Dance CentralSummer2022 A Dance Centre Publication Content A Conversation with Alina Sotskova Page 4 A Conversation with Jacek Luminski Page 12
We tend to think of professions as all-defining, but people like Alina remind us that we can embrace multiple identities that make up who we are.
Welcome to the Summer 2022 issue of Dance Central. Summer, a season that lures one out into the open. Are we there yet? Have we emerged? Can we safely proclaim our triumph over the pandemic? Perhaps not. It feels more like the odd uneven time in Sylvia Plath’s words— “August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.”
I also had the pleasure of reaching out to Jacek Luminski in Poland to learn about his global project, which came to The Dance Centre in April 2022. Now in its third edition, The Roots of Dance connects practitioners from nine countries (Poland, China, Malaysia, India, Mexico, USA, Georgia, Croatia, and Canada) in an effort to build conversations around the traditional and the contemporary across the world. Jacek was trained academically as a dance anthropologist, a term that is perhaps quite foreign to readers in BC. I would like to think of myself as one too, by which I mean, instead of languages, we study cultures through dance. We thank all the artists who have contributed, and we welcome new writing and project ideas at any time to make Dance Central a more vital link to the community. Please send materials by email to editor@thedancecentre.ca. We look forward to many more conversations!
In this issue, Alina Sotskova shares her personal renaissance that brought forth her latest project, Minds in Motion. Talking to Alina felt like a therapy session as she weaves her identity as a psychologist, philosopher, and dancer seamlessly.
Shanny Rann Editor
Editor's Note 2 D ance Central Summer 2022
Moving Borders, 13-17 DEC, Merida © NIMIT Archives Dance Central Summer 2022 3
SR: Alina, you have an interesting background as an artist, psychologist, and philosopher. How do you bridge those worlds?
Trying to reconnect to self and others after a period of time of feeling numb and disconnected is difficult. It is a struggle that is familiar to many people. This work is about the experience of this struggle: about trying to move forward despite uncertainty; about how hard it is to let go of old habits, even when the person desperately wants to let them go. This work is also about the moments that make this difficult journey worthwhile – moments of breaking through the old molds and constraints, moments of freedom and meaningful connection. by Shanny Rann A Conversation with Alina Sotskova
SR: Can you talk about your journey into dance—what brought you into dance and what made you stay in dance?
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AS: I started dancing very young. It's one of my first memories of growing up. I grew up in Minds in Motion blends physically rigorous contemporary dance with images of human form in Renaissance art. This work is about a personal renaissance – it’s a story of emerging from molds created by others and searching for connection. The dancers use the visual metaphor of a person coming to life inside a sculpture and their struggle to break free.
AS: Voirelia is a nexus where they all meet. I founded Voirelia five years ago, out of the desire to have this interdisciplinary, welcoming platform where these three passions of mine can essentially live together and interact, where people who share my energy and passion for these different areas of inquiry can come together. It's the perfect intersection because any work that I have done with Voireila, in the past and present, has a strong focus on the psychological experience, on understanding different layers and depths of human experience, and on co-constructing, cocreating the experience in order to better make sense of it. Dance is the language for expressing that. Dance creation is a big piece of Voireila. Sharing this passion is essential for the understanding of the moving body, the art form of dance—what it can say, what it can mean, integrating that with these psychological and philosophical questions that I'm interested in asking about human experience. The common questions we all face and different ways we try to answer questions about life or questions about ourselves.
Alina Sotskova with dancers Nicolas Ventura and Margarida Macieira © Carol Gandra Dance Central Summer 2022 5
by The Dance Centre for its members and for the dance community. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent Dance Central or The Dance Centre. The editor reserves the right to edit for clarity or length, or to meet house requirements.
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Founded in 1986 as a leading dance resource centre for dance professionals and the public in British Columbia, The Dance Centre is a multifaceted organization. The Dance Centre presents an exciting season of shows and events, serves a broad membership of 300 professional dance companies and individual artists, and offers a range of activities unparalleled in Canadian dance. The Dance Centre is BC's primary resource centre for the dance profession and the public. The activities of The Dance Centre are made possible bynumerous individuals. Many thanks to our members, volunteers, community peers, board of directors and the public for your ongoing commitment to dance in BC. Your suggestions and feedback are always welcome. The operations of The Dance Centre are supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of British Columbia, the BC Arts Council, and the City of Vancouver through the Office of Cultural Affairs.
