Tanz im August Podcast #18 – Lenio Kaklea

00:00:06: Welcome to the Tanz-Amagust

00:00:07: podcast.

00:00:09: This podcast series is part of the Tanz Amagust Festival, presented by Hau Heblam Ufa this year.

00:00:16: it takes place from thirteenths two twenty ninths of August

00:00:20: in Berlin.

00:00:21: several artists from this years program have been invited to join a conversation series.

00:00:27: In each episode they share insights into their lives and creative work.

00:00:32: The artist talk about their past and current projects, an offering in-depth perspectives on the works they are presenting at Tansom Auguste.

00:00:45: In this episode Alina Lauer, drama tourg and producer of The Festival talked with Lenio Kaclea.

00:00:52: She will present her work Les Soiseaux On twenty first Twenty second And twenty third Of August At How To.

00:01:01: Hi Len you!

00:01:02: Welcome to our little online podcast studio.

00:01:06: I'm very happy to have you here online with me today, so we can have a little chat and talk about your work.

00:01:13: And then for the first time in The Frame of the Festival being presented... So maybe if you could introduce yourself some words where are based on what you're doing mostly around art dance?

00:01:29: Yeah whatever you want tell us about yourselves.

00:01:32: Thankyoufortheinvitation.

00:01:36: Already said, my name is Lenio Caclea.

00:01:39: I'm a Greek-born, Athens born artist based in Paris since the last twenty years.

00:01:47: I work mostly with dance particularly interested by hybrid-dage writing and very influenced both feminist theory and postcolonial thought.

00:02:02: I said that you're the first time part of the festival line-up, right?

00:02:06: Of Tensum August.

00:02:06: But it's not the first in Berlin because some people might remember your name also from the Füme Gays Festival in Schinkelpaar-Wilhelm.

00:02:16: Is that right?

00:02:17: Absolutely

00:02:17: so!

00:02:19: It was my first time as a dancer when collaborating with Boris Charmatts at the time And last year with the invitation by Caroline Brandt and The Schinkelpavillion, it was a first time that I presented short solo called Untitled Figures in this very unique space of the Schinkelpavillon.

00:02:43: Yes!

00:02:44: It's very special... This year we're going to present you at our house the How-To in Kreuzberg and the piece that is invited to come to Berlin, it's Les Oiseaux The Birds.

00:02:58: And I read a bit about what you implemented as thought into this piece or where the piece came from how it was conceived?

00:03:07: In terms of title and reference... ...the first thing comes to mind an ancient Greek tragedy by Aristophanes The Birds.

00:03:17: I honestly have not read the book, so maybe if you could give us a short introduction to that and how it influenced your work there would be amazing.

00:03:25: It's true they reference a lot.

00:03:27: Aristophan because i came from theater family And because I have had the chance to see this play staged many times in Greece, and it's part let's say of my heritage for The Ancient Greek Dramatogy.

00:03:43: But It was not...it is NOT THE ONLY REFERENCE!

00:03:46: And the stage work has actually literally nothing to do with Aristophan.

00:03:56: the allegorical story of, The Allegory Of The Birds by Aristophan is two humans male to men desperate by corruption and war that decided to leave the earth.

00:04:11: And start constructing a new society in disguise finding any organization together with birds?

00:04:19: I thought it was an ingenious dramaturgical idea very relevant, unfortunately to the specific political social and historical moment that we go through.

00:04:34: And so I thought it's maybe a starting point... It may be…I had the idea of The Birds for a long time—it was this subject that I was really interested in —and maybe Aristophan just gave me you know the push to actually say this notion of social organization, ecological disaster or subjectivity other than human.

00:05:06: And just to add to the allegorical story of Aristophanes... Of course I would have never chosen a subject if i didn't think that birds for these species and different species of birds were organized.

00:05:23: It was not a subject that were so profoundly linked to our idea of movement.

00:05:29: And when I talk about movements, I talk off course the physical movement or body be it human or not.

00:05:38: but i also talked about the movement as migration So the movement among frontiers.

00:05:44: We're also birds have an interesting perspective on for sure because Like, I'm confronted with every day.

00:05:53: Maybe not everybody but most people are or many people.

00:05:56: they just don't have that right.

00:05:58: and yeah it's very interesting.

00:06:01: And i think you also worked with a scientist Right?

00:06:06: That also brought some information.

00:06:08: Well when I started working as a dancer... ...I had the opportunity so a couple of years ago to I go through a master's program organized at the time, directed by French philosopher Bruno Latour.

00:06:27: And it is true that my encounter with Latour and this programme taught me how to work outside of the dance studio.

