“For this creation, I chose to work with three short music pieces by Ligeti, which served as my main guiding inspiration. From the outset, my aim was to intimately understand the unique personalities and qualities of the dancers. Working with these young and dynamic artists has been an incredibly delightful surprise, an experience that continues to unfold in beautiful ways.

This piece is an earnest endeavor to capture the dancers’ stunning, radiant personalities, intertwined with my own signature as a choreographer. My intention was to craft a work that genuinely emerges from our collaborative efforts during this brief but special time together. I hope that this process will be a moment in their lives that they can look back on with a lot of joyful memories.”

Portrait: De Schaapjesfabriek

Choreographing for the NDT Summer Intensive comes with many challenges. When I work, it is my preference to spend enough time on both the process as well as the actual choreography/steps. At the NDT Summer Intensive the large number of dancers and limited amount of time challenge the maker to make decisions, relatively early in the process, about where the focus in the work will go.

I like to spend time with the dancers, to get to know them, the way they move and their individual abilities. The better you know them, the better you can bring out their personalities, natural abilities, and strengths to help them improve during these two weeks, but more importantly to take these new sensations, experiences and tools to newer horizons after the intensive has finished.

Portrait: Javier Garceche