rosalind crisp: an interview

Paul Roberts

February 17 2002. The sun is shining. It’s a Sunday afternoon in a Melbourne café. With coffees, Ros Crisp and Paul Roberts are about to record a conversation.

Who is Paul Roberts? That’s me, one of Melbourne’s hottest contemporary dance audience members. Sitting across a table from me is Ros Crisp, one of Australia’s most pre-eminent choreographers of contemporary dance. Last February her company stella b. presented their latest work traffic at Dancehouse in Melbourne as a part of the Bodyworks program.

Ros Crisp photo by Andrew Morrish

Performing

Do you consider yourself more or less orientated towards process or performance?

Well performance is a process. It’s part of the process. Sometimes when I’m in the studio making work I think Ohhhhh this is fantastic! I just want to be… Why perform?! I just want to be in here creating! The act of creating, the process of creating is just… really exciting for me. When I get clear about something I get a real high from it. I love it. And I love the collaboration in that process too, probably more … I enjoy it on my own but at the moment working with David on sound - I just love the kind of interactions that happen. The accidents that happen… it’s very rich. And performing for me is another stage of the process definitely. Like with traffic, this piece, I mean it’s… We know it so well but in order to really … live in it, it does require you to be creative in it still when you’re performing. To pay attention to it, and to negotiate it, and let it shift a bit … To be aware of its immediacy is an improvisation in a sense. I don’t feel like performing is disconnected from creating at all. It sometimes feels like it when you first start performing. You know the nervousness of opening and especially a new piece… Is it going to work or not? What are people gonna think of it and all that. But once a piece gets settled in I feel that connection to the creative process more strongly…

Improvising

So you consider that you go into an improvisational state when you’re performing, even in the works like traffic where you’ve created choreographed set pieces?

Well I think the improvising that I do with the other dancers is… like a kind of doing…

…during a performance you mean?

No, no, in the studio in making work. It’s … really like fuel. It’s kind of like an information or process…

…bank?

Yeah, that I feel we rest on, when we’re in there performing.

But you still relate to the material as set during a performance?

Yeah, it is set. It does shift a bit. But how you go into each move, you know, there’s a lot of choices there… One night we had with traffic here in the beginning when we first opened… Because we’ve done it like twenty something times now, we kind of felt that we were just doing it a bit and so I got the dancers to really interrupt the timing of it and listen to how long you might want to insist on a stillness or not. So we could surprise ourselves again in a way and kind of play with the material even though it’s set, but play with it, and you know have a dialogue with it in a way while you’re performing it. So that it doesn’t become uninteresting to do (laughs) let alone watch! Yeah.
I think there’s a lot of layers in there. Like I notice with the material in traffic that’s more… that has the possibility for shifting timings, that has kind of arrivals and is quite precise in space. In a way it’s easier to be consciously negotiating that and interrogate that and have a dialogue with it…

And re-evaluate?

In the moment. Suspend, and then shift again quite quickly. Or interrupt the kind of regularity you might slip into when you know it well. But with the looser material it kind of feels like a slightly different process. It’s more like you get on that, and you’ve gotta go. There’s not really a lot…

To bring you back?

Well, it’s often the entrance. It’s how you get into those ones that is the key in a way. You just let yourself go into them. In a way it’s a certain kind of surrender.

An improvised phrase?

No, I mean in the looser phrases in traffic - the stuff that happens on the floor in the second half of it. Which is less … there’s no time to interrupt the timing. There’s something else that is being ah, engaged with, and that’s more to do with how low you might get towards the floor, how fast you might move or how much you throw things away. More the feeling for me in those sections is that I just let that take over.

The choreography? You let the choreography take over?

No. The momentum, I think.

So in those looser sections the material is quite set?

Yeah.

So you surrender to the material and the momentum of the material?