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Editor, Art Director & Layout Shanny Rann Copy Editor Nazanin Oghanian Design Layout Becky Wu Contributors to this issue: Alina Sotskova, Jacek Luminski Photo credits
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SR: Thanks for sharing your story. It’s inspiring for people to hear because it takes a lot of courage to come back to something that once was very dear to you and to allow it to grow again. You are a testament to how even into our adult years, it's never too late to harness, to cultivate our love for dance. I'm an immigrant
Front Cover: Alina Sotskova © Carol Gandra Back Cover: Moving Borders, 13-17 Dec, Merida © NIMIT Archives Dance Centre Board
Lindsay Curtis Development Coordinator Anna Ruscitti Membership/Outreach Coordinator Nazanin Oghanian Lead Technician Chengyan Boon Comptroller Elyn Dobbs Venue and Operations Manager Simran Ghesani
Members: Chair Jason Wrobleski Vice Chair Andrea Reid Secretary Tin Gamboa Treasurer Annelie Vistica, CPA, CA Directors
Members: Chair Linda Blankstein Secretary Anndraya T Luui
Crimea, Ukraine. I started dancing at the age of four until I moved away as an adolescent. When immigrating to Canada, the immigration process and a number of other family-related things were so challenging that dance was basically not at all a priority. It was gone from my life completely. I was adapting, trying to improve my English, trying to adjust to school, and trying to figure out a career. I went into the areas of psychology and philosophy for my undergraduate degree. By the time I went into my master’s for clinical psychology, it had been so many years of missing dance. I felt like a part of me was gone and it was still very painful. I decided to start re-engaging with dance, taking recreational classes without any expectations. I was lucky enough to have positive and uplifting teachers in those classes. Once I was back in the environment, the switch turned right on. I had forgotten how great dance can be, and how much I love it. At that point, I didn't have professional goals yet for dance. I just kept diving into it, taking more classes, and doing pointe in my mid-20s. Gradually I transitioned to taking more advanced and professional classes and workshops, seeking out mentorships and creating my own training program, consisting of ballet and contemporary dance. That's how I ended up where I am now.
Dance Foundation Board
I am interested in dance as a tool to try to capture the uncapturable, something that's not only deep and complex, but also something that's constantly changing... myself and I know how survival takes precedence over interest. For many years too, I drifted apart from dance, and I'm slowly finding my way back as well. How did you find your way to your latest work?
AS: It started in mid-2020 during the pandemic with an accidental find of a book that inspired me, titled How to think like Leonardo da Vinci by Michael Gelb. The book is about the principles that guided Da Vinci in his thinking. A lot of them transcended time such as endless curiosity, openness to experience, and appreciation of not just the mental or the physical, but the integration of both—how they are interconnected and equally important. It was refreshing for me psychologically and emotionally, like a little mini-renaissance or revival. I had drifted away from those principles due to the pandemic and other personal stressors that I was going through. I felt very numb. The book was revitalizing, and I wanted to work on the ideas immediately through dance. It was the inspiration behind Minds in Motion Minds in Motion
AS: Minds in Motion is a nod to Leonardo da Vinci. In one of his notes, he wrote how he tried to capture the motions of the mind of the person who was sitting for a portrait, not just portraying his form, but his inner experience as well. It is interesting that he used “motion of the mind”, not state of mind, because it implies something that is flowing and not static. Capturing the complexity of the mind takes great skill as an artist. Whether you are a writer, painter, or dancer, it takes so much to capture.
AS: For sure, psychological realism is important to me as an artist. I am interested in dance
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SR: Would you say you are trying to capture motions of the mind through dance?
SR: Minds in Motion… what an interesting title. How did the name come about?
SR:ChoreographyIhaveseensnippets of your work and found the movements to be flowing, perhaps coming from a place that is deep within. Would you like to talk about the process of your ASchoreography?: Minds in Motion has evolved in the last year during the residency at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. Nicolas Ventura and Margarida Macieira are the dancers, and Idan Cohen is the artistic advisor We've all poured a lot of different layers into the piece and created different sections through experimentation. They contributed a lot of ideas, questions, and feedback and are willing to go with me on this journey of exploring the idea of the personal renaissance through the physical narrative of dance. We worked with a visual metaphor of sculptures coming to life, waking up to being surrounded by something that's not moving,
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SR: Now we're entering into quantum physics.
