introduction

Manon is a 24 year old, who -- at the time this interview was conducted -- was approaching the end of her bachellor studies at DOCH; University of Dance and Circus at Stockholm University of the Arts. When I first thought of conducting these interviews, I thought it a good idea to start by talking to three women of very different ages. 

It is important to say that I am not somebody who is concerned with or pays a lot of attention to age. And I did not invite these women to talk to me because of their age. I invited them as much because of the experience they have had (and age, to a certain extent, makes having experiences possible), as I did invite them because of the expeirneces they didn't.! My desire is to look closely at each experience in order to get an insight into what does this specific relationship between a dancer and their dance have to do with what dance supposedly is. What I'm hinting at here is that I expect to discover that what dance is will be a changing depending on the age, experience, interests and lieage of the dancer I'm talking to. To no-one's surprise, I'd imagine.

Many more interviews will have to be conducted, before I can make such a claim, though. And before I can contextualise that claim within a wider discourse. Which I will, I promise. Until then, beloved reader, please enjoy Manon's keen sense and insight.!

interview with Manon Siv Duquesnay at Danscentrum Stockholm on April 11, 2015

*****

pavleheidler: Where do you come from?

manonduquesnay: I come from Denmark and France. I was born in Denmark, but from my French mother. My father is Danish. But I grew up with my French mother, in Denmark.

pavleheidler: How did your parents meet?

manonduquesnay: They were working in Christiania, in the machine hall that takes care of the environment of Christiania. Like recycling and fixing stuff and everything.

pavleheidler: Did you grow up bilingual?

manonduquesnay: Yes. My mother, she didn’t speak Danish when I was born. So I’d speak French with her. Danish was around. And English. I didn’t speak it at first, but I listened to it a lot.

pavleheidler: And when did you learn English?

manonduquesnay: I started learning English in school when I was seven years old. But by the time I started, I already understood much of it.

pavleheidler: Did you grow up in an apartment or a house?

manonduquesnay: Many places. I was born in a wagon in Christiania. And when I was three, we moved to an apartment. And then we lived in different apartments around Copenhagen. When I was seven, we moved to a house outside Copenhagen, and quite shortly afterwards we moved to Bornholm. That’s a Danish island, just south of Sweden.

pavleheidler: What kind of wagon did you live in?

manonduquesnay: Most of the houses in Christiania were built from the type of wagon I lived in. My mother had built an extra little house onto the wagon, so you couldn’t move it around anymore. That extra little house was an extra living room and a little kind of bedroom, on the second floor? On a gallery. Our wagon was right besides the lake.

pavleheidler: Can you tell me something about Christiania? How did the community come together?

manonduquesnay: Christiania started as this abandoned military space that the military used for training. They stopped using it and left the territory poisoned, both earth and water. Many years later some hippies came along and started moving in to these buildings, and taking care of the environment, and making it liveable. And then other people came and started building houses, mostly out of these wagons. Many made them stable. Fixed.

pavleheidler: And that became Christiania?

manonduquesnay: Yes. It’s a like a… utopia — a mini-state inside Denmark. 500 people live there. It’s quite well known, actually. Because it’s a very unique place. Especially in the 60s, and the 70s, during the hippy times. People would gather from the whole world, because they heard about this special place that people were building. At some point they even had a currency of their own. They have their own voting system. Everyone has to come to an agreement. And everyone has the same rights, that’s one of their things. The homeless has as much of the same rights as the educated, as the artist. You name it. They do engage in conflicts, though. Then again, so does everyone. It’s a very special place.

pavleheidler: Do you go back there?

manonduquesnay: Yes, my aunt — she still lives there. And I lived there again the year before I moved to Stockholm. I stay there every time I’m in Copenhagen. I have my childhood friends there. And my aunt. And yeah, other friends. It’s located in the centre of Copenhagen, which makes it a perfect place for hanging out. Plus, it’s super beautiful - there’s a lot of nature there. The wagon I used to live in was located literally two meters away from the lake. The only thing standing between the wagon and the water was our little garden. Lots of trees…

pavleheidler: And you said you lived there for the first three years of your life?

