Liz and I came to the conclusion, very early in our first collaboration, that our logic worked in very different ways. And so when words failed for our communication and misunderstanding reigned in the studio, the easiest choice was to trust each other because the meaning would come on its own at some point or another. I have to admit it worked more than once. At least to help me understand the work in progress. Having the opportunity to write about her work and having to find words to express it, makes me wonder if I understood everything correctly. Zooming in and out on the different works that I have had the chance to take part in, gives me a bigger picture and maybe a clearer idea of her work. I now wonder if each of these projects are actually a small piece of a larger painting. And if this is the case, I have this need to find the common thread that links them together.

Nahër… closer, nearer, sooner was a turning point in my understanding of what still is this mystery. This piece created in collaboration with Shane O’Reilly, took place in the new building of the Goethe Institute, originally an old Georgian house. As performers we embodied ghost figures who were trying to recreate moments of their past lives. Looking back, I wonder if this simple introduction isn’t a huge clue to Liz’s process: seeing movement as a moment. A movement can be altered by various factors: “who is doing it”, “to who”, “with who”, “when”, “where”, “how”, … and when that movement has gone through different stages of these detailed parameters, it suddenly becomes a moment that we, dancers, try to replicate and achieve as a kind of satisfaction.

As an example, I would like to talk about a duet that Anne-Laure Dogot and I danced in Nahër… closer, nearer, sooner. Originally this duet was created with Sarah Cernaux for I/Thou. When Liz asked me to teach Anne-Laure the material, we reviewed the movement in detail so that she would know what to do physically. But quickly I realized that for her to have a perfect understanding, I had to give her details that explain the story during the creation. And suddenly, this banal two-minute choreographic phrase became this rich succession of moments, with its own story: “this turn was added later so we could have the same timing.”, “My knee hurt in this position so we changed it into a roll. “,” we made that in March 2018 when Dublin was under the snow, it was almost impossible to go to work, the studio was freezing, we were all so frustrated”… And even before it became our duet with Sarah, it had been an improvisation of two other dancers during a workshop that Liz had given. Few Months after, when we went back working on the duet with Sarah, that story had an extended version due to what Anne laure brought to it. Later, itbecame a duet performed by 6 people in I/Thou. Later, it became a group section for 6 performers.

Having all of that in mind, her process makes more sense to me. And that explains what I find to be one of Liz’s greatest strengths: her ability to configure different parameters of a movement to bring life to it, the perfect balance between giving enough information to move and giving her performers enough freedom to find their own way through it. She does not try to create these moments but she lets them happen. And where I thought that creation had two different paths, through her process, Liz give me another way to think about it. “Where you want to go” should not be an expectation but a momentum to drive “Where the rehearsals lead you”. “Where the rehearsals lead you” should not be a final destination because there is more to unravel.

Kévin Coquelard – 2021

This contribution has been commissioned by Liz Roche Company