I’ve made quite a number of pieces with choreographer André Gingras – over the years we’ve become very regular collaborators. In the meantime, the gigs have got bigger – this is possibly the biggest, with Nederlands Dans Theater, who I think are one of the best contemporary dance outfits in the world.
It was a big troupe of dancers, a big stage and a big audience (the premiere was at the Lucent Theater in Den Haag). I think both André and I felt the need to make things a little more ‘mainstream’ in comparison to some of the other work we’ve made.
Excerpt 1: My brief for this section was very simple really – André simply wanted something ‘big’, extrovert, exciting… and in a very obvious FOUR (I found a constant challenge in working with so many dancers on such a big stage was simply ensuring they could hear the beat). I think he said it should sound like ‘a great big party’ or something… The electric guitar at the end wasn’t really my idea – it was more part of the theatre of the piece than part of the music (if you know what I mean). But Andre insisted, so I just went with it!
Excerpt 2: I feel slightly silly doing this, but I suppose I should issue a warning for partial nudity. These two were pretty extraordinary, I must say. As I remember, the music was intended to be treading a fine line between pleasure and pain – rich and beautiful, but at the same time agonised and filled with yearning.
