On 28 March 2008 we premiered the performance Newbodies by Pia Meuthen, a co-production with Panama Pictures. In Newbodies, a successful older writer becomes fascinated with the idea of re-starting his life in the body of an attractive young man. As he writes, he starts imagining this hedonistic trip. In this production with two dancers and two actors, choreographer Pia Meuthen re-imagines a text by writer/director Dirk Groeneveld, inspired by Hanif Kureishi’s novel The Body.
The dance that intrudes on this story as an autonomous force is capricious, humorous, and dangerous. The writer’s thoughts, and the words he speaks or writes are wilfully expressed in the hand of movement. Dance as a thinker. It is like the pulse of passion and imagination. Like desire striving towards a form.
The performance had its moments of beauty, but as a whole it lacked dynamics because the two disciplines were no more than parallel presences without much mutual influence or strengthening. Ultimately the performance was not successful enough in integrating text and dance. We may achieve a more satisfying level of integration between the two by approaching the dance and text material in equal ways. While there was a script available even before the start of rehearsals for Newbodies, which stipulated both the text and at least part of the mise-en-scène, for her next production Nude Pia Meuthen would like to work with excerpts from texts and to allow them, like the movements, to find their right place in the performance through improvisation. She will capture thoughts, analyses and comments in text, and express emotions and desires through dance. This will allow for more fluent transitions between text and dance. Dance and monologues or dialogues will take place simultaneously. The movements will comment on the text, and the text will be able to respond to the dancing.
This new road Pia wants to take in developing her dance material is in synch with Danshuis Station Zuid’s vision. Movements will no longer depart from everyday actions or situations like they did in earlier works, but from physical sensations, or they will be abstractions of certain emotions. In Nude, the choreographer would like to continue this development. And she would like to expand her vocabulary with rougher, more extreme, and less aesthetic movement material.
Our positive experiences in working with Pia Meuthen have resulted in a mutual commitment for the coming ‘cultuurnota’ period, during which Pia will be committed to Danshuis Station Zuid as a resident choreographer at our dance house. Marc Vlemmix has great faith in Pia’s talent and intends to enter into an intensive collaboration with her. As a resident choreographer she will help flavour the artistic identity of our Dance House. Danshuis Station Zuid intends to involve and support Pia Meuthen in all of its different work fields, according to her needs, interests, and the challenges she seeks.
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