Martin Nachbar and Pol Pi discuss their collaboration on Dore Hoyer’s dance cycle “Afectos Humanos” (1962) and the archival practice of passing on dance through generations. Martin Nachbar himself learned Hoyer’s cycle from Waltraud Luley, who managed Hoyer’s choreographic legacy and was responsible for passing it on to the next generation of dancers. Nachbar thus became another ‘guardian’ and mediator of her dance legacy, which he in turn passed on to Pol Pi. In addition to insights into their working process, the two dancers and choreographers share their thoughts on archival work as ‘relationship work’, on reconstruction as an ongoing search and on the question: ‘how to find my dance in someone else’s dance?’
– Yes. Here we are, Pol. Talking about the reconstruction work we did together and alone of Dore Hoyer´s dances. And you suggested that before that we first talk about how each of us met Dore Hoyer´s work or how we maybe you start with your story and then we get to the connection.
Yeah. Yeah. Because for me, it means how I met you too. So it’s kind of thanks to Dore Hoyer, thanks Dore Hoyer. Thanks to you for letting me meet Martin. But yeah, I met… I could say I met Dore Hoyer, or first time I saw her was on video, of course.
I was in São Paulo at the university. I was doing a masters program there that I quit, actually. And during one seminar, this teacher showed many videos of German dance. And there was this video of Dore Hoyer that I don’t know why really struck me.
And I felt that some day I should do this. And I also felt that I could do it. I don’t know how because I didn’t really dance at the time, but I felt that I could it would be possibly somehow. But it felt so, so difficult being in Brazil to contact
These dancers that I didn’t really think about it at the time. And then like one year after I joined the master’s program in Montepellier, Exerce. And totally by chance, the theme of the first year was like reconstruction or working with archival dances. And then that’s when in one of the workshops,
I decided to start learning “Angst”. So fear and totally by chance, you were there at the CCN de Montpellier. But to do something else. It was also on Dore Hoyer, remember, but teachers, dance teachers. So it was this coincidence of starting to learn the first dance meeting you and yeah.
And then from then on I felt I should continue and learn the other ones and then we start working. Maybe that will tell the rest of the story. But that’s what happened. It was a lot of coincidences. Yeah. – Same for me. I mean my story is very similar, just different contexts.
But now that you talked about our meeting, I’m just reminded of it also because it was Olga de Soto who had invited me to give a talk about Dore Hoyer and reconstruction work for dance teachers. And then you were there and afterwards you addressed me.
And I was really this quirky person that kind of like was interested but was not really a dancer, but was a dancer. I mean, not that dance like former dance trained dancer. And I really like the request of the curiosity and the energy.
And there was also for me the first time that I was approached in that role of, you know, someone who passes on the dances in one way or another by someone who I considered professional or an artist, before I did it in educational contexts. So I was also a bit flattered
And curious myself what that would mean, you know, to work with someone who has a curiosity and a desire of their own rather than as part of the dance education that they were in, which I had done before. So yeah, that was, that was really, really interesting and nice for me.
Also, it met my desire to pass these dances on and then artistically interesting contexts, let’s say, or, you know, in a way that’s, it’s a dialog rather than me just teaching, which is also dialog. But you know what I mean?
Like someone who comes with answers or surprises in their own research and yeah, so that meeting then became like a kind of a very loose collaboration between you and me. – I mean, it was connected to the very concrete also fact that if I wanted to work with these dances,
I kind of had to work with you or Susanne Linke to then address the Tanzarchiv in Köln and then ask for the rights, the copyrights to be able to perform and perform them. And it was yeah, it was interesting how actually then
The times we met were also connected to learning a new dance. And then I remember you saying like, no, we have to have a strategy to do this and not ask all the rights at the same time. Ask one or two then some months after we ask for another one and
Yeah, so there was this relationship to the archive that was also a big thing, very important, which makes me think of what we said the other day about the relationships and how relationships are part of any work with archives and these days I was thinking about other encounters
Actually during the process and how much even the encounters with the studios. It’s because maybe because I’m in a studio now, I really remember the times we worked in different studios and which dance in each studio to kind of, yeah, “Love” it was Uferstudios. And then there was, I think was “Begierde”
Was at the French Institute in Berlin and it’s really connected to this. I hadn’t realized I’m thinking about it now how much there…you know? – Yeah it’s interesting now that… It’s great you have a much better memory of the process, I guess. You know, you were in it and I was gonna…
But now that you call out these places, I remember also and it’s really curious how memories are connected to places. I was wondering why…. – You didnt tell… – Sorry? – You didn’t tell your story of us meeting… – Oh, my story. Yes.