Dancers Nicolas Ventura and Margarida Macieira in Minds in Motion © Carol Gandra as a tool to try to capture the uncapturable, something that's not only deep and complex but also something that's constantly changing, especially how it changes as you observe it.
AS: (Chuckling) That's right, my husband has a degree in physics! One of Voireila’s earliest works was about particle physics. It was a collaboration with quantum and particle physicists to explore the observer effect.
AS: We are planning to premiere Minds in Motion at the Shadbolt Centre in the spring of 2023 and possibly work on a film adaptation as well. I would love to share the ideas behind this work and the questions it invites with a wider audience. I'm also looking forward to working with bigger casts and adding other perspectives on how the idea of personal renaissance is interpreted. The richest part of choreographing is collaborating with artists.
We have created a lot of movement vocabulary for this piece. Using it choreographically as a new artistic opportunity for myself, to see what I can do with it to create a more powerful and immersive artistic experience for the audience—that's what I'm dreaming about.
AS: For there to be a renaissance, first, there has to be an experience of loss, decline, disconnection from oneself, or a feeling of being stuck. Moments like these happen to people many times throughout their lifetimes in different ways. It is a common experience, rather than a unique experience, but we might not always conceptualize it, or understand it as such. I think it's impossible to go through life always being emotionally attuned, or always being perfectly in sync with values because things change. These moments are inevitable and are what make us human, but they can be scary and lonely. Certainly, the pandemic had a lot of those elements. For me, suddenly being disconnected from colleagues, from how it feels to be dancing in the studio, from the physical touch with people, was extremely difficult. A renaissance breaks the stuckness and allows you to feel emotions again, to move towards values that one has been disconnected from. This book was one of those cracks that broke the stuckness for me and helped me to have an emotional experience. It gave me hope for reconnection.
SR: What are your dreams for this project?
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SR:RenaissanceHowdoestheconcept of renaissance apply to your work or even your own life experience?
AS: I don't think they are, but they overlap like a Venn diagram. My artistic work does not have a goal of healing. That's not the purpose of it. For me, that's a process I do somewhere else in a different way. Moments of revival are stark, interesting, exciting, surprising and they come out of nowhere; whereas healing, whatever that might mean, does not happen in a moment. It is a process that takes a long time. Even from that moment of revival, something else needs to happen for the healing process to unfold.
wanting to break out against it and reach for the reward that awaits on the other side. We explored the limits of freedom to move from a seed of our own interest, to see what fits well with movements within the capacity of our bodies. It was an extremely collaborative and involved process.
SR: I find it interesting you haven't mentioned healing, even in the context of loss, but you use the term renaissance. Do you see them both as the same thing?
SR: Some dancers have defected from Russia.
I know 70 years from now, there will be someone in a therapy office, the third generation from this conflict, impacted by the events that are happening right now. A bit of a bleak mindset, I know but that's certainly not the only outcome.
I would encourage artists to themwhatresponsibilityaboutthemselvesaskquestionswhattheirisandispossiblefortodo.
There are other much more hopeful and positive outcomes that are possible, and hopefully are happening, especially as countries are taking refugees and help has been provided by different parties and resources. But there are always going to be some people who are not reached by that help. I think it is important in continuing to maintain the effort to help with any other global conflict or local conflict, to be aware of just how much it impacts people, and how much help is needed by any community and any country to heal when it goes through something like this.
Would you like to talk about the role of artists
I think about the children whose parents have changed irrevocably, who lost their parents, who cannot get the help they need, and how they will carry the trauma into their lives and the lives of people around them.
I think about the trauma even from the first day of the war that will now be passed on generationally. I think about the people who will not get help for their post-traumatic stress.
I just wish very much for the conflict to come to an end as soon as possible and for collective efforts to help rebuild the homes and lives of people who are affected.
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AS: Seeing the place where I grew up being destroyed and people suffering has been a very emotional experience for me. Similarly, for a lot of people who grew up there and who have both Russian and Ukrainian heritage, it's been destabilizing and devastating. At the same time, it is not surprising, unfortunately. The Ukrainian people have been subjected to a lot of tragic oppression, physical and psychological violence, even under the Soviet Union decades ago. This is why a lot of people, if they have the privilege to, they emigrate to somewhere it's likely to be more stable. It's not easy. It's certainly why my family immigrated here out of fear of something like that happening and not being able to go anywhere.
SR:UkraineYoumentioned you grew up in Ukraine. Would you like to talk about the war that is happening in Ukraine?