manonduquesnay: Yeah. And then we moved to an apartment that was five minutes away from Christiania.

pavleheidler: Do you remember that move?

manonduquesnay: Not the move itself, no. The apartment we moved to was so close, and we were visiting Christiania often. My father continued living there until he turned 60.

pavleheidler: Moving so much when you were so young: what kind of effect did that create, do you think?

manonduquesnay: I know that I’m very restless. The house I lived in for the longest time was less than four years. After three years of living in that house I convinced my mother to move, because my school was far away. I wanted to be closer to my school and to my friends. After my mom agreed, I packed all my stuff up and was living in boxes for another half year before the move happened. I was that ready to move. Even before the move — I would change my room around every year, every half a year. I get easily tired, and want changes. But I really value a home, that space. And my space, also. And I’m very quick in making it nice. Sometimes I visualise it — like the last apartment I was going to live in, for example. My friends were living there before, and I got to know before summer I was going to live there after summer. Because I knew the place already, I started visualising how I would organise it once I moved in. I have a few things that I always have with me, that I know will make my home homely. These are not big, so I can move them around easily.

pavleheidler: Could you give me an example?

manonduquesnay: There’s this very little piece of furniture, for example. White. Kind of like a cupboard, or something. I use it as a bedside table. It fits in my suitcase. And then I have a bed cover that my grandmother made for me, quite some years ago. And then there are some little pictures that I like. Or photos.

pavleheidler: What are the first spaces you remember memorising?

manonduquesnay: It’s funny that the apartment that we lived in after we moved from Christiania — and then after moving around for a while, the apartment we settled in for a while — I think that sometimes I mix the two apartments up. They were very similar. Both were made in the same city, around the same time. The second one I for sure remember very well, but I think that I also remember the first one. It’s just that I get a bit confused sometimes. What I remember very clearly my mother’s room, and this little hallway with the bathroom and another hallway to my room — that pathway I used to cross quite a lot.

pavleheidler: And how do you remember yourself engaging with the space? Do you remember what space made you first conscious of your moving, of your body?

manonduquesnay: We moved to the island when I was 7, or 8. I remember my room being on the second floor. The staircase was spiralling, and exactly where it was turning the corner — the steps were quite slippery. Sometimes I had to go down the stairs during the night to get to the toilette, and there was no light. I remember how I learned to, or I have this sensation of my feet really feeling the staircase. I remember counting the steps — there were 16 steps down, and I knew exactly what steps I needed to take care with. My feet were grabbing the stairs in order not to slide. I remember activating my feet. A lot. I remember another thing now. The house was fifty… or a hundred meters away from the main road, and our mailbox was by the main road. I got these stools when I was living there, and I would always walk on those down to get to the mailbox. That was my daily thing. It was super funny how in the beginning I would fall quite some times, but then I learned to balance, and I learned the road so well that by the end I could almost run the distance between the house and the mailbox.

pavleheidler:Did you do any sports back then?

manonduquesnay: I did ice-skating. And horseback riding. And I started with theatre drama school when I was twelve, or thirteen. There we were doing different physical practices. The work was based on improvisation, and movement. Body and voice. There was a lot of group walking in space… I relate to a lot of that work still when I take a dance class. We were working on an old stage, in the old theatre of Bornholm, which is the oldest still-functioning theatre in Denmark. The floor there is wooden and still…

pavleheidler: Tilted!

