- How would you describe the experience of the Dance Hack residency in Budapest?
I didn’t experience any other residencies like this one. It was an absolutely unique experience for me, even when we went to Oulu to experience the Dance Hack residency there and the demo as well. I think we learned a lot about facilitation, mentoring, and communication. And I was very prepared after the Oulu Dance Hack.
There were real connections, even between us. The staff and the partners are very hard working people, so it was easy to feel that there was a safe net to fall while preparing the whole thing. Step by step I knew I could ask for help so it was really nice to organize the whole experience.
Throughout the residency week we didn’t really know what would happen in the end. And the methodology itself was that the people didn’t know each other and I think that is the main point, that everything happens just at one particular period of time.
- What impact do you think the residency had on the participants?
Starting from the methodology, because you don’t know the other people professionally, you become more open to everybody from the starting point. And I think they loved that the aim was not a performance in the end, but the stage of research. And yeah, I think they got to know each other in a different way. So that’s very valuable, I think.
- Absolutely. And could you tell me a bit about the group of artists that participated?
We extended the fields, not just contemporary dancers but performers from physical theatre or new circus or even street dance.
The venue was a theater so we had two technicians that we could rely on, we had one music technologist and one music editor, artists, designers and technologists, one dancer from our company, and other international dancers.
- And from your experience being there, did you observe any unexpected artistic artistic synergies, some breakthroughs or a memorable moment that stood out for you?
There were talks in the process but I assume it happens in every Dance Hack residency, that when you have a problem it doesn’t matter if it’s technological or artistic, you have to be really open to solve it.
I loved one scene, I think I was the facilitator of the ”bubblegum scene”. Although we usually start with a home-grown program or technology that we incorporate into Dance Hack, two technologists took the hard way and experimented with a technology during these 5 days. They tried the harder way to figure something out with the dancer’s body, from within a distance, and it was a bubblegum-shaped-something that we didn’t really know what to do with, even when it was not ready, but kept trying out things.
And then I said that it’s like a bubblegum, and they actually brought bubble gum and started chewing it and there was just one particular moment when they started to actually enjoy themselves. Behind, the projection started to move as we did as the technologist wanted so it was a beautiful moment I think.
- In your opinion, what do you think was the greatest challenge of the whole residency?
Okay, for me, from the organizer perspective, the hardest part was that we had to research everything. The first and the second day were about having workshops for everyone to introduce themselves through a piece of work or a project they were working on. And after that we started to research everything, so that was really hard for me since I didn’t really have the experience the TaikaBox had, in order to sense what can be connected with what, who might be interested in what.
So I needed at least two days to figure out how the rest of the week should unfold. And after the second day, in the evening, I had an idea and it was not an easy decision because it was blurry in my head as well. So that was, I think that was the most challenging moment for me. But in the end it happened.
- And besides the methodology, which is pretty unique in our scenery, how do you think this kind of project could impact the local artistic cultural scene?
I think because we are Central Europe but basically I call it West Balkan, we are not really open to things like this, so even to organize the audience, that was in a way not easy because you can not purchase tickets, according to the Creative Europe criteria, so you basically just have to invite people, so who should you invite, why and how can you express what is happening, why they should be interested in this whole thing. We thought that in addition to the average viewer, an important target should be technology companies, dance professionals, performative artists, students, teachers, art and design universities. That was a very big question, but in the end it turned out that a lot of people were interested in this thing. And that was really challenging just to get here.
It was really challenging because I can present in Hungarian, I have an acting degree so I can perform and talk, but it’s not as easy in English. Especially not in Hungarian and in English.
So there was an international audience that was unique because we usually have, audience from abroad when we go touring or we have Hungarian, but mixed, we never have. How can you express what is going on? Also, about 40 people just stayed outside and watched the live streaming. So I think we need more of these things.
And even the impact was amazing, because at the end of the demo, the audience could try out some of the technological things from the stage and they loved it, they had very reasonable questions.
So that was really interesting, the idea of how to lead the conversation or the presentation itself to make it both understandable and interesting for everyone, even for the professional and the technological parts, how can you manage to accommodate everybody’s language?
But another great impact would be that a researcher and course leader of the Mohon Nagy Art University called me yesterday to have a meeting with her because they will have a half year long course in the university and they will have a robotics and technology course and they want performative art to play a part in it.
So I will have two lessons there to follow the residency schedule with them and try out the dynamic of how they can express feelings and bring the data into a robotic manifestation.
- And besides this sort of revelation that you’ve had, are there any lessons that you’ve learned along the process?
Oh my god, a lot, because it was a completely new thing. Like, you cannot avoid making mistakes. Everything it’s absolutely unique and every time it’s completely different. So you make mistakes, sometimes you are slower than you should be, it turns out in a psychological background that you are not ready to proceed and not ready to really be open to everything, so you sometimes make decisions too early or too late. But you do learn a lot during the process of it all.
- And if you were to, and I think this is going to be the final question, if you were to describe the whole experience in one sentence?
Do not get stuck on an idea, I even had to tell this to myself, but from the start of the day, at 9 o’clock in the morning, don’t get stuck on an idea, stay open.