SR: Thank you for holding space for us to delve deep into the topics that matter not just to ourselves, but to a lot of
AS: I am quite comfortable engaging with very deep topics as I do talk to people about them all the time, not only as a psychologist but also to people whom I am close with and who are part of the healing process.
AS: That's a hard one because I think it is a very personal matter of moral choice and responsibility. Facing that responsibility is something that I can continually be better at doing. I hope we all can try to support each other in facing and grappling with those questions, but I can definitely understand the feelings of people who have defected. I am myself embarrassed to have Russian heritage, not that it is something I could control or help. It's absolutely shameful to be associated with those actions in any way, shape, or form. I wouldn't want to be associated with them, nor would I want to support them, even if that includes living or making art or somehow benefiting from that system, but some people may not have a choice. They might feel the same way, but it might not be possible for them to leave. It might be a great risk as an artist living in a system that is extremely oppressive and has been that way for a very long time. I'm happy for people who feel they can make the moral choice that's right for them and take a stand for their values. My heart and empathy go out to people who want to, but who can't, and to those who are trying to find a way. I would encourage artists to ask themselves questions about what their responsibility is and what is possible for them to do. That's what I would hope but it's not for me to make any prescriptions or give people advice on something like that. These are just my thoughts and wishes.
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Dancepeople.Central
in a conflict situation like this?
SR: Alina, it feels like we have just sat through a therapy session. Alina is a professional dancer and choreographer. She has presented original choreography in collaboration with Victoria Dance Theatre, Dance Victoria, Flux London Dance Festival, Broken Rhythms, The Dance Centre, Addo Platform, and other festivals and organizations. In her dance practice, she uses movement to push her own boundaries of imagination and physicality, while exploring the psychological and philosophical questions she is interested in. To her artistic endeavors, Alina brings an academic, philosophical perspective, which she integrates with an embodied perspective of dance, movement, and the body. She holds a PhD in clinical psychology and her work emphasizes existential and psychodynamic psychology, which influences Alina’s framework of art and dance making. Alina is the Founder and Artistic Co-Director of Voirelia: Dance, Psychology, and Philosophy Hub (voirelia.com). Alina continues to create contemporary dance works, develop dance pedagogy, and curate interdisciplinary dance and art events.
–Tbilisi: June 12-18, 2022
–Poland: September 21-October 3, 2022
–Kolkata: September 10-19, 2022
–Zagreb: June 8-12, 2022
–Kuala Lumpur: August 8-19, 2022
The Roots of Dance / Korzenie tańca is a multicultural artistic project for dancers and choreographers. It is about stimulating creativity by going back to the roots of cultures, looking for inspiration for the development of contemporary dance, and enriching the world’s dance culture. Traditional Polish culture is the springboard serving to jumpstart the exploration of these processes. The project includes participants from all backgrounds. The participants learn about elements popular in traditional Polish music and dance, and look for similarities in their own cultures. Inspired by this, they delve deeper into their own traditions to develop new contemporary choreographies.
The list of project partners spans a number of art schools and dance companies, including the Department of Dance at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, Arts Research Institute with Tbilisi (Georgia), Moving Borders with Mérida (Mexico), The Dance Centre in Vancouver (Canada), TRAFIK dance/theatre company and Croatian Institute for Dance and Movement in Zagreb (Croatia), Kofago Dance Ensemble in New York (USA), Sapphire Creations Dance Company in Kolkata (India), Zhejiang Conservatory of Music in Hangzhou (China), ASK Dance Company in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), as well as several diplomatic missions, including the Polish Institute in Tbilisi (Georgia), Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Mexico City (Mexico), Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Vancouver (Canada), Polish Institute in New York (USA), and the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). It is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage as part of the Inspiring Culture program. by Shanny Rann A Conversation with Jacek Luminski
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This year marks the third edition of The Roots of Dance project, which includes journeys to:
–New York: May 6-16, 2022
Jacek Luminski © Bartek Barczyk Dance Central Summer 2022 13
SR: What got you started on The Roots of Dance Project? What was your inspiration?
SR: Jacek, would you like to start by introducing yourself to our readers?