manonduquesnay: …tilted. Yes. I went there for seven years. And I remember so strongly the sensation that that tilted floor gave me. All our performances we did on that stage and at first we were dealing with the floor — until it was normal for it to be tilted. At a certain point I didn’t even sense the tilt anymore. It was on that floor that we worked a lot with walking in space and being very physically present. We were working on knowing where you were going, where the others are. We practiced space awareness, focusing a lot of our attention on people and groups. Not just by seeing, but also with the body. And then — I was thinking about my grandparents’ house, where I spent a lot of time growing up. They lived in this… almost an old castle in south of France. It was four floors high, with a really massive old stone spiralling staircase. You could stand on the top and look down. It was quite old, so it was again… wait. It’s funny. I notice now: I think I had something going on with all these staircases. These were also not totally even. They would lack a stone, or something. So you would have to know where to step, and where not to step. I also lived in another house with a staircase, a wooden staircase that was made only of the horizontal surfaces, there were no vertical ones. I remember I was so scared that someone would grab my feet through these — holes. And that has been hunting me for years, the fear of having my feet grabbed. But this staircase at my grandparents’ house, this one I really remember. Because we were sleeping on the fourth floor, and the kitchen was on the ground floor we would be going up and down morning and evening. I would also be running up and down the stairs after my brothers, and playing. There was a room on the third floor, that was only used for special occasions. We were mostly never there. Which made it dark, and cold. And I had this sensation always when walking down the stairs, and passing that door. It was always a bit scary and my body was always going a bit faster exactly there because it was this unknown place, even if it was very familiar. I remember this body sensation of just escaping it a bit, or going a bit faster when passing this door.

pavleheidler: Where you scared of the dark?

manonduquesnay: I think I was always a bit scared. But I was always fighting the fear, too. I lived in the country side a lot, which meant that often I had to walk from the bus stop to my home, which could mean walking in the dark for one kilometre. I was always imagining that there was a person walking behind me. And then I would be fighting that fear. I challenged myself to look back, and see that there was no one there. The same thing with the staircase. Sometimes I would run and escape the feeling, but sometimes I would also force myself to walk slowly and be OK. I think I always knew I should not be scared, because I knew I was inventing my fears. Then again, I was afraid of things that could be real.

pavleheidler: I’m thinking again of how many places you grew up in. And I’m thinking about all those people that you met along the way. And what the effect of having met so many people was on you, physically, artistically. I’m thinking about dance being such a social form…

manonduquesnay: I think it’s because of being bilingual or having two nationalities and because I am moving so much and travelling that I often feel like I understand people. If I see two people are in a discussion, for example, and one person is trying to show something to the other, but the other one doesn’t understand it — I feel like I get both of them and I feel I can translate the communication. Both in daily situations, but also in a dance context. Often I feel like I get both sides of the argument. Maybe it’s like I get an overview, because I feel like I have been on either side of the conversation so many times. I have had to learn to be fast at reading people, and I have had to learn how to go into situations quickly and understand them. Understand who’s who and what’s what.

pavleheidler: Was it easy for you to make friends?

manonduquesnay: Yes, it was always fairly easy for me to make friends. I always stayed close to these few close childhood friends, but then also the new ones, from when I moved to Bornholm, and from my first class. I realised recently that in Christiania I was the only girl exactly my age. I was mostly surrounded by boys, even before kindergarten. Throughout my whole life, every time I have moved — I had a tendency to befriend a group of boys. I also have girlfriends, but that’s mostly when I have one friend. I very easily integrate into a group of boys that are already friends. I also have many brothers.

pavleheidler: How many? Two?

manonduquesnay: Seven.

pavleheidler: Seven!

manonduquesnay: Yes. But they are half-brothers. I grew up with the two of them, and the other five I saw when I would be visiting. My dad, or my step-dad.

pavleheidler: Are you close, as a family?

manonduquesnay: I’m really, really close to my mother whom I grew up with and who knows more or less everything about me. My mother and my whole family on the French side is really like — we spend Christmas and summer holidays together. And we Skype. And all my brothers I’m very close to, even though I might see some of them once or twice a year.

pavleheidler: I wanted to ask you the same question about how space was making you feel conscious of yourself, but instead of space, it’s people that I’m interested in.

manonduquesnay: When we talked about space, we talked a lot about the spaces I lived in. But I realise now that I lived mostly on the countryside where I was spending a lot of time outside. Which I think has had an impact. I’m used to really big spaces, also from having lived on an island where I always had the sea next to me. Nature is really important to me. Now, for example, at DOCH — I prefer studio nine, because of the window overlooking the forest. I’m thinking that so much of my being outside had to do with touching. Climbing trees and picking flowers. My mother has a garden, so I was working in the garden. I also love swinging, and the sensation that comes from it. Or the sensation that comes from being lifted. Something like {sssssssh} in the stomach. Running crazy down hill, or sledging. That I can get from dancing as well.

