United Cowboys by Lecturis

united cowboys

Art is overwhelmingly important in the process of innovation and redefinition of cultural context because it uses tools such as imagination, wonder, beauty and truth, tools of all times, all people and of all cultures.

To celebrate its 30th anniversary as a dance performance company, United Cowboys publishes this photo book

Questioning theatrical conventions

The book reflects on 30 years of development in which an oeuvre has been built from one work to the other, a process which is still going on. This long line of creation and research was the result of investigating, questioning, challenging, collecting, discussing, all together leading to a signature that was spread all over Europe: a visualization of a state of mind, a radical presence on stage, the head-heart-body connection, the following of impulses instead of immediately wanting to give form and determine destination. This book gives an impression of this language by showing images from our rich archives.

The creation of a performance could probably best be compared with the making of an abstract painting. You can easily start very naturalistically; slowly the abstraction takes over. Ask a painter why he put that red in the upper corner; he doesn’t know, his feeling told him it should be like that. The same goes for creating a performance. The working process is the search in which you edit, you compose, delete and build up again, until the whole has the proper charge and everything is in the right order, trusting the absolute choice of the moment.

For the greater part, the pictures were made by Maarten van der Put. There are also contributions from photographers who captured the performances and events over the years.

Encouraging artistic risk

Live-art company United Cowboys, seated in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, works under the artistic leadership of Maarten van der Put and Pauline Roelants, at the interface between dance, visual and performance arts, embracing the obscure and the unknown. The main goal is creating projects across disciplines, with the physical as the starting point and core. United Cowboys questions theatrical conventions, stretching and challenging them, in order to penetrate to the essence of art. United Cowboys distances itself from a strict storyline and offers associative, physical work with a visual character. Thinking is doing. The subconscious resonates in the action. The work of United Cowboys shows the essence of humanness, revealing intimate behavior, thought and emotion, that what lives beneath the surface, usually being glossed by civility and reason, or hidden behind embarrassment, shame and anxiety. United Cowboys’ trump cards: performances that show the body without censorship, in confrontation with life. What counts is the power and vulnerability of the individual performer who throws himself into battle. Nakedness – in the literal and figurative sense.

United Cowboys works associatively, building layer on layer using the different inputs of material from various art forms. All components together form the content of the work. From the beginning of our collaboration, over thirty years ago, we have been interested in the combination of art forms. We were inspired by the strong wave of interdisciplinary work in the world of theater, performance and dance in those days. We started using the individual expertise we both had. Then, there was a cross-pollination and everything intertwined in a productive way and nowadays the art disciplines are not being seen as separate, but as one entity. And the two of us operate as one artist.

In a certain way, we like to narrow ourselves down, because experience taught us that you then come to the most honest statements. In fact, we force ourselves into a situation comparable to that of the performers: we want them to come with a definite statement or confession as late as possible. If not, you work from conclusions, and those we find only limitedly interesting, in theater and in life. The road to get there fascinates us, that is about people in all their presence and states.

The body as reference for (r)evolution We use physicality as a tool and point of reflection; a non-verbal language that communicates through head-heart-body. We work with and search for the utmost power and beauty of the dancers and performers, as the individual and personal handwriting is important to us. We encourage tangibility and the use of the senses in these live experiences. We believe that in these days and age we should encourage moving towards each other instead of apart. United Cowboys - Maarten van der Put, Pauline Roelants

100

101

Colophon text United Cowboys photography Maarten van der Put a.o. editing Ulla Havenga design Ulla Havenga & Maarten van der Put publisher Lecturis printer Grafistar ISBN 9789462265011 thanks We thank Jaap Harten Fund, Constant van Renesse Fund, Dirk & Angelique Bosman, City of Eindhoven and Brabant C Fund for their financial support.

We thank Joep Lennarts (†), Hans Spiegelaar, Tuur Uyttenhove, Jean Philipse, Ton Dekker, Boriana Padova, Eliano Nasr, Teodora Tsanova, Leonie van Ravestein, Karl-Heinz Mierke, Sebastian Hannak and Admill Kuyler for their selfless contributions. Special thanks to all dancers/performers: Jef Stevens, Florencia Martina, Eulàlia Bergada, Conor Doherty, Marti Güell Vallbona, Hanne Schillemans, Violeta Vitanova, Sarah Bostoen, Evelyne Rossi, Reinaldo Ribeiro, Anna Nilsson, Alina Belyagina, Sophy Ribrault, Lucia Orio, Melli Mueller, André Jolles, Joss Carter, Ana Clesta Muniz, Anni Kaili, Wilhelm Blomberg, Mila Virtanen, Marleen Kleinstapel, Izah Hankammer, Ai Koyama, Eleni Ploumi, Hilde Elbers, Andrea Hackl, Fanny Vandesande, Sam Scheuermann, Lie Antonissen, Marjolein Vogels, Bert Roman, Jan Martens, Antonine Heij- Bucherre, Dennis Költgen, Huub Smit, Astrid Vereecken, Lisa van Doremalen, Oscar van der Put, Jitka Kosiková, Chris van der Weide, Marcel (philosopher), Melanie Weijters, Marleen Manders, Wies Berkhout, Gian Luca Krings, Johan Reijnders, Gabriella Rooth, Vida Vojic Frankmar, Ele Tova Ekenberg, Jim de Block, Nathan Cooper, Zhana Pencheva, Miroslava Zohova, Vasilia Debrova, Marion Darova, Ana Patkova, Denis Okatna, Lucy Petrusová, Marius Pohlmann, Andreia Rodrigues, Yonel Castilla Serrano, Blazej Jasinski, Jenia Kasatkina, Esther Dekker, Jan van Bekkum, Simon Versnel, Yolanda van Gemert, Hein Verhees, Almundena, Ballesteros Parejo, Rebecca Sier, Ieva Navickaitė, dance ensemble Tanz_Kassel. The works represented in this book were made possible with the support of and in collaboration with:

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the Publisher. ©2023 United Cowboys, Lecturis Publishers