JL: It was a long time ago when I was still a student at the Academy of Music in Warsaw. I thought at that time that there was not much for me to do in this world because everything was already discovered. My frustration ended with an idea of going back to the roots—investing in researching my own roots and also the roots of culture, and asking questions in the villages that I visited. What is culture for them? What does it mean to dance for them? What does it mean to cultivate art? What does art mean to the people in the villages in Poland? My focus at first was Jewish dances because I thought that Jewish culture was an important part of Polish culture. Both cultures were together for more than 10 centuries. This is important to talk about and to trace the roots back as far
Kofago Dance Ensemble, 9-14 May, NYC © NIMIT Archives
JL: My name is Jacek Luminski. I am a choreographer, dancer, and organizer of dance events across Poland and internationally. For twenty years, I ran a dance festival that was one of the largest dance festivals in Europe. I also have a dance company called Silesian Dance Theatre. Recently, I have been more involved in education. Based on the experience I had with Silesian Dance Theatre and the dance festival, I created a dance curriculum that is now running in our Academy of Music in Katowice.
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I could not believe the reception of my piece was positive. She said, “You need to talk to Daniel Nagrin. He believed that this was fantastic.” I decided then that I should take a chance—maybe the only chance in my life—to be able to talk to someone like Daniel Nagrin about my work. I approached him, and he said, “Well, I must say that this was the only piece in this six-week-long festival that I liked.” For me, it was a very important statement of appreciation. He also said, “I don't have any comments, you know what to
With time, I realized that there is value created when elements, which do not normally exist side by side, are put together. as possible, and this was the first branch of my research that ended up with more diverse but localized Polish dance cultures. I was looking for the smallest possible communities across Poland to dig in, to somehow be accepted by them, and to gain access to the local cultures. This gave me a lot of fantastic information about what culture is and what culture means to people that are very far away from big cultural centres in the country. These people have a very sophisticated take on cultures, I would say more sophisticated than people in big cities, who I know can speak highly about everything, using very sophisticated language, but it is not always convincing. When you go and speak to them, they speak with the heart, and that is a completely different realm. At that time, I wanted to look for sources that could revitalise an art form—in my case, dance. José Limón once said that true modern dance comes from the local roots. Once found and transformed through the modern dance idiom, it becomes a source of richness for contemporary dance. That was a sign for me that I needed to go deeper into the local roots to develop Polish contemporary dance. In 1992, I was invited by the American Dance Festival to participate in a program for international choreographers. I got a chance to choreograph a short piece that was presented in an evening performance alongside nine international choreographers. It was a 20-minute piece, called From a Journey After that performance, it was shocking to me to find my creation completely different and strange compared to the rest of the choreographic works at the festival. I had to find a distant place for myself, just to isolate myself from other people because I felt alone in that investigation. After three days, a friend of mine from India met me on the street and said, “Jacek, we are looking for you. It was a fantastic piece!”
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SR: Amazing! So, this is how The Roots of Dance Project got started. You mentioned you started doing fieldwork in the villages in Poland as a student, have you gone back to the field since? JL: I tried to keep my connections with the locals, many of whom were already old when I first met them. I was aware of the time passing, and I knew I had to catch the time and record them before they were gone. For almost twenty years, I kept going back over and over again to the villages, some more frequently than others, because I found some people more aware of their own cultures and their importance as culture bearers.
JL: Yes, absolutely. The elements from Jewish and Polish folk traditions were brought together in this piece in a way that worked and were integrated well by the dancers. With time, I realized that there is value created when elements, which do not normally exist side by side, are put together. Silesian Dance Theatre is a laboratory for that kind of research and a lot of dances were created based on this idea. For 25 years, we travelled across the world as a company. The United States was like a second home for us, we spent at least three months there each year, travelling across the country, heading residences, teaching, and performing. It was a fantastic period for the whole company. We made a lot of friends across the world. We were in India and China and other countries across different continents. When I spoke to the people who kept inviting us, there was one very important, overarching argument: that we are presenting something completely different, that is not Western— neither European nor American. People from India, Malaysia, or other countries were looking for a springboard to develop their own way of thinking about their own cultures, and they saw us as the perfect example of that.
SR: Was that piece From a Journey inspired by your fieldwork in the village?
I started in 1985 and out of this research, I wrote my master’s thesis, which was later published. I continued my research after that; it was not just a one-time endeavour. I wanted to do it because I found not only a cultural source in these people, but also a historical source. I liked talking to people who were born at the end of the 19th century because they were aware of the history from the beginning of the 19th century from their parents and grandparents. When I sat in their houses, it was like a time and space gate which transported me to a completely different era because of the historical information they were passing on to me. It was Laterfantastic!Iwentto Bloomington in the United States to continue my anthropology studies in dance anthropology. Jewish dance was my anchor. This was something I always returned to because I knew that the information I had was unique. I had to do something with this information. Many of the people I met, after they passed away, their families contacted me for information I had gotten from them. It was strange that
do with this ” I felt encouraged. That was my beginning with dance roots.