pavleheidler: Did you spend time outside no matter the weather?

manonduquesnay: Yes. Mostly on sunny days, of course. But in winter time, when it snowed — I would go out a lot. I have also always been biking. And going out and dancing in the rain, when it rained.

pavleheidler: How do you relate to the clothes you wear? Growing up, I remember clothes always being an issue. In Croatia, if it’s not a hundred degrees — it’s too cold and you need, especially as a kid, to wear hundreds of protective layers.

manonduquesnay: Growing up in Denmark, the winters were really cold, so we wore these whole-suits. And gloves that were attached to each other with a piece of thread. In some way, I hated that suit because it was such a hustle to get it on and it would make you feel like a snowman. You couldn’t move, really. But in the same time I remember the freedom. When the suit was on, you could just go out and tumble around in the snow. You could do anything and it wouldn’t matter because of how thick it was. You couldn’t even hurt yourself. But then there was this period when I was a teenager and wanted to have a style of my own, and my mother was kind of a hippy… I didn’t want to look weird, but I also didn’t want to look like everybody else. So I wore this jacket that I thought looked good, but was not the huge winter jacket. Maybe I was freezing, but yeah. Whatever. Last year when I went for the exchange to Barcelona, where I went through the whole autumn and the beginning of winter without having to put all these layers of clothes on — I realised what freedom that is. You don’t need 10 minutes to go out the door, because you first need to put on all your layers. Instead, you just grab your coat and you’re out. The more I’m dancing, the more I’m into practical, and comfortable clothes. And the more I notice how much energy heavy clothes can take.

pavleheidler: You mentioned in passing that you were horseback riding at some point?

manonduquesnay: We would go to the country side, to spend time with the family — I think that’s where my interest comes from — and my grandparents had horses, that my aunt took over eventually. That’s where I first started horseback riding. I continued when I moved to Bornholm. There was a woman there who had Icelandic horses. They are really big and have this really thick fur. We were just three girls going there, which made the whole experience very intimate. We got to spend a lot of time with the horses. And we were riding without saddles. When there’s no saddle, you really have to work you inner thighs like crazy. It’s a very tactile experience. Thinking of it, horseback riding was never just about me and the horse. Horseback riding always also had something to do with people who were there — that was either my aunt with whom I had a very special relation to, or these girls that I would spend so much time with, talking and hanging out. Those were very different experiences compared to the theatre where we were thirty kids playing around. And these Icelandic horses? They are big and more chill. Unlike Arabs, for example, that are lively and excitable. And their size — they’re not a cat, or a dog — you really have to pay respect to the animal. I learned something important from this relationship with horses in which you’re the master, but at the same time: it’s the master. You really learn how to take care, and give attention to the animal, how to be respectful when you’re with it.

pavleheidler: Is Bornholm also where you went to the theatre school?

manonduquesnay: Drama school. 

pavleheidler: You were telling me that horseback riding was a very different experience from the drama school.

manonduquesnay: The drama school was really a life changing experience for me, I think. There I started opening much more. Not just to my family and friends, but as a person, who has interests and is discovering a lot about herself. The director, who was also our theatre teacher, is still a very dear friend of mine. A mentor, of sorts. At the school we were kids between the age of 9 — I think the youngest was — and 18, maybe? The age spectrum was very broad. What was really cool was that we were all being treated equally. Despite our age. In the performances we made, everyone would have an equally big part. Which, I think was really important. Also, each year we were trying different things, different styles of theatre. One year we played with masks. Then one year we played with mime. One year it was text, then musical theatre. In general, we were making devised theatre; a cross over. And then one year, we made dance theatre. A guy from Copenhagen came to give us a workshop in this specific style, after which we continued on our own. We never got a script, but exercises, challenges we had to solve, or work through. You’d get a banana and a pair of shoes. And you would have to go into a group and find a solution. Then come back and get feedback, with which would come the next challenge. We always created everything together. One year, for example, we had to perform with two hundred pairs of shoes?

pavleheidler: Two hundred pairs of shoes!