I don’t know if “surrender to the material” is the way I’d put it because it’s nothing without you doing it. (laughs) It’s more like, you know getting on a stream and just going with it! I mean we’re the engineer of it. There’s nothing there unless we do it. It’s not like you can just surrender to material and material exists. I mean we still do it, don’t we? So, I think there’s just a lot of momentum and… you can really get a ride in a way. And maybe that’s an improvising state itself. It’s different to the more listening state of the more precise work. Improvising, for me anyway, and I think for the others, is really like a foundation. A support to play with the material when you’re out there.

Right. I’m not exactly clear about what you were describing just then.... Talking about those looser sections… Are you talking about timing?

I don’t know. What is it? Ummmmm…

Are you talking about the way improvisation relates to your engagement with those sections?

Well, you were asking that thing - is it a process still? And the improvising that we do, for me does support being able to go out there and get on a ride with that material in a way. And sort of play it out. And unravel it, and…

During a performance?

Yeah. Does that make sense?

Yeah. I think it’s a bigger area … We could really go towards it, but I think it would take a long time and I don’t necessarily want to pinpoint it on that.

Yeah. I don’t know that I could pinpoint it. It’s a big question for me, what’s going on out there. It’s such a composite of things: your history, your personality, and your training, and everything that you bring to that, in those moments.

Which is a wonderful thing if you can make that enormity manifest in a performance. Its an extremely rich experience. And I got that from traffic because I saw the individuality of each of the performers come through quite strongly and clearly. That’s immensely satisfying.

Yeah it’s just reminded me of something that I was thinking about … when the material is known and it’s set material, and then once you get so familiar with it that you can really do something with it, for me that’s when it gets interesting. It’s not just being danced well, but it’s kind of being used! (laughs)

In your own way?

Yeah! Yeah. And that’s one thing that really interests me at the moment. It’s kind of going past dancing it “well” even though I think that technical support is necessary underneath and the strength and all that, to launch off with. I think that’s what I love about the looser sections in traffic. It does feel that the potential is there to kind of go past “dancing well.” To transcend that in some way…

Into?

Into… Ohhh into… (sighs a laugh) Definition!? I don’t want to say a revelation but… ummm it’s a pretty exciting experience! (laughs a lot!) There’s nothing held back then. It is also that that’s the structure of that piece. It’s about the thing being disintegrated and unravelled and there’s no… nothing held back.

And what’s left?

Well, it’s just that kind of quietness at the end there isn’t it?

But I mean, even before you get to the quietness, within the section where you’re going for it…

Just pure physicality I think. You saw it! (laughs) I was doing it…

A place of engagement

Is it important to you how your work is being read?

I really enjoy it when people respond to it and the ideas in it. But I have no need for people to get anything in particular. I love it if people have an experience. You know some people said “oh this piece is really refreshing”, they were on the edge of their seat. Or there’s kind of a tangible kinesthetic response that lot of people have had to it. And that’s great! I’ve got no idea what they’re having but that’s great.

Pushing people’s buttons?

Yeah, you know. You feel something. You’re there, you’re alive to it. It’s immediate, and it’s better than watching telly… And then other people have talked about the compositional ideas in it. Intellectually I find that kind of thing really satisfying. The shape of the piece. The way it journeys. The way it’s developed. That they’ve been interested in that as well, I really enjoy that.

As having coherent results? Talking about people responding to its shape in a specific intellectual way?

Well I suppose I feel like I’m being understood then! (much laughter!)
I make coherence out of it then. I suppose… Ohhh! Hmmmmm (sips coffee). But there’s lots of open ends with people’s responses…

You’re pleased with that’s the way it is?

Well, it’s just the way it is. It’s great that people get into it, yeah.

In their way?

Yeah, absolutely. For me it is important that people can get access. I am interested in communicating.

Right.

Although I can’t predict, I can’t pre-empt their response.

So it’s just a matter of creating a place of engagement.

Yeah. And I think as many access points as possible. And I feel that if I’m really clear with my ideas and if there are layers within the work – it’s possible for people to get in… Yeah, I am interested in there being a way for people to access it.

Do you have ideas on what it is that you’re doing to create those points of access?

I think it comes back to the work process. I think I have to be as thorough as I can about my ideas and as clear.

Intellectually?

