Media - Interview with Joan van der Mast and Alexey Fomkin on the opening of the «Moskwitch» Dance House. 2015.

From February 16 to 25, the «Moskvich» Cultural Center hosted a seminar by Dutch teacher Joan van der Mast on the methodology of teaching contemporary dance. Joan has been teaching contemporary dance techniques at the Rotterdam Dance Academy for 25 years and has been a leading teacher at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague since 1997, from where dancers go directly to Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT). In addition, she is licensed to teach movement analysis using the Laban method, and is a specialist in choreology, yoga, and Pilates. Dancers and choreographers from all over Russia came to attend her seminar. We had the opportunity to attend one of her master classes.

After the master class, where dancers worked with their center, body weight, and the floor, we asked Joan a few questions.

**Interview with Joan van der Mast:**

**Q: In an interview for a Chelyabinsk TV channel two years ago, you mentioned that Russian dancers are somewhat constrained and inhibited. What do you think is the reason for this?**

**Joan van der Mast:** I think it’s a cultural and mentality feature. For example, when I worked in Africa, I noticed that there is a completely different specificity of communication and behavior. Russians highly respect their teacher and maintain a respectful distance from them.

**Q: Like the Chinese?**

**Joan van der Mast:** Yes, exactly. And like in the Balkans, where I have also taught. But there, perhaps due to the more democratic past of the country, there isn’t such fear of the teacher, there isn’t such a pressure of authority. They asked a lot of questions in the very first lesson. Here (in Moscow), it took three days before the students started asking questions. The moment students open up to me is when we really begin to work. They are used to keeping silent and not standing out when the teacher speaks. But I am not used to this, I start asking them questions myself. I really want to teach them to use their own abilities, not just to copy the teacher.

**Q: What do you think about classical dance techniques?**

**Joan van der Mast:** It is a very good technique if you don’t injure your body with it, if you use it to your advantage. Classical technique is excellent, just like the Graham and Limón techniques. But if this technique is taught incorrectly, it can harm your health.

**Q: Should a contemporary dancer master classical technique?**

**Joan van der Mast:** No. It can help the dancer if used correctly. But the specific aesthetics of classical dance are different from those of contemporary dance – in the latter, movement is done not mannerly, but with the help of energy. And the aesthetics of contemporary dance 50 years ago are different from the dance aesthetics today. I am already old, my dance is based on the Limón technique, Laban technique, and release technique, but also on my classical base. I have also studied the Graham and Cunningham techniques. In my lessons, I use all techniques so that students can develop their bodies. I don’t want them to raise their leg to the same height, I want them to understand the basics of movement, to understand their body. Of course, I want the maximum from them. But my own choreographic style is already old-fashioned. I work a lot with young dancers and allow them to make their own movements, to develop within my work. Therefore, teaching is not just my job, we work together.

**Q: How many dancers enter the Rotterdam Academy without mastering classical dance technique?**

**Joan van der Mast:** Twenty years ago there were many, but now it is returning to the point where a dancer must master classical technique. Some students with us do not have this skill. But they have very strong and developed bodies, and in the academy, they learn this technique daily. And they necessarily have Limón, Graham, Cunningham techniques, release technique, hip-hop, Pilates, yoga. The classical dance technique is based on many years of body training experience, so why not use it? You just need to do it correctly, and this depends on the teacher. In the academy, we use classical dance technique in its pure form, without its stylistic features.

**Q: Thank you very much for the conversation and for the class!**

We also had the opportunity to speak with Alexey Fomkin, the artistic director of TanzHaus in Moscow. Alexey is a graduate of the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet and its former vice-rector. In the past, he was also a ballet dancer at the Mariinsky Theater and a jury member of the Golden Mask theater award.

**Q: TanzHaus is a project by German psychologist Bertram Müller, who opened the Dance House in Düsseldorf 35 years ago. He is opening such TanzHauses all over the world. Who initiated the opening of TanzHaus in Moscow?**

**Alexey Fomkin:** Last year, after leaving my leadership position at the Vaganova Academy, I moved to Moscow. Here I was contacted by Sergey Borisovich Shcherbakov, the director of the Moskvich Cultural Center (formerly the director of the Theatre of Nations). He told me about his recent visit to the Düsseldorf TanzHaus, where he talked with Bertram Müller, and about the idea of opening a similar TanzHaus in Moscow. I agreed to join this project because I saw in it the opportunity to realize what could not be done at the Academy due to its conservatism and traditionalism. However, there cannot be a direct analog of the German TanzHaus in Moscow.

**Q: Why?**

**Alexey Fomkin:** TanzHaus is primarily a special space. Müller bought a tram depot with his own money and turned it into a wonderful complex with eight huge dance halls and a transformer stage. That is, he actually created the space from scratch. This is impossible in Moscow, as our TanzHaus is being created on the basis of a cultural center with a 40-year history.

**Q: What does the Moscow TanzHaus represent?**

**Alexey Fomkin:** We launched the project in the fall of 2014, and it is still in its early stages. We organize master classes and seminars for choreographers and dancers, like the one conducted by Joan van der Mast. In April, there will be a festival of master classes by teachers from the Düsseldorf Tanzhaus-NRW (in classical, contemporary dance, jazz, and hip-hop). Bertram will come, and we will discuss our further plans.

**Q: What is the concept of TanzHaus in Germany?**

**Alexey Fomkin:** It is a house. People of different ages and different levels of training come there, and they not only dance but also communicate. It is primarily a space for free communication. This is why, as Bertram told, when TanzHaus first opened, professional ballet dancers and choreographers did not take it seriously. Although now it is the opposite.

**Q: Bertram is primarily a psychologist by education, not a choreographer.**

**Alexey Fomkin:** He is not a choreographer at all, but a gestalt therapist (a very well-known one in Europe and Russia), working at the intersection of psychology and art. In April of this year, he plans to come to Moscow with a two-day seminar-training dedicated to the psychology of creativity and the psychological aspects of the professional realization of a dancer. However, I think it will be difficult to find participants: too few artists are inclined to self-analysis and reflection.

**Q: In contemporary choreography, it seems to me, the situation is quite the opposite.**

**Q: What about the children’s studio at TanzHaus? What are its features?**

**Alexey Fomkin:** It is led by Masha Popova, who looks at the development features of each child and gives material based on this. It is in some sense an alternative to traditional choreography training, aimed at getting the child on stage as soon as possible (even if with a small performance). In our studio, the priority is the personal development of the child, which dance should facilitate.

**Q: What is there for adults besides master classes?**

**Alexey Fomkin:** In the future, we plan to develop a system of advanced training for teachers of higher and secondary educational institutions and are considering creating an educational center where pedagogical and research programs could be systematically implemented (specifically aimed at studying movement and dance, similar to European Dance & Movement Studies). We are based in a center with long-standing traditions of leisure activities and creativity, the development of which is also our task. We will bring more foreign teachers.

**Q: TanzHauses are open all over the world, aren’t they?**

**Alexey Fomkin:** Mostly in Europe. I know that Bertram Müller is now opening a TanzHaus in an Islamic country – in Egypt or Morocco. In our work, we would not like to be limited to the German experience only but plan to study other variants of Dance Houses, such as the French Centre National de la Danse, and draw something from there for the Moscow TanzHaus.

We express our gratitude to TanzHaus, in particular to Alexey Fomkin and Joan van der Mast, for the provided material.