manonduquesnay: Yes! We bought all the old shoes in all the second hand shops on the island and started from there. What can we do with all these shoes? So we started searching for poems about shoes, whatever about shoes. It was awesome. The year we were doing dance theatre I realised: wow, this is really something that I want. And it was a really beautiful performance. The stage was divided in two. So it was actually two performances going on parallel to each other. Everything on one side was grey, and everything on the other side was white. Sometimes we would know what was going on on the other side, and sometimes we wouldn’t. That was my favourite performance. But still, when I finished high school and moved to Copenhagen, I applied to audition for the theatre school. I was asked to prepare a monologue — I got a text I needed to learn by heart, and create a persona. I soon realised that I could not work with that text. I liked theatre, but I just couldn’t… I realised what I liked was the whole creation, the whole movement around being on stage. It was not learning the text by heart and creating another person to perform. So I started taking more dance classes, and movement classes. And I started watching more dance and I slowly realised that I was attracted to anything — bodily. And then one thing lead to another. I couldn’t find a job, so I decided to take a Spanish course for half a year, because then I could get student support — and I always wanted to learn Spanish. At the Spanish class I met a guy who’s best friend was in this physical dance theatre half year program — to which I later applied. And I got in! We did contact improvisation, and had some modern classes, but also singing. Afterwards I applied to this one year preparatory full time dance education. It was in that audition that I took the first ballet class in my life. I didn’t even know if I was supposed to put my right or my left arm on the bar. We were only three taking the audition that day and I had to stand in the front. I think it was all the improvisation I have done with the theatre, and the awareness of space, of people that really helped me to sort through this situation I found myself in. It was like: OK! Just smile and fake it till you make it or whatever!

pavleheidler: Did you end up doing that preparatory education?

manonduquesnay: Yes! That was Copenhagen Contemporary Dance School.

pavleheidler: I remember somebody telling me about that school and how they did all these auditions afterwards.

manonduquesnay: I did nine audition. Flying one week to Amsterdam, the next — everywhere. Back and forth to Stockholm. SEAD, then Germany. The Copenhagen Contemporary Dance School thinks that audition experience is good for you. They think that auditioning you learn about yourself. And about the schools, but mostly about yourself. 

pavleheidler: Did you get invited to any schools other than DOCH?

manonduquesnay: I got invited to Hamburg. And I was on the waiting list for Arnhem. But I chose DOCH. Even if I didn’t want to move to Stockholm in the beginning. I thought it was too north, too cold. I was even going to skip that audition, but then I read about the program and the description sounded too interesting.

pavleheidler: As you’re coming into dance, and moving more and more — how does that affect you? Your daily life?

manonduquesnay: I think the first thing I discovered was that this world of dance was huge. The more I get to know it, the bigger it is. For example, I first thought that if I relate to my body, then a tendu is a tendu, and laying on the floor is just laying on the floor. But the more I do it, the more I understand that it’s not just that. There are so many ways of doing things, seeing things, experiencing things, combining things. That’s very much a bodily sensation, the sense of endlessness. I realise every day that I’m so much more aware of how I use my body, and how I relate to people with my body. How I sense things. It’s very much a sensation — tactile, but also watching and smelling. How we communicate, how we use ourself and experience things. When I move every day, I get less sick, less tired for example. I had headaches before, now I don’t get them as often. I also noticed I am much more attentive to physical contact. Not just in a contact improv- way. I notice it with my family, or when I’m playing with kids of my family or friends. I’m much more tactile, lifting them, playing around. I’m more creative with how I use my body in every day life. I also noticed that when I meet my old friends from high school or before… I am behave physically very different with them than I do with people I’m dancing with. I’m more likely to give to a hug and really feel that hug with my dance-related friends. I also hug my non-dance-related friends, but not with the same awareness. So I try to behave with my non-dance-related friends in the same way I do with my dance-related friends, I try to be more physical with them. To make it totally normal that I sit next to them and hold onto their leg, or shoulder or whatever. It can be weird sometimes for them if I get all touchy in a café, but I try to make it as normal as it would be if I were spending time with my dance-related friends.