00:06:48: With this heritage, with the experience of the Latour thought and methodology I got to find ways to always introduce in my work other tools than simply let's say choreography.

00:07:02: And so for The Birds... ...I though that it was an interesting encounter with Thierry Obain who is a bio-acoustician as we say in French, I don't know if it's the right word.

00:07:14: In English.

00:07:15: he was the ex-director of the laboratory of bioacoustics in France which means a laboratory of scientists that study bird language and decodify the results of their research, which is very passionate.

00:07:32: What was the most interesting thing to us is that theory allowed us to have access to their database.

00:07:39: This means a big and important audio recordings from immense colonies of birds From places on earth where humans fortunately are not allowed.

00:07:55: And so we've had the opportunity to listen these soundscapes and introduce that, or at least make it a starting point for what music became later.

00:08:11: So if I would imagine how this whole process went... It means you already had some background but then started creating Les Oiseaux.

00:08:22: And so, did you first conceptualize the outlines outside of a studio or immediately come together with the performers and rest of their artistic team?

00:08:32: Because it's group piece.

00:08:34: So I kind imagine that there was also dialogue in between the teams around all these topics.

00:08:41: Maybe if can tell us about how usually outline your working processes.

00:08:48: Unfortunately, I don't have the privilege of spending lots of time with a group of performers that i'm collaborating with.

00:08:56: Our studio-time is very limited and has to be very efficient.

00:09:03: so The research part of work happens mostly before I enter this studio together especially together With the drama tour that have been accompanying me Lou Forster and the artistic team Cleo Bopote, The Synographer, Eric Ivelin, The Light Designer, Olivier Moulin ,The Stylist and Jean-Marc Segalant.

00:09:25: So what happens is that when i decide a subject matter... let's say more particularly with the birds..i knew since a long time that i wanted to address this subject matter because it was invited by the Greek opera to create his short outdoor performance because of the bluebird variation that we find in Sleeping Beauty, but I found it absolutely extraordinary choreography.

00:09:55: I was very inspired by that and decided for The Greek Opera to create another version of the birds at a time called the piece Blue Tits.

00:10:04: so i knew in researching on the subject for a couple of years, I had started birdwatching myself starting really identifying birds species that i could get in contact with.

00:10:25: In different geographies that was visiting and conducting also my historical artistic scientific research.

00:10:36: so generally I define more or less a dramaturgy for the work quite early on in my process.

00:11:08: within which I want to research, invest and work on.

00:11:14: Sometimes I propose physical material that are set already from the very beginning And we also develop materials directly from the group or individual proposals From performers.

00:11:31: It was a case for birds Meaning that I knew the dramaturgically, I wanted to construct a first part.

00:11:39: The first half of this show... ...I wanted it to propose sort of contemplation of exhaustion and rhythm for migration travel traveling space.

00:11:54: So I knew that compositionally, it would be very demanding and so... ...I decided we'd go faster if i had already created the dance material.. ..so a couple of days of research with Louisa Hale, Bronne & Eiffelia Stereo two dancers from the group We set up the materials And day one in rehearsal we shared them and started composing this first part.

00:12:23: And at the same time, we opened... ...the door of individual material that had to be developed by performers which later composed the second part of the show.

00:12:37: What I can also just add is that movement analysis composition research it's a part of work but the shows are hybrid and it's not only about movement.

00:12:50: in composition, I knew that i wanted to address ideas of cruelty.

00:12:57: Of exhaustion...of collectivity..of individuality ..of parade.

00:13:03: ...so seduction .Of uncanniness very important for this show.

00:13:08: ,i didn't want us pretend we were birds But i wanted as find this hybrid space intersection between Schumann and Bird, very inspired by Monique Wittig.

00:13:23: And so of course these abstract ideas are shared with the group... ...and they nourish the way we invest movement in kind of material or performance that we're looking for during this process.

00:13:43: Monique Wittig was a very important and famous French writer, author... ...and also wrote about feminism in general.

00:13:51: Also about first conceptualizations of something like non-binary gender.

00:13:57: So would you say that going into this space not being human or an animal could be described as uncanniness?

00:14:12: definitely or absolutely.

00:14:14: Yeah,

00:14:15: absolutely.

00:14:16: Monique Viteig is one of my.

00:14:18: she's a feminist writer I discovered later on in my life.

00:14:23: i was when i started really diving into feminist theory.

00:14:28: uh i was much closer to bell hooks or angela davis less interested by the french feminist theorists.

00:14:37: so i discovered monique viteig quite late.

00:14:42: How can I say, it was very...I really admired the straight thought.

