Dancer-choreographer Moritz Ostruschnjak
| Photograph Credit score: Particular Association
Moritz Ostruschnjak introduced Tanzanweisungen (It Gained’t Be Like This Eternally) to Bengaluru. The dance was offered within the metropolis as a part of Attakkalari India Biennale 2024 at Bangalore Worldwide Centre.
The dance, that includes Daniel Conant, is a 30-minute solo self-reflective piece with ironic references that defy any particular definition.
The India tour of this undertaking is supported by the Bavarian State Affiliation for Modern Dance (BLZT) with funds from the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts.
Moritz ventured into modern dance by breakdancing. He studied at Iwanson Worldwide (Munich) and accomplished his coaching with Maurice Béjart in Lausanne. He has been working as a contract choreographer since 2013 and is understood for his works titled, Island of Solely Oneland, Textual content Neck, BOIDS, UNSTERN and AUTOPLAY.
His works have been showcased in lots of European festivals and the dancer-choreographer is among the Aerowaves Twenty21 Artists and in 2020 obtained the Promotion Award Dance of the Metropolis of Munich. The 41-year-old speaks from Attakkalari Centre, Wilson Backyard, throughout his lunch break about dance and the method of making an artwork work.
Edited excerpts
You began off as a graffiti artist. How did the transition from a visible to a performing artwork occur??
It was a gradual course of. I began graffiti at 13 and it was there that I found hip hop and breakdancing tradition. I began breakdancing and did graffiti for some time. It was later that I moved to Munich which occurs to even have one of many largest breakdancing communities. We educated on a regular basis and danced in metro stations. It was 25 years in the past, when there was not a lot coaching for avenue dance or breakdance. I additionally had a good friend who would share movies of ballet, break dance and modern dance with me. That is how my ardour and journey went. I studied ballet at 19 and 4 years of up to date dance and shortly was working and dancing professionally.
Stills from his work, Tanzanweisungen (It Wont Be Like This Eternally)
| Photograph Credit score:
Particular Association
The place does dance depart your graffiti? Do you herald elements of graffiti into your dance?
I don’t affiliate myself with anyone explicit artwork kind or dance model. One factor I do really feel closest to my coronary heart is modern dance. As a result of on this kind all the pieces is feasible. It permits me to combine all of the totally different kinds: conventional, popular culture, hip hop or Broadway. It’s an open kind and I consider my work, even at the moment, attracts or is influenced by my days in hip-hop tradition. Hip-hop music was invented by sampling. Folks would take somewhat from Funk and somewhat from Soul and put them again collectively and out of this emerged a brand new model. That is how I work with dance. All my work is impressed from bits and items that I’ve seen in movies, my coaching….
Do you continue to dance or simply deal with choreography?
I’m extra into choreography. It takes a lot of my time and my power goes into organising and touring with my dance items. So I don’t discover the time to be a dancer. I’m okay with this as I get pleasure from working with dancers and instructing.
In Indian classical dance, we now have a basis and a guru who teaches. As a instructor your self, how a lot freedom is given to the dancer, how a lot of your concepts are imposed on them? Or do you simply act as a facilitator?
I’m not a fan of the time period guru or this god-like determine. For those who look culturally, all the pieces comes from any individual. There’s at all times somebody earlier than you who has taken data, labored on it and brought it additional. Inventing one thing out of nothing is a fantasy. I don’t consider within the idea that I’m god-like and therefore can dictate my creation. I work from an area that claims issues are already there and you must make your self delicate as a way to see these issues. My model is extra task-based work. I analysis and attempt to provide you with sure strategies that work with the time that we dwell in. Then the dancer is given sure duties. For me, it is crucial that there’s a dialogue between my dancer and me. I’m additionally all for understanding the motion archive and historical past of the dancer’s physique and the approach that comes with them. Generally, I do act as a facilitator, and can be strict!
Are you open to working with anybody or have they got include a licensed coaching in dance?
Classical ballet isn’t the factors for me. I’ve individuals in my group that don’t include a tutorial background. They, nonetheless, have plenty of dance in them. What I search for is playfulness and curiosity as plenty of issues are tried out to come back to finalised concepts. It is usually necessary that the dancer isn’t judgmental however is open to discovering new concepts. Dance can be about laborious work.
Do you see any distinction in Indian modern dance? Our classical dances are all gravity-oriented whereas fashionable dance is all about defying gravity.
It’s troublesome to outline modern dance. What’s modern in Europe is probably not so in India, Japan or Hong Kong. Within the dancers I’ve encountered right here, I do see a distinction. In Europe modern coaching is extra individualised and relies so much on self expression. In India I see the great thing about classical dance being introduced into modern dance, and discover that tremendous. We do not need a lot information about kind or rhythm. In Germany we do not need this conventional background, which is gloomy and that is the place India is exclusive and I discover its affect within the modern context extraordinarily attention-grabbing.