pavleheidler: Is there anything else you started discovering because you started dancing?

manonduquesnay: One of the biggest discoveries, I think, is that dance can be everything. Like walking on the street. I re-discovered walking down the street in a dance way. I think I also discovered a lot of different philosophies. Yes, specific philosophers who’ve written books about philosophy, but also just ways of relating to life. And what your personal philosophies might be. And that there’s no one truth, but that we are living in a different, or each in our own reality. And that everything — I think I discovered this very much through dance — that everything is relative. Before, I think I thought that even if we would disagree along the way, it would still be possible to eventually find an end of an argument and say: this is right. Now I think there is no such thing. Whatever you do, there’s always going to be a right for you, and a right for me. Dance also changed the way in which I travel. I used to travel and see culture and art museums and cafés. But now when I travel I also go and see dance life. I am interested in traditional dances and folk dances, too. It’s super interesting to take dance classes in different places. Everywhere I go, I try to take a dance class. It’s so interesting to experience how it’s all the same, and not.

pavleheidler: What do you relate to most in your dancing?

manonduquesnay: At DOCH we really got presented with all kinds of different techniques and styles. And in a way I relate to all of them, but which one I feel more at home with? Improvisation, first of all. And contact improvisation, or partnering stuff. I can much more easily relate my body to another body, than I can relate my body to space. The same thing is true to how I relate to the floor. I can find my way around on the floor much more easily, that I can when I’m on my two feet. Standing, I can get totally lost in directions. I think touching another person or the floor makes the whole experience much more tactile, more concrete. More relatable.

pavleheidler: How do you imagine your body?

m: That changes so much all the time. For example, now that we’ve been working on Kneeding with Jefta [van Dinther], we worked with the organs and how our organs kneed each other, or need each other, or our structure. So I’ve been watching pictures of organs and visualising them and then feeling them inside me. I was spending so much time trying to understand where they are and how they are related to each other, and to the structure — which is bones and muscles. I have a very visual mind. I can remember pictures and street locations. I think that relates to how I imagine my body — the fact that I can remember if I’ve seen a picture of an organ, or something. But I’m also very quick to sense and relate to that sense, or a feeling. I think both sensing and feeling are important. That I sense this table, or my stomach as it is anatomically, maybe; but that I also feel it; if it’s tired, or if it’s happy. To be able to relate emotionally is important to me. So. I think that at the moment I imagine my body as these organs, muscles, bones. It’s imagined, but also very real and very practical. One time we spent all this time with a Trisha Brown dancer. The work we did with her made my body much lighter. I think that’s funny. That depending on what we practice [at DOCH] I can feel fat or skinny, light or heavy, far or…

pavleheidler: Do you have a practice of your own that you do every day?

manonduquesnay: Since I started DOCH I have continuously been doing pilates. Every week. But that’s not so personal. Last year I did some tai-chi movements every day. This year I am doing the Five Tibetans. I like to have something that I do every day for a longer period of time. Which I think is also in contrast to DOCH, where every couple of weeks we change strategies, styles, ways of working. That’s why I do pilates, too. It’s not for the pilates. It’s for the fact that it’s something that I know and can just go there and do whenever I want.

pavleheidler: Do you pay a lot of attention to how you organise yourself within the environment you live in?

manonduquesnay: Yes. And sometimes I am really practical about it, I count the number of hours of sleep I need, or how much I need to eat in order to be able to do what I have to do that day. And then sometimes it’s more a matter of sensing and being spontaneous about it. I think the mix is what works best for me. I’m also very interested in what I eat, and how my body relates to the ecology — my eating, my thinking, my living, my dancing. I am vegetarian since many, many years. But in general, I am just really interested in how I eat. I guess that’s because of the way in which I was brought up — very ecological way of thinking. And that’s very important to me — to pay attention to how I function, especially with dance.

pavleheidler: I think we can finish here?

manonduquesnay: Yeah? Cool!

*****

a great big thank you to Danscentrum Stockholm for all the generosity and help they provided myself, Francesco Scavetta and Vitlycke - Centre for Performing Arts, IDOCDE and LEAP projects with.