So I also in my dance training, we had a class called Beginnings of Dance or dance histories, you know, like things that intrigued us personally. And there was a colleague of mine who showed Dore Hoyer, a book of Dore Hoyer and I got very intrigued, but then I forgot about it,
And much later I stumbled over a VHS tape, videotape in Brussels and we watched it with the people who we work together with. And then we got interested. And, you know, one thing led to another me also having to call the Tanzarchiv in Cologne
And then having to call Waltraud Luley, who was this old lady, or was an old lady at the time. She she doesn’t live anymore. But she was 85 at the time. And, you know, the first phone conversation also, like these things are imprinted in my memory, like your meetings
With me or the other things that you did around the dances. You know, she asked me things like how tall, how heavy I was, and if I was a dynamic dancer and stuff like this. It was very awkward in the beginning. But then over time we became friends, which was very beautiful.
In this whole process and also felt, I mean, you and I, we are not close friends, but I felt very much like at least how do you call this, a complicity, you know, in that kind of yeah, a very friendly relationship somehow. And somehow I feel like that…
If you have a vehicle like these kinds of dances, it doesn’t have to be these particular Afectos Humanos dances but something that deals so much with being a human being that when you work together on this, that somehow brings you together on some level.
And for sure that happened with Waltraud Luley and me. And then, you know, it was a long process until she asked me and Susanne Linke to become the guardians of these dances. Once she would die. And that was actually the question that I wanted to ask you
When you asked me for my beginnings, is how did you choose me over Susanne Linke? – I think I didn’t know when I met you, I didn’t know anything about these dances or very little. I just knew that you worked on them. You were there.
And then I think you told me when we had this dinner. I think we had dinner. I remember also the restaurant. We had dinner together when we talked. And I think then you told me that you both of you were like the guardians of the dances. I think it was just
Obvious also, maybe because of, I mean, the kind of work that you do, the kind of work that you did with the dances was much more related to the dialog I wanted to have with the dances and not, I was sure I didn’t want to do a reconstruction, like a historical
Or to search any kind of truth in that. So… Yeah, it was a very obvious and yeah, it’s kind of also I feel there’s like kind of two lineages or something related like this, the kind of reconstruction that was like people that asked Susanne Linke.
It looks very different from what I did and that I feel much closer to what you did than much…. Yeah. And then I find it interesting because I think and I don’t think I know that probably Susanne Linke does not agree at all
With the way I dance these dances, but I think it’s good to have diversity and to have different points of view on the same dances. There’s some… I remember that in the beginning there was this text from André Lepecki that was very, very, very important to me that talks about you
As one of the works that he analyzed and it was very interesting. And this thing that he talks about, the call of the archive, that there’s this call that you don’t know why you feel like you have to do it. And so this was something that was very strong.
And I’m still understanding why the hell am I dancing these dances? Because I have no connection to this education, to this history, it´s not my country, it’s not my culture. And the other thing. What… I lost it…. I was going to say something else about Lepecki… It’s gonna come back.
I know! It´s that you actualize… Like the fact that when you do reconstruction you are probably actualizing things that even the author did not think of and how the work… you can detach it from the author and you can give new,
Always new, I mean when this dance is as strong as these dances… It’s very interesting to think that…I think today 2023 because I still dance them and I was just rehearsing them now before this call. It’s…yeah. To imagine that other things can appear and emerge
Through these dances today that Dore Hoyer could have never imagined. And this really is an important, very important part for me working with these dances. – Yeah, I think this is where we met. That was my interest or desire also to reveal new aspects of these dances, but also of my own dancing.
Through that meeting. I understood it also as a meeting between me, my body and these dances, and through these dances Dore Hoyer´s body was conveyed, her attitudes her values, her desires and stuff… Yeah, I guess indeed this is one of the differences between my approach and Susanne Linke´s approach.
