us, which we realized that it created something very subtle between men. Now this arrived to point of this showing the, this naivete, this fragility in man, you know?. Uh, so it was completely opposite and not the opposite, but today it'll be a bit difficult to make, to say, well, I'm gonna make a piece with eight dancers, and we are all male. Like, why, why wait, why? There's no woman? So the question was not like not having a woman, but then what happens in men? So, what, how can we represent it different in a different way. The men.. Which is not necessarily men as an alpha male or whatever, like this fragility of men, and between men. So, this piece, we are dancing it this season we are gonna dance tomorrow in Lens, in France. And then I work on two for now, two different creations. Which will be, one will be this in Festival D’Avignon this summer. The other will be next season. So yeah, I'm still curious about meeting again with people. There are some people that I know and I like working with them, and I continue as much as I can, but at the same time, I'm always afraid - will I block them with myself or will they block me? At until which point we help each other and then I'll, at which point we start to drag each other. This was always a question since the beginning as a performer, like it is very rich to work with someone that you don't know. You realise the world and sometimes you're like, wow, I didn't really enjoy it. In the end, maybe you're like, ‘hmmm that was not great as an experience’, but you learn things. And then you can do a next step. And with some people you just wanna continue. That was so great. Like you just wanna do it again. Another work. Another work you do, or some. Now it's a transformation of, I am working, dancing with some young choreographers, let's say they're on my age, but they're young choreographers because they're doing their second or third pieces. And they're the people that I danced together.. Where I'm still dancing together or I danced before together. So there's this transformation. So people, they know me as a dancer that we dance together, but now they're doing all their own pieces and they want me to dance in it. So this little role shifts and which I really like. And yeah, I'm trying to give as much as I can to that kind of creations.

SOA:

Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And it's beautiful, these shifts and yeah, the, the change of the status in terms of like, of collaboration, how the collaboration changes and yeah. That's nice. But I get what you say, like yeah, how much like you, you are helping each other and how much, like you drag each other at some point, but it's beautiful to risk also the relationship and to see how far it goes. Also, it's beautiful to, yeah, yeah. The belly will tell if it was too long or it's worth like another creation. I think it's beautiful that you have these long-term relationships. I mean, it's pretty rare now, like I'm looking at the new dancers coming into like the, yeah, to the scene, the dancing, and also because the economy changed and now it's more like, there's more creations. There are more project projects, but they last less long than, than before. It feels like this for me. Maybe that's my interpretation, but for me it feels like that. It's beautiful to see when there's, long collaborations lasting, and a project that keeps on going and keeps on growing.

KEREM:

And yeah before I think this kind of project was going because it was on the fixed companies, like a, yeah, you have a choreographer, you have a group of dancers, you have like , I don't know, 10 people dancing, or 12. And you do creations. So every year you do one creation. So you get to know your dancers, the, the dancers, they know you. So I dunno, there were this kind of relationship which, like there were some choreographers that I really wanted to work with personally. Like I was very curious, and it was also a difficulty. I was like, I can't do it. I can't work with one people only. There's no way that I work with only one person. I was kind of overlapping works constantly, like creating one and creating at the same time with another. So it was a huge agenda at work to do it, but that I enjoy it a lot. And also as a performer, I think this is also interesting when you work with some person, okay, you do the things and then you have to renew yourself. You are obliged to go further, which is a good opportunity as an interpreter to dig yourself..

SOA:

And I think in this case, then the relationship lasts longer because there's a challenge in both sides. And, and that's, that's nice.

KEREM:

You, you get to know each other's strong parts and weak parts. And the fragile parts, and I think in a personal relation gets really deeper. Then you have many things to say also in a studio when you work together.

SOA:

Yeah, definitely.

TRANSITION SOUNDS: Brussels train station

MARTIN:

Thank you Kerem and Soa for this conversation. And thank you to Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels for this collaboration. For the transcript of this episode and for resources mentioned in the conversation, go to rosechoreographicschool.com. The link for this page will also be in the podcast episode description, wherever you're listening right now. This podcast series is a Rose Choreographic School production. It's produced and edited by Hester Cant, with concept and direction by Martin Hargreaves and Izzy Galbraith. Thanks for listening. Goodbye!

Bibliography:

Kerem and Soa's work mentioned:

- Kerem Gelebek - Sakinan Göze Çöp Batar

- Soa Ratsifandrihana - Fampitaha, fampita, fampitàna

- Soa Ratsifandrihana - g r oo v e

- Soa Ratisfandrihana - Rouge cratère

People and other work mentioned:

- Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker
- Boris Charmatz
- Christian Rizzo - D’Après une Histoire Vraie
- Ian Curtis - le syndrome ian
- James Thierrée
- Lorenzo Dozio
- Salia Sanou