How was it working with August Rosenbaum to engineer Op. 50 and, again, take it apart it so that it had the effect you wanted it to possess?
Working with August is always a pleasure, because he understands so much of what I want without a need for explicit communication for every detail. I find most of my successful collaborations are like that: there is an unspoken understanding and shared conceptualization of the project. That being said, it required a great deal of experimentation down to the finish line as we also had to program it with the electronic stimulation devices. It’s a bit like doing a synth patch, but obviously it’s not using typical channels, and it was a lot of trial and error.
What was really interesting about working with August to deconstruct the music was that it was midi-programming. And when listening while testing and shooting, we only heard a fragment of the piece, certain notes, which were linked to the e-stim devices. It was not until day of install that we finally heard the piece coming back together, as a whole. Once you take one LED sculpture out of the circuit or system, certain notes will then be missing. So the fragmentation is not only visual, but also musical. It works together but also independently.
How did you get involved with the American Ballet Theater for this project?
I first collaborated with American Ballet Theatre for Interpassivities during its restaging at BAM. Initially, I had staged and premiered it in Copenhagen with dancers from the Royal Danish Ballet. The process to restage was very intimate and intensive, because even though we referenced the pre-existing choreography, it had to be adapted for a new space and new bodies. It was very collaborative and that forged strong bonds. When I conceived of this new project, I knew that there were some dancers with whom I wanted to work again, and I was eager to also find new dancers from the company to bring in. ABT is one the world’s foremost ballet companies—they’re utmost professionals at the top of the top.
What was it like working with the dancers and directing them for an experience they might not have necessarily expected? Were they surprised?
Again, I had previously collaborated with a few of the featured dancers during Interpassivities. I would imagine this process was familiar and perhaps even somewhat simpler for them, as we were not intensively searching for solutions with difficult partnering and a shifting set like we were with Interpassivities. For this piece, I wasn’t really directing or controlling—it was actually an erasure of that control and the role of the choreographer. I micromanaged their muscles through these devices, but had no control over how they would contract, or what it ultimately might look like. I could only arrange their body positions and camera angles, but the rest was somewhat up to chance. In this sense, the direction was entirely done by software.
That being said, dancers are used to performing. With this project, they had to be filmed, which was a new experience for some of them. Shooting, especially with this level of detail, can be tedious and taxing in a different way. Also, each dancer needed the e-stim tested on them individually, as each individual requires a slightly different positioning and strength of electric output to produce the desired muscle contraction. Ballet dancers are some of the most highly trained and disciplined people on the planet, which made this process of experimentation and requirement for meticulous focus during shooting much easier than it would have with actors. Their bodies are their instruments and for most of them, a new challenge is readily accepted.
The visuals for this piece rely on electric stimulation therapy, which is a therapeutic treatment that applies electrical stimulation in treating muscle spasms and pain. How did you decide to incorporate this into this project?
I discovered e-stim therapy around the time that I began researching this idea of interpassivity, although I may have encountered it even earlier when researching for Servitudes as one of the films featured a type passive motion therapeutic device. I was not only curious regarding how it related to injury and the body, but how it created a very distinct rhythm or choreography. In this instance, who was the choreographer, and who was the performer? I realized it could create a scenario in which bodies functioned as a type of circuit, as though they were a machine, but a machine that only functions through a collaborative, yet passive, presence. Its power would not be felt by the participants, but only through the viewers who can realize it as a whole. I was instantly intrigued how this might implicate or possibly rearrange power structures and the potential of performance.
The installation sounds like a maze of sorts. You have previously mentioned before that you decided to arrange the gallery space to force your viewers to think about ableism. Is there a particular reason that you decided to focus on that issue?
Architecture and infrastructure are mainly constructed for the able-bodied. It’s one of the most invisible forms of discrimination. As I often first consider place and space, and I use architecture as a mediator, this silent but omnipresent condition is something that I feel is natural to draw attention to, but in a way that is discretely challenging rather than explanatory or pedantic.
What do you want your viewers to take away after they visit?
I would hope that this immersive experience somehow points back to their individual bodies and that the experience will sit with them physically after, not just cerebrally.