Susanne Linke has seen Dore Hoyer live, maybe she even took classes with her. So there’s a memory attached that is emotionally charged. I think this is, you know when I hear Susanne Linke talk about these dances. She also has an artistic distance. I mean, it’s very clear and she understands that also.
This is not the question, it´s just that… that memory that is so emotionally charged leads to a sense, or an attitude where she… It seems to me that, Susanne Linke tries to answer not to a call of an archive but to answer to Dore Hoyer´s authenticity.
In a way…Like this is very rough, like really speaking my mind a bit, improvising around this idea, but I think this is the main difference. So there’s a bit more freedom by not having seen Dore Hoyer, let´s say. And yeah, what I also mentioned already
In another talk that we had that I realized afterwards we did the black and white movie by having great costume and a white stage. So there´s many layers, also intermedia layers that come in to this whole memory work. And one of which I find particularly interesting is the whole gender question,
Because already when I did it, I was the first man who did it. I kind of actualized, or reveals that part of Dore Hoyer´s interests and these dances, being non- gender, not gendered. And I was intrigued because when we met you were not quite in transition, but kind of in transition.
No, not yet. Okay. And then during the process, you were, I don’t know, don’t remember exactly when or was it afterwards? – It was after. – It was afterwards. You see it. But then when I saw it for the first time live, you were in transition. – But there was this…
When you saw it in Berlin. Yes, yes. Yeah, probably. Yes. – Yeah. Yeah. And when I saw it, for me, that was really, I guess on this question of gender, it’s like, wow, actually when you put on the beard, I thought, wow, this is I could have never taken it that far.
That question. It was like a completely new aspect that became part of the art, let’s say, part of the dances, which I find, I was very moved by that actually, when I saw it… In this particular moment, also when you put on the beard.
– Yeah, which is your beard but nobody needs to know. But yeah, it’s, I mean of course it comes from this, it comes a lot from our talks too because I don’t know why since I remember the first time I dance “Angst” I don’t know why
I remember I put the mustache or something, I don’t know why, but I felt there was something with these dances, that there was something that was somehow questioning gender and also this thing that she would hide her… Her hair. And then every time I would talk
To people at the archive or Susanne Linke everybody would say like, she was a very masculine woman and always talking about this gender thing. And that was very, very intriguing for me. And I remember that then when I Liebe, love was the only dance that I did
Not learn from the video before. I remember I decided to learn it entirely from you, which then became a joke in the piece. One of the two pieces I did on these dances because I said, like you, taught me to make love. How to make love.
And I remember that one day, I remember about two T-shirts and then I asked you to wear one of them and I put the beard on and we just worked together like we did the other days. But I was Martin Nachbar. And I remember you were like very intrigued by this.
And this is also one of the reasons why it’s stayed as a drag king technology in the piece. But it was really from this understanding for me that it was not just Dore Hoyer´s dances, it was Martin’s-Dore Hoyer´s-Waltraud Luley´s dances. And this was very, yeah, I mean, it’s still the case,
Although more and more with time I feel and it’s interesting how I also… I think that I don’t necessarily agree or that I see different like doing them like, I think actually she didn’t mean this through this movement I think maybe she was thinking this and…
Yeah. And it’s still, it’s crazy just now rehearsing and like, oh I think I’ve been doing this wrong all these years. I think it’s not, this is a little bit more to the right and then it’s a different feeling in the body. It’s… it’s crazy.
And maybe this, I agree with you that the fact that we didn’t see or meet Dore Hoyer there’s this freedom that is not that we’re going to do whatever with these dances but like trying… Ah, there’s this thing for me that´s very special, like the more I try to get close to them
And I guess it’s the same with you, the more we are visible as the dancers, I mean, inevitably, and I really like this, like being very rigorous and really trying to do them. And then necessarily our education, our time, everything, our values, they are there.
We don’t need to try to show them or use Dore Hoyer´s dances to show something else. It’s there, because….And… – So that’s what you also talked about the other time. That you quoted the French dance maker that “we find our own dances by going through other people’s dances”
Which kind of speaks about a similar phenomenon that, you know, also makes our dances more visible. And I found that when you said it the first time, I felt that very but also, again, touching. And it made a lot of sense because it’s like, you know, small children when they learn to walk.
