{"id":918,"date":"2012-03-05T21:25:48","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T21:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/?p=918"},"modified":"2014-01-04T23:24:58","modified_gmt":"2014-01-04T23:24:58","slug":"marketa-vackova-improvizacni-skupina-nau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/2012\/marketa-vackova-improvizacni-skupina-nau\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark\u00e9ta Vackov\u00e1\/ Improviza\u010dn\u00ed skupina NAU"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Improviza\u010dn\u00ed skupina NAU is an improvised performance group founded by Mark\u00e9ta Vackov\u00e1. Like Dance Anywhere, NAU seeks to inspire dance in every moment and bring people from diverse backgrounds together through movement. At a recent performance in Studio Alt@, Prague, CZ, dancers, musicians, and actors shared the stage (and at one point the audience\u2019s seats) and improvised a compelling evening of unique and vivid performance. I spoke with Mark\u00e9ta after a rehearsal about her work with NAU and improvised performance:<\/p>\n

How did you get into dance? Why do you dance?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think I started at six years old with the folk dances. We have here a tradition of something which is called basic art schools and in every town there is one. I know in England for example or America, the afternoon activities for children like music or drama it\u2019s included, it\u2019s like part of the afternoon program at school. But here it\u2019s divided, it\u2019s two institutions. [\u2026] So I started with dancing as a little girl at such a school. And it was mostly folk dancing, and so I learned things about rhythm. And there was a little bit of jazz dance later, I suppose. But the most important for me there was to learn, to understand that I love it and I want to do it in my life. For example, I didn\u2019t learn much of the technique there, [. . .] but when I was leaving the place knowing that I can not learn anything more there, I was crying because I knew I learned the most important thing there and it\u2019s that I loved dance and I want to do it. So maybe it\u2019s the most important, the energy to do it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what inspired you to start NAU?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This idea came to me, it was 2007, when I went on Erasmus to England. [. . .] just for one semester. I wished I could stay there longer, but I also felt I wanted to finish school and become independent from my parents, you know financially independent, so I rushed back home to complete my MA in the summer semester. So when I went there I was thinking already about writing my final thesis, and I decided for improvisation, decided to write about it. But I had to find out what kind of theme or topic to pick out from this wide field. And so I started going for improvisation lessons there. I had some experiences before, of course, it was not a new thing. But . . . the teachers I met there, how they approached improvisation really opened me and I fell in love with this way. Which was probably a mixture of what Ruth Zaporah does in her action theater\u2014was the background from where it came\u2014 and more physical things and dancey things that Kirstie Simpson does. And Kirstie Simpson was the one who went regularly to teach at Artington. So I first met her there and meeting her was the impulse for me to start doing something in here when I came back home. I thought I want to continue in the practice of improvisation and somehow it\u2019s my way where I am as an artist now, like what I should do. Or it\u2019s just I felt too young, maybe, to do choreographies about things that would mean something or not. At that time I really thought I need some more life experience and professional experience to say like \u2018this is my piece. I want to say this.\u2019 So I thought it\u2019s a really good way. And with Kirstie Simpson I saw that it could be also a way of life. That you can choose. It was a new thing for me that you can choose improvisation as your opinion or your expression as an artist. And I fell in love with her work and she just made me believe it works something so [she motions with her hand] like improvisation can really work and it\u2019s very deep deep work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Do you find you work toward the performances? Or is it mostly for yourselves?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, we are aiming to the improvised performance, the improvisation. Also, the rehearsals we use them mostly for practicing some skills which we need for the performance. It was always established . . . or most of the time we count on that there is an eye of the audience. It\u2019s important for me that I don\u2019t want to just do improvisation for myself, just. Also because . . . you need sometimes to dive into your cave and then practice things or look or research maybe, but it\u2019s really the performance is something very important for me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You spoke with audience members after your last performance, how was that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We started with these discussions\u2014we call them discussions but its like talking\u2014since the beginning when we started performing. We set the situation like \u2018it would be really nice if you would like to share your experiences\u2019 or \u2018if you have any questions about what you\u2019ve just seen, we would like to explain or to really try\u2019. And I think it\u2019s a very good thing to meet the audience after the performance also verbally. Because with improvisation when there are a lot of personal explanations everyone can see something else. So then when people then go home, they may never talk about it with anyone. And I think this is very good also how to, maybe, educate the people. Because if you have some kinesthetic experience from the performance or maybe emotional or just didn\u2019t understand why and you leave with these questions I think it\u2019s not good. And when you\u2019ve had the chance to talk about it, it kind of cleans up the air and makes a friendly atmosphere. So I can see in these discussions that there is a development in the questions the audience asks. So in the beginning it was more like, \u2018was everything really improvised?