Dance is not only movement. It is a multidimensional sense experience whereby you receive information by touching, by smelling, by seeing, by hearing, and by tasting. Right from the very beginning, dance was all encompassing for me. I would ask about everything, movements were part of it, but the movement presentation was always elaborated around everything with a cultural value. Dance became a window to culture.
Dance is not only just movement. It is a multidimensional sense experience whereby you receive information by touching, by smelling, by seeing, by hearing, and by tasting.
JL:knowledge?
JL: This was a very long process because I started in ballet. In the beginning, it was very difficult for me to abandon the classical ballet routine and the integration of other elements was kind of artificial, I would say. That is why I felt that movements are not only important, but it is also equally important to understand the culture and the people. The contact with real people was the most important because I could sense them, and when I did that, I integrated the information into my own body as knowledge. I am always dividing information from knowledge. You may have information, but it does not mean that you have knowledge. You can get information from books, from the internet, but knowledge is something deeper.
within the families that information was not available to the younger generation. For me as a person from the outside to have easy access to the information from which members of the families were locked out was an interesting experience.
SR: Does this information include dance
SR: Perhaps that's what you mean by saying the villagers have a more sophisticated approach to culture, because of how integrated dance is with their lives, their activities, and their mode of living. Did you have to make a conscious transition from a dance anthropologist to a choreographer? Can you talk a little bit about this process of improvising with the materials you have found in the village and making it into something of your own?
I would say I had information in the beginning,
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JL: We had a group of people from completely different backgrounds. In the beginning, it was difficult for me to find a common ground for the project, but whenever I go to a new place, I am open to everything that I experience there. I am not coming up with ready-made solutions because it is also a learning process for me when meeting the participants, to learn about their goals which were diversified. Some people had Polish background, so they wanted to learn more about Poland. One person had a Jewish background from Poland, and she wanted to learn about her own family roots. It was important for me to harness all these energies and find a common interest.
Scotiabank Dance Centre BC, 8-10 April, Vancouver © NIMIT Archives
When we proceeded to the next step in the process, I gave people examples of Polish Jewish concepts and let them experience certain elements that are typical of the culture, like apocope, tempo rubato, syncopation, irregularity of the musical
but I didn't have the knowledge. You have to work on integrating this information before it becomes knowledge. It was not only me, but I also had a group of dancers with whom I created this dance roots laboratory Some things worked and some things did not. It is part of the learning process.
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SR: You brought The Roots of Dance project to The Dance Centre this April; can you walk me through what happened?
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Jacek Luminski © Bartek Barczyk
Jacek Luminski is an internationally acknowledged contemporary dancer and choreographer and is an Adjunct Professor and Head of the Dance Division at the Academy of Music in Katowice, and a professor at the Beijing Dance Academy, China. In this workshop, he was joined by Angelika Karal, dancer, and choreographer with significant experience of working across Poland and internationally; Professor Aleksandra Dziurosz, PhD, dancer, choreographer, teacher, former Deputy Director of the National Institute of Music and Dance and a professor at the UMFC in Warsaw; and Mateusz Czekaj, Coordinator of The Roots of Dance and international projects at the National Institute of Music and Dance in Warsaw, and a dancer and lecturer. form, modal scales versus antique, old Greek scales, that are still present in various places in Poland—how they are used and why they have been preserved as they were. Once we passed on this information, I encouraged participants to use their own dance experiences, and they started to look for similar elements in their own cultures.
SR: I know you are heading to Croatia, Georgia, Malaysia, and India, so I wish The Roots of Dance the very best and look forward to watching the documentary film that will cap this entire project.
I usually start by talking about cultural patterns. Ruth Benedict, an American anthropologist, refers to it as cultural relativism. It is about pointing out elements that are present everywhere across the world.
The only difference is that these elements develop in different geographical settings and evolve differently. You can find tempo rubato in many other countries, Mexico is a perfect example, and syncopation is present in many different cultures too. Humans are rich in diversity, which is crucial to developing civilizations and cultures, but at the same time, there are similarities between all these diverse cultures and people. It is important to find all these elements that connect us and appreciate the differences. This is what roots is all about.
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