00:14:49: Her essay on exactly that non-binary thing about gender.

00:14:55: and while i was in her writing ,i started reading more of not only The Straight Thought but La Ponsse Straight.

00:15:10: I started diving into her literature and voilà, read Le Guerrier.

00:15:17: And was very interested by this introduction text where she describes these hybrid beings between Amazons and birds.

00:15:29: since i was making the piece uh...I thought it's probably the best way for ...the best way!

00:15:39: to the dramaturgy of work and the kind of hybridity that I was looking for in stage writing, movement material or performance.

00:15:50: Different layers and different ways of expressing and investigating hybridity... Her thought both influenced or maybe solidified my micrographic inquiry And her text found also a space on the show because it is part of it and re-edited by Lou Forster is a, uh... It's part of the show.

00:16:15: Would you say that piece came out?

00:16:19: this long process?

00:16:20: Is rather descriptive after what we're in or other utopian or dystopian?

00:16:26: Well I was very ... In the beginning when i um because You know..You start ..you started a process And try to define as best possible, you know the principles and that the parameters.

00:16:41: And be ready for the unknown.

00:16:46: but the truth is that pieces and processes and collaborations are very surprising moments.

00:16:55: hope.

00:16:55: thankfully there they are.

00:16:57: so The birds developed into a more.

00:17:03: it developed in more romantic form that I had not seen in the beginning, and thought this would be much darker than it actually became.

00:17:17: And...I'm not able to really situate FIO to know why this happened but It's definitely not a utopian work.

00:17:30: There was no intention of proposing an idealized representation of these other non-human or group organizations.

00:17:42: So I was definitely, wanted to talk about the exhaustion of my immigration travel trip voyage.

00:17:54: I definitely want you to talk.

00:18:03: The piece finishes with the presence of a mechanical bird, and even though the reason for introducing that drone was to introduce a bird-eye perspective.

00:18:15: I'm absolutely aware they use this drone in twenty five refers to actual wars happening right now.

00:18:26: If I may interrupt quickly, it makes me smile here because... ...it almost also sounds like a mechanical Deus Ex Machina.

00:18:34: Something that is crashing into the dramaturgy?

00:18:38: Does something really change in the end of the piece?

00:18:42: Well… It does!

00:18:47: It was very complicated to work with a drone because the black box is definitely not that kind of environment they are programmed to operate in, so we had to find many unconventional ways to collaborate with a machine.

00:19:04: What the drone does?

00:19:06: it definitely brings this bird-eye perspective but also immobilizes through the production and the very agitated, the very hectic movement of its own body.

00:19:22: It actually mobilizes performers' performance on stage.

00:19:30: This is a rapture in the piece.

00:19:33: it's also where we can get close to them which basically why I use cameras since long time but with closeness has a very different... This closeness, it's nothing to do with the way conventional camera close-to-the body might induce intimacy.

00:19:57: A drone close-To-a-body filming it reminds us of threat or chase of a hunt.

00:20:05: So yeah The quality and energy is very different than what comes before in this show.

00:20:13: It's very interesting that you talk a lot about the topics of migration, which per se would not be negative term but way it is coined at this moment in time.

00:20:24: It often used negatively or understood as something problematic.

00:20:30: Or there was war and drones, threats, chase to hunt... ...it all sounds dark now if we listen just through words what they bring up.

00:20:41: And this is also an interesting opposition to the colourfulness and the costumes, and the sparkling sounds that we can hear on stage.

00:20:51: The very agile almost flapping and flying movements of the dancers... Is by intention or creating these frictions you were looking for?

00:21:04: Exactly as you say it's a surprising result from what I was talking about!

00:21:10: Actually when we started working with the material and the contributors, they said that costumes started adding themselves to visual.

00:21:23: We discovered something much lighter than what were if not intentions but at least kind of social political references I had in mind when i started working with the theme.

00:21:42: The pleasure of movement and complexity, interactions between bodies... And the pop sensation that music brought especially at first part makes it much more... It gives a lighter tone and colourful as you said.

00:22:07: Yeah, it reminds one of the birds as they look in many ways and also a very broad understanding of birds I would say.

00:22:20: But i'm not an ornithologist so don't know that much about birds but what they always teach us is how naturally embedded migration is How naturally embedded finding different forms of communication And different forms being social being collective, how they always find different forms in that.

00:22:42: So I think they are very interesting to think about.

00:22:45: also if we go more into the biology did you have some specific forms or something?

00:22:52: Some specific birds of mine that always came back when you thought about a piece.

00:22:58: was it more general conception?

00:23:00: not really.