\u2019 and you know such kind of simple questions, and we\u2019re like \u2018yes, that\u2019s what we do.\u2019 \u2018So there weren\u2019t any cues like when you stopped at that moment?\u2019 \u2018No, it just happened.\u2019 Really people are not used to watch improvised performances. And as we continue some people come regularly and some of them are there for the first time [\u2026] so the questions are more intellectual or complicated. Like they ask about the relationship with the music. Or, once someone asked about if we had something like a group consciousness and if we work with that. And it\u2019s like woosh! questions that we\u2019re not able to answer. And these things are developing slowly and as people let\u2019s say leave the group or new people come to the group, this is changing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Do you think people are more engaged with improvised performance? What are the differences between improvised and choreographed performance?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well maybe I can start with how I feel. For me it\u2019s different when I know it\u2019s improvised performance or structured improvisation or it\u2019s a set or fixed thing. I watch it with a little bit different eyes. For example, we were talking about this vulnerability. So in improvisation I am looking forward to these moments, that they would happen because I liked them. I think it\u2019s part of the whole thing. They are the best, you know the cool moments when everything works perfectly, and then there are these transitions or struggles and I like to watch this humanity. But in set choreography for example, if there are such moments, I don\u2019t feel it\u2019s right I think that\u2019s why you have chosen to do a set choreography to try to make it perfect. Or, if you choose let say that the performer would be struggling, but it\u2019s prepared, so in a way it\u2019s different . . . But in one way it shouldn\u2019t be different, maybe the engagement with the audience. I think a set piece or improvised performance involves that the performance should be there present in a way that it\u2019s alive and its no better improvised than if choreographed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Have you done any site-specific work or dance for camera? Besides this improvised performance what other things you do?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Site specific…I\u2019m interested in this kind of work. I have done one small project it was just for ten days but intensive workshop, intensive work in one garden in Bratislava. There was a coach. He was an American choreographer, we invited him. [. . .] I really liked how sensitive he was to the place and I understood it\u2019s really the respect to the place and for me to spend time there listening what is the place calling for. It\u2019s what I like about site-specific is that you. . . there\u2019s not so much space for your ego. It really is, the conductor is the space and then you find how you can maybe show the audience a different view on the place or to see it with different eyes, and this is very fragile work which I like. With dance for camera I don\u2019t have much experience, although I would like to do a film and I hope I can do it soon like in the next year or year and a half. But I need to work and I have a lot of teaching.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What are your future plans?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, I would like to do that, start working on that film I told you about. It\u2019s quite a big project, so I need a lot of energy to put it to start because I want to shoot it abroad so we need to organize people and the camera. But I\u2019m really looking forward to it, and I think this must happen really soon. It\u2019s been growing in me for four years. It\u2019s quite a long time and now I feel it\u2019s the time it has to be born somehow. If I don\u2019t do it in the next year, its dead. And I\u2019d like to collaborate with [Pedro Prazeres] on that project because it will be working with landscape a lot and he\u2019s into the landscape. He\u2019s originally a landscape architect you know. And that\u2019s one thing, and I\u2019ll continue. . . I started this autumn dancing in a dance performance for children which is based on the story of the little prince. It\u2019s a very nice performance, very what is the word. . . anytime it happens again and again you have tears in your eyes or you have red eyes because. . . it\u2019s a duet between an adult man and a six year old boy and I\u2019m a fox. Fox from the book who is kind of like the guardian angel of the little prince and helping him and watching when they are watching the sunset. And I\u2019m enjoying it so much. And then I\u2019m leading a workshop with the children who come as audience, so when the performance is over I invite them onstage. The stage is covered in sand and they play in the sand and we do different movement things and this is a very nice experience for me because apart from that I teach quite a lot of children, and this is when it\u2019s a combination with the performance it\u2019s something different. It\u2019s interesting for me to see what are the differences and how it works.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More information about NAU, it\u2019s projects, and upcoming performances can be found at:
\nhttp:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=100002255487361
\nhttp:\/\/www.altart.cz\/index.php\/en\/skupiny-v-rezidenci\/262-improvizani-skupina-nau.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…with improvisation when there are a lot of personal explanations everyone can see something [different]…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":2371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[195,113,97,155,114,13,120,121,95,173,193,29,79,115,163,16,181,191,167,188,164,131,190,96,123,165,192,194,189],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2373,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions\/2373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}