Jasmin Vardimon: There is a lot of playing in the studio. A lot of scenarios, a lot of different ways of telling a story and then the hardest thing for me is, at the end, is to choose what I actually want to bring to the stage and what I want to develop and how I weave it together and a lot of material stays out and never, never get into we always create at least 3 or 4 hours piece and then we edit it.

Alistair Spalding: Welcome to this edition of Choreographer Conversations. I’m delighted to say this time we have Jasmin Vardimon as our guest Associate Artist of Sadler’s Wells and celebrating the 25th anniversary of her company, Jasmin Vardimon Company. So, welcome.

Jasmin: Thank you.

Alistair: So, I always like to start at the very beginning of when you started to dance you know, how young were you when you started to engage in this dance form? So, actually starting to do dance classes?

Jasmin: I started only when I was 14. So, quite late age. Before that, I used to compete as an athlete and as a gymnast but I, throughout my upbringing which was very much, very creative. I grew up in a kibbutz, which was funded by writers and poets.

One of them was my grandfather who was a poet and our education was very much based on creativity. So, we used to have what’s called rhythmic classes which was influenced by Gertrud Kraus. A German expressionist who moved to Israel in the early 30s. So, I guess I was dancing since I was very young.

Alistair: So, in a kibbutz, you wouldn’t, how would your education go in a kibbutz? Did you have formal classes in every subject?

Jasmin: Yes, we had formal classes but sometimes there were on the grass. And also part of the education was to work in the community so, we had to work as well. I used to work in the cowsheds, in the bakery, very, very different things. In the agriculture a lot. And creativity was a very big part of the education process as well. And expressing through different art forms.

Alistair: But, I mean, there was often folk dancing in schools in Israel. Did that ever happen in your kibbutz?

Jasmin: No, no. No.

Alistair: Because, you know as many choreographers and dancers come from Israel and I often wonder why. Do you have any theories on this?

Jasmin: I’m not sure. It’s a very physical culture. We have a very physical culture. I know that, for me, growing up in a kibbutz as I said there are, kind of the kibbutz movement was very much influenced by the German expressionism brought in the 30s into Israel. My kibbutz was a lot of people from Eastern Europe but it was also very mixed culture. We had people from Yemen and Iraq and, later on from Russia and Ethiopia so there are, kind of, very multicultural a lot of influences. I’m not sure.

Alistair: And then, so, you did start when you were 14. What kind of classes were they?

Jasmin: So, we did three classes, classical ballet, Graham technique, which is modern dance and creativity, creative classes, improvisation.

Alistair: And where was that? Was that on the kibbutz or was that

Jasmin: It was in another kibbutz. It was in a studio that belonged to the kibbutz movement.

Alistair: And then, at that point, did you think, ‘Ah, OK, this is what
I want to do?’ Did you think straightaway this is your destiny?

Jasmin: No. I actually thought I will be I was studying later on, later in the year, later in age, I studied psychology and anthropology and I thought that would be where I would go. I actually studied anthropology here in the Open University as well, when I arrived to the UK. I’m not sure where along the way but as part of our education process we had, like, A Level in dance, it was not A Level, but I did a solo and it was selected to be performed in many different places and Yehudit Arnon who was the artistic director of the kibbutz dance company, saw me and she invited me to join the kibbutz dance company and then, somehow actually to join their training programme but after a few months already, I joined the company.

Alistair: How old were you then when you joined the company?

Jasmin: I was 20, 20.

Alistair: And there you worked with many different choreographers? Other choreographers came in to work with you. And then did you learn from that experience?

Jasmin: A lot. So, it was a repertory company at the time. One of the first choreographers I danced in his work was Mats Ek in Down North.

Alistair: Did he come and work on the company?

Jasmin: No, it was Anna who worked with us but I did her solo.

Alistair: Anna is his wife, yeah.

Jasmin: His wife, yeah. And I did her parts and I was, yeah, we worked with a lot of different choreographers so it, kind of, gave an experience to work in different methods. Different pathway, journey through the creative process.

Alistair: And did you pick up, is there one particular choreographer that you felt closest to in terms of the choreographic material and that you maybe felt most influenced by?

Jasmin: Not so much through that process but I was very much influenced by Yehudit Arnon, who was the artistic director of the company.

She also, very early on, asked me to choreograph on the company dancers. So she, kind of, inspired me to create more and all her philosophy and way of, kind of running the company and the space was very inspiring.

Alistair: And what was that? How, what was her approach? Why was it wonderful or a good place to be?

Jasmin: It was a very holistic approach of nurturing artists and the fact that she offered me a young dancer to choreograph and to, kind of, support me to develop my creativity and investigate that.