Well the physical ideas. I don’t know that they’re intellectual. They’re physical ideas.

Choreographing So do you have long processes? Yeah. It takes me ages to make work? Like six months? Oh yeah, minimum! (laughs). That’s only for half an hour (laughs). Because I don’t like repeating myself. Maybe I am, people often say you make one dance… …in your whole life? Yeah. But for me … I’m really interested in sort of tilling over the previous work. I’m not very interested in re-creating a work. So what I kind of do is spend the first few months of a development period … trying to subvert my patterns and my habits from the last work. And maybe taking a few threads out of it that I felt were like kind of clues to where new material might be. And really going down there. And improvising a lot around, you know, a new kind of vocabulary. So then eventually what I try and do is implant some new vocabulary into my body and the bodies of the dancers. So that when I start to make the work, I’m drawing on that in a sort of, a kind of automatic way! But rather than going into automatic of the material that is familiar to me…. This (new) material then becomes familiar of course. But then you can really play with it.

Ros Crisp photo by

And once a formal idea becomes clear, then the material tends to run out of me, quite quickly. And it’s not a struggle. And in a sense… Well that’s usually, when I feel that happening, I realise I’ve got to a point where I’m ready to make a work. It’s starting to run out. It’s not an effort.

You have to spend time…

…months, reprogramming.

How do you go about re-programming?

By setting up improvised scores that interrupt and redirect the pathways that I’ve made…

Habitualised.

Yeah yeah…
It’s very exhausting! (Laughs). It’s hard work (laughs!). It’s so much easier to do what you’re used to, of course. That’s how we learn to walk. Otherwise you’d wake up in the morning and you wouldn’t know how to get out of bed cause you couldn’t remember how to walk. You know?… We’re programmed, that’s body knowledge. You know what to do, and it’s the same with dancing. You know what to do, you’ve done all this training, you’ve done all these moves. It’s so comfy and so easy to just do them. I think I’ve trained myself to find that uncomfortable, so that I don’t go into them. So that I oh! Interrupt them. Or redirect them in space. Or find a score that sort of channels my body into another territory.

Which is not… It’s just different isn’t it? It’s not an evolution, it’s just a variation.

Yep, yeah. It’s no different to doing ballet moves. It’s just another… It’s just finding different vocabularies. But the thing that happens to me I spose, is it’s what I’m interested in. It’s following my interest. And I am interested in the process, in being satisfied creatively … I do spend a lot of time finding out how to surprise myself … because I love that! (laughs) It’s a trip you know (laughs) it’s a lot of hard work. It is a lot of hard work, yeah. And also I think I always have the feeling that my improvising capacity is always one step ahead of my choreographing. And they keep moving forward, but the choreographing never catches up to the improvising. I can always find more things that I find amazing in improvising than I can catch in a choreography.

So how do you catch it, when it starts to flow?

Well, if I’ve done enough groundwork it’s pretty easy. If I don’t try and choreograph it too soon. I go through this whole process of just kind of reprogramming myself and the others… And then the choreography comes out, with that in that vein, with that material…

But in terms of recording?

Just repetition…

So when the material starts to flow, when you’ve established your next language, after breaking the habits from the previous work … Ok, it’s flowing out of you…(laughter) the other dancers are in the studio cheering…(laughter) do you use video?

No I’m not very good with video.

What do you use?

Just memory, just repetition. I don’t really like video because I feel like I can’t sense it then. It’s probably useful at different times and I have used it at different times. But often I think I reach for the video because it’s not clear enough in my body yet. If I can work a bit more at it and get the new vocabulary that much clearer in my body, then actually the pleasure of kind of owning it physically is what I’m looking for. And I don’t feel that so much from video. And the thing I hate the most is learning something from video. I just find that the most boring thing on earth. I’d much rather improvise for a few days until it comes back (laughs)!

So you have a clearer line to your material that’s… most precious?

Yeah, from the sensations of it.

So, you’re never in the position where material is lost?

Oh yeah, stuff gets lost all the time but that’s alright. There’s plenty more.

