"In order to fully realize yourself as an artist, you need to fully realize yourself as a human"
Maëva Berthelot is an experimental, performative and collaborative choreographer, performer, movement director and teacher. She has been working with Hofesh Shechter Company for six years, but also with Emanuel Gat and Ohad Naharin.
-You have an amazing career. You have been working with Hofesh Shechter Company for six years, but also with Emanuel Gat and Ohad Naharin. You are also a great choreographer and teacher. What is the key of all your successes?
“I guess my endless curiosity has been the key all along.
Exploring, discovering, learning. These are the things that make me thrive so these are the things that motivate my choices.
My end goal has never been to be successful. I shouldn't even use the words 'end goal' as I really see it all as a journey.
We are all very different so what applies to me wouldn't necessarily apply to others.. But personally, not to perceive my journey as a career or successes has been very calming and helpful. This kind of rhetoric brings me blockages. And blockages come in the way of expressing my potential to the fullest.
So I've just tried my best to take things and moments as they come. Giving them my full presence .
Along the years, I've also come to realise that dreams and desires constantly change and shape shift so being in the moment has become essential to me. And this approach really helped me navigate this complex world and make the right choices at the right time.”
-What fascinates you about the work of Hofesh Shechter? And does his work influence your dance?
“I met Hofesh 12 years ago. At a time I deeply needed something more profound and something more visceral in the way I was approaching movement.
I needed to go back inwards and take time to deeply listen and reconnect. To myself. To my emotions. To my sensations. And build from there.
My meeting Hofesh was in a way life changing because it finally allowed myself and my physicality to develop from within.
Sometimes, I feel like his work can be misunderstood. People can focus on what it appears to look like and try to reproduce what they recognise as “Hofesh style”. It's missing the point because his work is more about what you inject into it rather than what it looks like. It is about what you say with and through it. How you find yourself within it. Movement is just there as a support for you to express much deeper things and vehicle into the material world things that are part of the invisible realm.
Yes, of course, Hofesh had a big influence on shaping the artist I've grown into. His work was so intrinsically part of my journey that my practice still carries today some of his principles. He was also the first person to have trusted me so deeply and it has really helped me with developing self acceptance, self love and trust.”
-How were you able to develop your artistry as a dancer and choreographer through your career?
“To me, being a dancer doesn't mean being a puppet or a soldier. The opposite. You are constantly making propositions.You are constantly bringing yourself, your guts, your feelings, your ideas to the table. And it becomes a conversation with the makers you collaborate with.
I believe that when you're working with choreographers, you should never think that you're working FOR them.You're working together. You're working WITH them. They need you as much as you need them. It's a constant exchange.
When you work this way, you have no choice but developing your own voice and expression. And I guess having this approach allowed me to build my own artistry, my own world, my own physicality through every single project I've taken part of.
It's not always easy because you do need to find like minded people that also believe in this way of working.
It does happen sometimes that you find yourself in places that thrive on power games, ego and hierarchies rather than the pure process of creation. But if you recognise that these spaces come against your creativity and your mental health, I would advise you to find the courage to leave.”
-What is the importance of the process of improvisation and researching?
“This process is not only important to me, it is essential. This is where the deep work and the magic happen.
Improvisation is that special space where in my practice I can instil a dialogue between visible and invisible worlds, conscious and unconscious choices and move between material and immaterial realms. This is where I can allow, feel, find and understand ideas and concepts before I try to crystallise them.
Most importantly, the improvised space is, I believe, one of the only places where the focal point is not to perform representation but total incarnation. And that is something that interests me deeply.”
-You worked in video-clips and short films. What is the importance of video in dance today? What does video can add to dance?
“In recent years, we can't get away from the importance of the video medium in our world considering that we spend most of our time in front of screens. Learning to work across media and experimenting with all the tools and mediums that are offered has become crucial.
To simply answer what video can add to dance is tricky as the video medium and the art of editing give you endless possibilities depending on how you decide to use them.
Maybe one of the obvious things is that with video, you can decide where to direct the eye whereas in live performance, the audience gaze will wander freely. Every single individual will decide where her/his/their attention go. In video, your choice of framing, for example, will give you more control on what you want to show and enhance.
