On May 15th and 16th, Swedish choreographer Jefta van Dinther, who is based in Germany, presented his performance at the international contemporary dance festival NEW BALTIC DANCE. His work UNEARTH breaks down conventional dance performance stereotypes and invites the audience into an experience that promises to be transformative. In this nearly four-hour spectacle, 12 dancers appear on stage, including the choreographer himself. They use not only their bodies but also their voices. Repetition of movements and sounds allows for the continual re-experiencing of emerging emotions, facilitating the affect of ritual in communion with others while reminding us of life’s impermanence. And these are just a few of the themes that Jefta van Dinther touches upon in his work.
The choreographer spoke with Aistė Audickaitė.
Jefta van Dinther. Photo by D. Metvejev.
Please tell us how the idea for UNEARTH was born? What kind of work were you looking to create?
For more than a decade, I have created performances for ‘black box’ theatres or large spaces where light, sound, and scenography played significant roles. When creating UNEARTH, I felt the desire to produce work that wasn’t quite so technically complex. I also wanted to return to that feeling I often experience in the studio: when rehearsing, without any special effects, the dancers’ moving bodies alone create an atmosphere. That’s precisely what I wanted to bring to the stage.
Additionally, this time I wanted to incorporate voice into the performance. For me, the voice is one of those forces you simply cannot ignore when you are surrounded by it: it draws you in even more strongly than the body. Singing and dancing were a natural part of community life for me as a child. Although I was never a choir boy myself, I grew up in a religious environment, which meant that I would often sing and dance. Singing in a group brings people together. That’s precisely what I wanted to incorporate in my work.
Another important element in the show is pop songs, which have been reworked for the purpose of this piece. I believe some audience members will recognise most of the songs, while others won’t recognise any. I found it interesting to work with pre-existing material both from pop culture, the wider music world, and from my personal creative archive. In my day, it was common to listen to an album countless times. I remember how I would repeat songs from albums by ‘The Smashing Pumpkins’ or ‘The Cure’, over and over, as if wanting to relive memories and emotions. This phenomenon of repetition and rebirth ended up playing a key role in structuring the performance. If you watch the preview, you may not notice this, but throughout the entire performance, the same song might be performed live for 20 minutes or even longer. So, the entire show isn’t just about bodies or sound, but also about being together, the power of repetition, and shared emotional experience.
Could you name some songs that are performed in the show, but which the audience might not recognise?
Several songs by PJ Harvey feature in the performance, and some are so reworked that they’re almost impossible to recognise. For example, her album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea is particularly special to me, and I believe people who have a similar connection with it will suddenly recognise not the lyrics themselves, but fragments of melodies that repeat somewhere in the background, while watching the performance. This creates a sort of time-travel effect: as if people were being transported to their personal experiences and memories.
For instance, ABBA’s song ‘SOS’ is clearly audible, but we change its key in the performance. Originally, it was written in a major key, which gives it an uplifting mood, but when you change the key, you feel how truly sad it is. After all, it’s a cry for help – SOS.
How much of your personal experience will we find in this production?
To be honest, all my performances are quite autobiographical, in a sense. My creative process always involves deep personal aspects. This could be my life experiences, current activities, or my interpretation of the world.
However, self-reflection doesn’t interest me as the work’s main purpose: I’m not focused on myself or searching for my identity. Moreover, I avoid very direct references to personal experiences. During the creative process, we strive to make the work universal – leaving room for interpretation and existing within a field of associations. I want the viewer to be able to immerse themselves in it, to bring a part of themselves and their life experience into it.
Notwithstanding this, I think my works are often very emotional, psychological, and filled with imagination. Perhaps this is because they contain a strong personal history, even if it isn’t directly expressed.
What themes are explored in the performance?
For me, this piece connects with the past and its revival. I think that, as humans, it is only by understanding the past that we can attempt to live in the present. And therein lies a kind of mourning: it’s reflected not only in the show’s general atmosphere but also in the song lyrics – some lines repeat again and again, as if stuck in time.
This is my attempt at getting closer to the body and its expression. I’m interested in how people express their emotions through singing: how it becomes a deeply physical process. I’m not interested in a beautiful voice but rather in how a voice breaks, is strained, or, when softened, becomes vulnerable. All of this creates an expression of something like suffering, pain, memory, and loss. But at the same time, it’s also a way of being together – reviving something together. For me, this balance between heaviness and harmoniousness is special.
