Your work is often described by critics as being the cliché of a multicultural melt- ing pot on stage. How would you yourself de ne the essence of your work? - First of all, I think that for any artist in any eld it is never nice to be de ned as anything. I dance because I don’t want to be de ned. But of course people need you to explain yourself, to say who you are, where you come from and what you do. What I do is try to stay as close as possible to the things I care about, love and nd defensible; the things I want to stand for. This can be a mix of things from di erent cul- tures that are elements which matter to me and form part of who I am. When I worked with Fla- menco artist María Pagés, it was not the de ni- tion of Flamenco that I cared about, it was the movement. So when people say “he is mixing cultures”, I say, “no, I am translating”. I’m trans- lating into the eld that is contemporary dance. You have worked with Buddhist monks, a Lebanese singer, a Corsican vocal group, while your piece TeZukA was inspired by Japanese manga... In your opinion, are there some elements that are genuine parts of the culture you were raised in, given that your mother is Flemish and your father is Moroccan? - I love the ow that you nd in Arabic writing, where the letters are connected and the words are intertwined. Being educated in reading from right to left has sometimes helped me to look at things from a di erent perspective. When I was a kid, we used to have verses from the Quran writ- ten in calligraphy above our doors. I loved the aesthetics of them. I think the part of me that is Arabic has been indoctrinated with a certain sense of beauty. But the idea of what I consider beautiful was also shaped by my mother, who is Catholic and used to take me to Antwerp Ca- thedral and show me the murals there. But there are simultaneously many things that my parents didn’t consider beautiful, but which I learned to appreciate. I think it is really important to ques- tion the things you consider ugly, because those are prejudices. You often claim to be a sketch artist rath- er than a choreographer? - My aesthetic, my sense of beauty, came from my childhood, which was a mixture of cal- ligraphy and Flemish painters, like the ones you see at Antwerp Cathedral, and Rubens. My main expression was drawing – and I really do feel that I’m much more a sketch artist than a choreogra- pher. When I make work, it is drawing and I don’t make a distinction. Even when I’m singing, I’m actually dancing – it’s like a choreography within the body – your mouth moves, your diaphragm, your palette – you have to have a sense of the technique of movement that generates sound, which is choreography, which is dance, so your actually dancing when you’re singing. And danc- ing for me is actually when I’m drawing a circle and sketching.
Mislim da je zaista važno
I think it’s really important to examine things that you nd ugly, because those are often prejudices ispitati stvari koje smatrate ružnim, jer su to često predrasude
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