They kind of go through the walks of their caretakers and their big siblings, maybe, you know, people who are around them and then they find their own walk. And… this is another really interesting aspect of all the reconstruction work in dances is that you have to go through
That paradox of being super precise. And when you talk about now that you’re still finding things out, I’m like, yeah, that’s great. It’s great that we met. You know, I’m very happy that, you know, I did the work with you because you continue with it. And there’s an understanding that’s
The dances they never stop, the dancing doesn’t stop. It just continues and it continues to evolve and change. I had a similar thing. My prime example always for what you just described about, you know, whether it’s this or this, how this is different.
In “Hate” you have these hands, right, that do this for a long time. I told you many times, I guess I dance the dances like that. And then in one performance, I realize, oh no, wait I have to have them like this. And then I suddenly felt hate.
And I realized before I only felt anger just by… By locking the energy here or releasing it and the rest… These little details, they are so rewarding when you find out about them. I find. And what I… Just one last thing, what I find so interesting in this context just to,
I don’t want to like sit on the gender question, just one little thing because you mentioned how Susanne Linke and other people talked about how Dore Hoyer was a very masculine dancer, you know, here we have an art form like dance that is so able to create all kinds of relationships
And kind of connect things and so many oblique and weird and queer ways. That’s, you know, it seems so funny that the generation of Susanne Linke is still set on that one binary, that our society is like holding onto so strongly, it´s like male and female.
And no Dore Hoyer was Dore Hoyer, she did the dances in her interest and her desire and her, you know and yes, you know, there was some masculinity, some femininity, but also a lot of other gender going on that, you know,
You don’t even want to grasp because it is, that’s the beauty of it I find. Yeah, I agree. But I think that at the time that Dore Hoyer did them, these questions were very present. Yeah. If you think, we think of all the other dancers before her and expressionism, this question of
Gender was also present and like, yeah, I mean it’s, I think it’s also connected to the fact that she was bisexual and for me this was a part of, that was… I mean when we go to the archive, there’s the dancer, there’s the person.
There was always a question for me, how much do I go to the person or not? And like which aspects of the person you want to deal with or not. And I know that this is a part of Dore Hoyer that I wanted to also make visible, and that is then connected…
For me it was very special to also work with you because you had worked with Waltraud Luley which was in a relationship with Dore Hoyer. So somehow all these affects, talking about Afectos Humanos were very present and… When I did the piece, I was a lesbian.
And for me it was very important to kind of honor also this, this part of Dore Hoyer´s, yeah, life. And so this was my you know, makes me think of this thing I said last time about fiction, how we build our own fictions and yeah, I feel that
I have kind of my… the Dore Hoyer I relate to is probably not the same. You relate to is certainly not the same as Susanne Linke relates to, but yeah, I think they all exist and maybe they all existed and were complex, very complex.
– Which kind of reminds me of a question that Berlin dance archive people also raised and the pre talk that we had last week, the question of an authorship, like who is the author who authors a dance and how that relates to the dance archive.
Because dance archives, I mean, we both are talking about Dore Hoyer´s dances knowing very well that, you know, there were many influences to these dances that are not Dore Hoyer that she picked up and imitated and tried out and played with. And we we kind of started to imagine
That the dance archive is organized differently than it is because right now it’s organized by authors, by people who created dances or who are the choreographers who authored certain texts. I don’t actually have any idea what that would look like, a dance archive that’s not organized by authorship, but by relationship
Or by what you’ve just described. Like many names, Dore Hoyer being like several layers. And then you have these layers that you can emphasize. But I found that an interesting little tangent, you know, like how to imagine a dance archive
That we are not going in to look for Dore Hoyer or Susanne Linke or Pol Pi or Martin Nachbar, but that we go in to look for Human Affects dances. Which you can do. I mean, you have to like the index nowadays also with Google
And the computers, it’s more possible to imagine it, but that somehow, yeah, I don’t know. – Not necessarily have the relationship… If you search for Afectos Humanos you don’t necessarily have, okay, this person was in dialog with this person,
Met this other person during the process that this person… Like today I was thinking, I was remembering that when I was learning with “Begierde”, ”Desire”, I took some flamenco classes with this teacher because I was very interested in like, okay, clearly there’s flamenco and there was like,
It was crazy because there were some like basic exercises of warming up that were like in Liebe, actually it was the same, I was like what…! It was…. Yeah. But then I thought, okay, so this person whose name I already forgot even was also part, actually, is still
Also part of this, you know… Yeah. How these encounters, it would be beautiful to be able to think how to bring this, that always stays invisible and it´s always the author and then… Yeah. We still, yeah, think in boxes, you know.