I'm personally interested when I work with this medium in breaking a distance that exists and can be difficult to shatter in conventional theatre spaces. Using a camera allows me to get inside, in intimate places, revealing details and textures that aren't necessarily evident.”
-How important is music for you? And what is your connection with it?
“I'm a musician. I grew up playing Harp and almost picked it as my profession rather than dancing. So I have a very intimate relationship to Music. My body responds in a deep way to vibrations and frequencies. I even got to think at some point that I had some kind of synaesthesia where instead of seeing colors when I listen to music, I was seeing bodily shapes and dynamics. Like I was experiencing the Movement of Music inside me, through me. It's hard to explain...
Music has also always had a very important role in the way I create. It’s the ideas of vibration, resonance and frequency that interest me the most. Music is the guide that helps me translate those concepts within my physicality, within my flesh.
And I'm interested as well in observing how various bodily changes do occur in response to music, including changes in breathing, heart rate, galvanic skin response, like the tingly somatosensory feeling of chills for example. I find it all fascinating.”
-As a choreographer, what fascinates you about creating a piece?
“What fascinates me is the journey itself, the process. It is being in the room with people, working together towards a common purpose.
And researching. I just love experimenting.
The 'setting in stone' part of the work has always been the difficult part for me. I feel it's the moment you kill the magic. It's the moment you try to reproduce something that once existed. So in a way, you're already failing.
This is why it is very important for me to keep a place for improvisation in the final product. I create specific structures, very detailed in their organisation, in their shapes and dynamics but then, I still want people to be able to play within those defined parameters. I create a very specific playground basically.
I'm also interested in breaking away from the narrow perception of what Dance is or can be. I believe in total work where movement has a place as important as narratives, set, light, sound and where all the elements are working towards a common purpose, creating a total experience.”
-When you create a piece, what catches your attention in another dancer?
“I don't care about being technically impressed. I care about people and I'm deeply touched by honesty. I want to feel what it is that the dancers feel, whichever emotion is running through their veins. I want to feel who they really are.
I love when people bring themselves. Whole. To the space. And into the movement, their bodies and the process.”
-When can you actually define if you are satisfied with your work?
“Haha. I'm such a perfectionist Virgo. I'm never satisfied. I'm working on it though.
I come from a traditional ballet training which has left some heavy marks. I built myself from childhood to adulthood in environments in which the idea of perfection was the holy grail and where everything was based on the notion of judgment.
At 35 years old, I'm doing the work of trying to accept things as they are. Softening and developing love and acceptance towards myself and my work instead of sitting in judgment and criticism.”
-How can you deal with struggling with bad days and emotions?
“By simply accepting that it's all part of it. There's no ups without down. There's no calm without chaos.
Developing practices can be helpful. We are all so different when it comes to dealing with emotions so you have to inquire and find what works for you.
I just try my best to embrace those moments and fully surrender to what comes to me. Feel all of the feels. And also embrace those disrupted times to reflect, go for walks, read, write..
Hofesh was telling me as I was going through a rough patch recently “things not flowing is part of the flow”. I feel like it's a great way to sum it all up.”
-Why do we need dance in today’s society?
“Dance has always held a fundamental place in all societies and cultures. It is a channel for connection to the self and to others. It is a space of communion.
Liberal capitalist western societies don't have much space for ecstatic experience and there is a real necessity for it. I've always seen theatres or clubs as sacred, spiritual spaces rather than places of entertainment. To me, they are rare places of abandon where we can fully let go and soften the hard prism of the reality we get imposed.
Dance has also a therapeutic value. We live in times where people are being so disconnected from their own body and sensations that they become a stranger to their own vessel. Dance allows you to befriend that vessel mindfully and facilitate a deep connection to the real self rather than to the adapted version of self.
The last 3 years, death was very present in my life and I had to deal with several mourning processes. Dance was a key tool for me to get back into my body and counter the numbness that was crawling into my flesh and bones.
Dance is simply one of the most effective therapy and I wish it was recognised as such.”
-Can you give some advice to young dancers?
“In order to fully realize yourself as an artist, you need to fully realize yourself as a human.
So go out there and meet yourself. Read, travel, meet people, go and live all the experiences the world has to offer. It shouldn't limit itself to the dance world. The contrary, avoid narrow thinking. Go across. Go transversal. Be present in every single moment, every single meeting and the Magic of Life will take care of it all. Trust.”`
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