Yeah.

(laughter) There’s so much material out there.

It’s true.

And I think that’s the thing. When I realise that I’ve got the ideas, the physical ideas, the new vocabulary in my body enough, then it’s actually quite easy to choreograph. And when it is easy I know that I’m kind of there. When I struggle… I do struggle a lot, you know. I give myself quite a hard time. And if I’m struggling around a lot then I’m beginning to realise that it’s not there. And yet that struggling process is part of it because I have to work hard to get the new material available to then choreograph with.

So in order to get to that place where it’s open to you … there’s a lot of struggle?

It is quite hard work. Well, I tend to struggle. Other people wouldn’t but I do (laughter).

Ok (laughs)…

The Future

Why are you moving towards solo work?

I’m not moving towards it, I’m just doing a solo.

Ok.

A couple of reasons. The research we did at Monty in Antwerp last October…

Who’s “we”?

stella b. - Katy Macdonald, Nalina Wait, David Corbet and myself. We were in a residency there for two weeks around the tour we did of traffic … It brought up material for me that I felt I needed to go further into on my own because I couldn’t really translate the ideas to the others until I got a grip on it in my own body. Which has tended to be a bit of the process for me. I do a lot of work on my own. Which may be in the space with the others working on things. But it will get clear in my body first. Then I can kind of communicate those ideas and we can open them up and work with them. But I really felt that the material that was coming out of that process was kind of pulling me into an area that I really needed to investigate further on my own. It was premature to try and communicate ideas to the others when I felt I had to go a lot further. So I felt that I really had to pull out for a bit, and work on a solo on my own. It’s with David, so it’s really a duet, with sound.
The other thing pragmatically that has happened is that I’ve been invited to make a solo for a French producer. And a few places that we worked at in Europe were really interested in me doing a solo. So it’s kind of been a bit pragmatic…

Professional?

Well it’s kind of worked out that that is an easier way for me to go back to Europe, initially.

Ok.

And I am going to go back to Europe for a long time.

Alright.

In May. I don’t know for how long, at least a year, maybe more.

What’s so attractive about Europe?

Oh don’t ask!!! I mean, did you see the review of Bodyworks in the paper on Sunday? The review that wasn’t a review… I mean that just sums it up for me. The lack of critical dialogue.

What happened?

It wasn’t a review. It reviewed the first two and half pieces and then just stopped!

Didn’t cover traffic?

Nup. It was probably an editorial decision but… I’m sure it was probably cut when it got there. But I mean it’s an obscure art form you know, making contemporary dance. It’s an obscure activity…

Making dance?

It’s totally obscure.

In Australia?

…In Australia. And I just feel like I’m at the point where I need to put my work in the field where it’s happening. Where it’s going to be challenged. Where it’ll be prodded and poked and asked questions of.

More vital.

That was my experience in Europe. Yeah, pushed you know. I feel like I need the challenge. And I kind of feel like I’ve hit a kind of ceiling in Australia now. I can keep working away doing my stuff and that’s great, but… There are very few places where you can put your work out… In real terms I think the funding is shrinking because there is more people applying for it probably. I don’t think it has actually gone down. But the producers - who? What is there? There’s the Opera House Studio. There’s The Power House in Brisbane, there’s the Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide festivals - That’s about it! If one or two of them aren’t interested then that’s it!

You’re sunk?

Yeah. I just don’t think there are the gigs. But that’s one reason, the gigs. I feel like I need to go to Europe to be in the field where (a) there’s the work and (b) there’s the critical dialogue that I’m just hungry for.

A more vital critical dialogue?

I don’t know if it’s more vital. There’s just more of it. And it’s more challenging. I feel a lot of support in Australia and I love working here. I’m making what I’m making because I’ve been here and I’ve had the studio, and I’ve had a lot of support. And that’s fantastic but it does feel like, what now?? If I want to go on and keep making work, and challenge myself I need to go out there where it’s going to be questioned. So, it’s very exciting.

Yeah great.
(laughter)
Ok, thanks Ros

Thanks Paul.