– Yes exactly the boxes, this is like the archival boxes. You know, you go like, when I was a kid to go to the library and you opened up these drawers with like lots of file cards and you look through the file cards to find the book that you were looking for.
We would have to draw a lot of maps, no? And actually, you know, like they pop up when you go for a name and then you have that map that pops up. And I think Jochen Roller… [both laughing] – You know, like, what is this supposed to mean…? [both laughing]
– Jochen Roller did a project. He did a reconstruction of Bodenwieser dances who, you know worked in Australia and he has a website I don’t remember the name, but that does a little bit this. I found it quite beautiful when he came out with it. – I just wanted to quote the person
That said the sentence, it´s LoÏc Touzé, a French choreographer. And I don’t know, because I try to search and I don’t think he said exactly this, but he works a lot with this. And it’s not in the context of historical dances, but this question of how do you find your own dance
Through other people’s dances. I would even say through other other dances of even non human beings. But that becomes very concrete, I think when you work with archives, it’s very, very concrete. This thing is like, okay, how to search for your…?
It’s not even, I think is not even searching because it comes to you. This is what I think it’s interesting working on somebody else’s dances. You are faced with yourself all the time and with your history. Your way of moving because there was a gap and a difference.
And I don’t even have to look for it. You just experience it. – Exactly, it’s nice how you say it. It comes to you also, like, you know, it’s a coincidence to run through Dore Hoyer, you know, it was for both of us, kind of… Maybe it’s fate we don’t know.
But, you know, like, it’s kind of you become a bit of a vessel, not an empty vessel, but, you know, where stuff passes through and you let it out again. Which also… I think that you are as a trained musician, you’re very trained
In that attitude, you know, where you open up to a score without forgetting yourself. You know, that sort of dialog is very specific to music, I think. You have it also in dance and in acting, you know, But you know, there’s something that I appreciated also in our work together
That, you know, you are so, so precise all on your own. You know, like when I worked in study contexts with students, I had to like, push them into being precise, you know, with details and stuff so they would find out their own dance, as we have just discussed.
You just did it. And that was great. – With this I think we… Maybe we are running out of time, but I was just with something I wanted to say is that I think when I started working with you,
I did not expect at all that you would say so much things about the dances. I was very surprised because there was a lot a lot, a lot of details. I thought it would be much, not easier. But like, okay, this, this, this and it was like never ending.
And then when you talk about Luley, I had the feeling that, I mean, it also comes from there. But it was very interesting as the process… And I think this is also, I mean, I am obsessed by details in general, but the fact that you work like this, too, it opened up
This thing of still searching today and realizing how tiny, like you said, this is also a big question for me in “Hass” like find that… And it’s totally different. It’s crazy. And I really wanted to thank you for that because it really opened up, at the same time, very concrete
Imagery and like details, but physical, but also of projection of thinking, like, maybe there’s, when she does this, actually there’s something underneath her or there’s something coming behind her. And to always be in these two dimensions of the images that might come with, or not and the physical.
So this really helps me to continue to feed the the dances. And I think I wouldn’t, I will maybe stop doing them if I cannot be searching, but I think I will always, maybe I would be just physically not capable of doing them anymore. But there is this thing of…Because I think
I will never do them as they really, really, really should be. And I always have to get better and search and try and… That this is why I think it’s nice to keep on doing searching, then while you’re dancing, like how to search for it. – Yeah, that’s great. That’s great.
But it was a pleasure to work with you also I have to say. Thank you. Maybe that’s a good ending? – Yeah. – It just continues and we are grateful for the work. – Yeah, thank you Dore Hoyer. [both laughing]