Jefta van Dinther’s UNEARTH. Photo by Jubal Battisti.
Not only do the show’s performers dance, but they also sing. How did the dancer selection process take place?
It all happened very naturally. I’m Swedish, but I’ve lived in Berlin for sixteen years. About three or four years ago, I decided that I wanted to work more where I live and create a local community. Essentially, I resolved to form a dance troupe, and for that, I needed local artists. I held closed auditions. It wasn’t important to me that the dancers be professional singers. What mattered more was their willingness to accept the challenge, and their interest in the process itself. Of course, it was also important for them to be able to hold the right pitch because we didn’t have any additional audio support. Out of all the participants, only two had previously sung on stage, while the others never had. Because of this, we dedicated almost half of our rehearsal time to singing: voice exercises and vocal rehearsals with a vocal coach who teaches Tyrolean and choral singing. She did an incredible job of helping everyone to find their voice.
Now in the performance, all the artists except me have something of a solo moment: a moment in a song where they feel at their strongest. We continue to work with all of them in other performances, incorporating singing more and more. And I must say that I’ve been incredibly lucky with this team – they are simply amazing!
Your works often explore, in one way or another, the theme of what it means to be human. What, in your opinion, defines humanity?
I feel that it’s very human to constantly linger in the past or the future, rarely in the present. Also, having a voice makes us human. A cat can make a sound that resembles a voice, but we don’t call it that.
Moreover, humanity can be defined by sense of community and rituals. Behaviour is a way of organising actions, and ritual is a more advanced structuring mechanism. It can be orientated not only towards practical things, such as work or hunger, but also towards something abstract: something that isn’t directly useful or productive, but instead provides emotional resonance.
How would you like audiences to experience your performance?
One of the major questions we raised when creating this work was: ‘What do we want from the audience?’ Working with someone who has extensive experience showcasing dance in museums, I realised that we didn’t want anything specific from the audience. Of course, we aim for the performance to lead in a certain direction, but we don’t want to pressure viewers to react in one way or another. We engage the audience but also allow them a degree of freedom. They can move around or stay put, and close their eyes and just listen, because the performance also works as an auditory experience. But when a viewer closes their eyes, someone might touch their hand. And how would they react? Well, that’s the moment of a human encounter. When we put on the performance in a church in Berlin, the entire audience just sat or lay on the floor – about 200 people – as we were moving among them.
In Vilnius, you were performing in a former factory space. How does the venue influence the performance?
Although this show was created for a ‘white cube’ space, I find it the least interesting. We often show performances in churches, we have performed in industrial spaces, and twice in a gallery. The venue changes the perception of the work. For example, we held one performance in an industrial hall in Brussels, and I think it was one of our strongest shows because the space evoked a sense of mystery and mystique.
Jefta van Dinther’s UNEARTH. Photo by Jubal Battisti.
The theme of this year’s NEW BALTIC DANCE festival is ‘body speaks’. What do the bodies in your performance tell us?
It’s very interesting that you mention this because I’m currently working on a new piece scheduled to premiere this November. It will feature two dancers with hearing impairments and a hearing child of deaf parents. In this work, we are using sign language, movements, and signs in the broader sense. All my previous works have been about the speaking body, but now the body as a means of communication has become the key focus.
I’ve always perceived the body as a contextual phenomenon: communal, social and political. I’m interested in a body that not only moves but also expresses something and addresses others. Therefore, signs and symbols have always constituted an important part of my creative work. Paradoxically, although dance is my medium and creative tool, I don’t fundamentally feel as though I were a representative of dance in the classical sense: I’m more interested in dance as a form of communication.
What themes currently interest you?
My idea for the future is to work not only with deaf performers but also with a deaf audience. This would mean that the work would be orientated specifically towards them. I understand that deaf people will never make up the majority in the audience, so the performance will need to work on two levels. But this very dilemma – of how to make the visual speak – is very interesting to me now.
Do you always want to explore something, to look for something new?
With age, we learn: it just comes naturally to us. I’ve now created about 15 works, and for the past three years, I’ve been working with voice, so it is only natural that these themes make their way into my creations. However, I remain endlessly curious. And I must admit I have the best job in the world. It’s a job that turns external things into internal ones, and all this happens through relationships with other people. I find that very beautiful.