00:23:01: first of all i mean there is.

00:23:07: The disappearance of bird species is something that's very alarming for biodiversity.

00:23:12: And this was one the reasons I thought it would be interesting to do a project, and nevertheless we are surrounded by many spaces where birds were really not alone even in very urbanised environments.

00:23:26: so what bird watching allowed me was actually realise how... How many different birds live and fly, play or hunt around us.

00:23:41: So a part of the hunting for meadows in French was that I wanted to compose the group on stage but never thought about specific species to represent movement-wise specific species.

00:24:08: I had some general principles that applied more to the anatomy of the body because birds are, regardless of species they have different movement capacities.

00:24:22: so i wanted to work with some anatomical principles.

00:24:32: So this is something that I shared in the very beginning of the process.

00:24:36: And then each dancer, especially for their solo duets or trio moments developed material on their own and imagined their own birds.

00:24:49: so it was even though we avoided identifying to which bird they would look like... one or two specific species in mind, yes.

00:25:03: That's very cute actually!

00:25:07: But

00:25:08: we didn't go as far as having totems.

00:25:13: We left that more silent.

00:25:16: Yeah it may be something underlying.

00:25:20: if somebody looks into with curiosity maybe there are some things you can find Or at least imagine certain things.

00:25:27: Now we already started to talk about the cast.

00:25:29: Maybe if you want to tell us a few words, it's about The Cast of People because the piece is conceived for seven dancers.

00:25:36: so its quite big group.

00:25:38: and

00:25:38: did you work with them before or was this your first time?

00:25:42: What's your relationship to that group of very nicely performing dancers?

00:25:47: Most of the performers I had collaborated with previously Lisa Ballesnaja Amanda Barrio Charmelo Luisa Hale, Bronn Jager, Wilkinson and Dimitri Mithileneos had been part of previous productions.

00:26:04: And it was the first time collaborating with Louis-Namu Levanneau that we will not see in Berlin because he would be replaced by Raoul Riva... ...and my first time working with Nefelia Stereo a Greek dancer based in France.

00:26:20: as you can maybe guess from their names These performers come from very varied geographical backgrounds, even though all of them are now residing in fast-staying in Central Europe which makes the production realistic and ecologically possible.

00:26:44: And some of the performers also knew each other before collaborating on different projects.

00:26:50: it was a group that How can I say that?

00:26:54: it worked collectively from the very beginning and in a very fluid manner?

00:27:00: And if you would, on the outside have to describe dancing techniques they bring.

00:27:06: What do you mostly see them as?

00:27:08: Is there specific school we will have on stage or is just more contemporary dance and broader technique...

00:27:17: It's an interesting question I could really develop there because also it's my job as a choreographer.

00:27:26: All of the dancers in this group have been through academic backgrounds and post-modern techniques, most of them have gone to conservatories or academic schools.

00:27:40: so even though each one has very specific and unique background they all share some common.

00:27:48: we all share common references, especially from the occidental modern and postmodern dance heritage.

00:27:57: This said for each one of the principles... One way I work is that for each piece in each subject i get interested in specific vocabularies And so vocabulary changes from piece to piece depending on how I want to address each subject.

00:28:20: So, for the birds... ...I knew that I wanted us work with Petite Allegro material.

00:28:29: so we really worked with the capacity of our body to jump and also because it is a bird movement It's something where you encounter in dance history from the Firebird of Fokin, to Burst Canningham.

00:28:53: To as I said, The Variation Of Bluebirds In The Sleeping Beauty Noa Eschkel many other examples.

00:29:00: so it has been really a subject that had been addressed by many choreographers in different periods and dance history.

00:29:08: So i decided for the Burst to work with a mixed vocabulary That introduces both movements From the classical ballet like a padéchal or assemblée and glissades, end from the postmodern vocabulary.

00:29:24: So things that work more closely with gravity And so... The first part is about this migration.

00:29:32: moment Or group have a hybrid vocabulary That's both a bit classical A bit post-modern and contemporary.

00:29:43: And then in the second part of work, we go into material that's abandoned these forms and going to much more expressive materials.

00:29:52: Engaging with face, address... The use of upper body very differently than when doing first one.

00:29:59: Thank you.

00:30:00: That's really interesting, especially thank-you also for letting us know so many concrete references about the choreography.

00:30:06: This is it's always very interesting to hear and thank you all the information And we're very much looking forward to see the performances live in Berlin this summer.

00:30:15: Thank

00:30:15: You

00:30:15: have a nice day!

00:30:16: Thank you very much.

00:30:17: See you soon.

00:30:18: Bye bye.