She probably realised that it’s something that I’m interested in and I think the holistic approach of that kind of space that we now have at JV H.O.M.E. of developing an artistic product alongside education and nurturing young generation and it’s something that I try to create now in our building in JV H.O.M.E to create the fertile ground to, kind of, cross-pollination between the artists at work different collaboration, different journeys.

Alistair: And did you, were you able to see other companies international companies coming to Israel at the time?

Jasmin: Yes. A lot.

Alistair: Who in particular? Is there someone that stuck in your mind?

Jasmin: So, Pina Bausch, Wuppertal Dance Theatre used to come since the 80s. I used to see them almost every year. The first performance I saw was Café Müller in 1980. It was in the 80s. And then Nelken, actually, our dance school were invited to put the flowers on the stage.

Alistair: So, if you don’t know the piece, it’s got I think, 2000 carnations on stage and they have to be put back each morning, after the performance, yeah.

Jasmin: So they invited us to help putting those on stage and see the rehearsal and I think yeah, that was obviously something that I connected to. Also because, I think, also because of my upbringing that was very much influenced by Gertrud Kraus who was a choreographer, German choreographer that worked as an assistant for Laban in the 20s and then developed her own work and immigrated to Israel and brought all that, kind of German expressionism into Israel.

But I also got very much influenced by theatre as a whole because my father used to be a director of a venue in Tel Aviv which was a very left-wing somewhat political venue that produced theatre between Palestinians and Israelis so they co-written, co-performed and produced and I was exposed from quite early age to theatre and, kind of, the power of theatre to bring stories and to reveal a different perspective and also create bridges and awareness of others and other stories.

Alistair: Yes, I wanted to talk about that a little bit because there is, right through your work actually, from the very beginning there are social issues that you deal with Did that come from your father’s influence, then in terms of making sure it dealt with those sort of issues as well as theatre as a form or dance as a form, you wanted to engage with that?

Jasmin: I guess so. I grew up in a very political environment but I feel that my work always exists in this gap between the universal to the personal. My subject matter are very universal but the point of view and how I explore them is very, very personal and I’m interested in that dialogue between dance and theatre and explore that constant dialogue between dance and theatre and I believe that the body has this capacity to tell stories and to reveal emotions and arouse emotion and especially to build awareness and explore social issues and concerns.

Alistair: Yes, I mean, obviously, you know, I mean we won’t go through every one of your pieces but some of those, really, that I remember well which dealt with that sort of thing. I mean, with Park, for example which is the first piece that we at Sadler’s Wells presented at the Peacock Theatre you know, that was about sort of, outsiders, wasn’t it?

Jasmin: It was about people, like in a park you find people that sometimes don’t have anywhere else to go and it’s

Alistair: and the piece felt like you were just coming across that one afternoon and it was playing out in front of you but it was really driven by that, wasn’t it? The people who didn’t really have a place?

Jasmin: Yeah. For me, it was a little bit about that park is almost a microcosmos to a bigger place and where is home and people feel belonging and some people feel that that belongs to them that this park belongs to them and it’s, a little bit bigger, kind of looking at immigration and people, as myself I immigrated to here. What is home, actually? What, when do you feel that you belong?

And it’s also looking at the ownership of land of public land and I think it was created a lot before Brexit but then we brought it back in 2015 and it felt even more relevant because it was, it really looked at that microcosmos of society and some people feel like their home where they live is their home and some people feel it’s their street that they live in or their neighbourhood and that the park belongs to them and that they you know and it’s really what where is home?

Alistair: Yeah, so, that’s interesting. So, when did you come to London, actually?

Jasmin: In the late 90s.

Alistair: Yeah. And how come? How did you get there, why did you come?

Jasmin: So, actually, one of my first creations was a duet that won a competition that’s run by the British Council, called On the Way to London. And part of the prize was to come here to London and it was my first, kind of, visit and seeing the dancing here in London and then my partner, Guy Bar-Amotz who was also the associate director of the company studied MA in Fine Art in Goldsmiths College and I joined him and somehow happened to create the work here which was Therapist which was presented at The Place and then things, kind of went from there.

Alistair: Now, I’m asking you that because it’s often the case with many of the people that we work actually with that they don’t come from London they don’t come from England and so that – just going back to what you were saying about Park and home and, you know I wonder if that was an influence, actually when, you know, the people who feel slightly outside of the place that they come to feel the need to express that somehow into the work. Do you think that’s true with you?

Jasmin: I think I’m interested in immigration in general. Also, in ALiCE, my other recent creation I was really interested in Alice as an immigrant because she’s travelling to a different land and she doesn’t know the rules to begin with and she tried to make a change she tried to influence and I was interested to look at that, kind of that side of, or that angle of the story.

And a lot of the time even in Pinocchio I was interested in what are the strings that move us that make us immigrate, that make us travel? And in Pinocchio, I felt it was curiosity it was money it was fear.

So different people immigrate for different reasons and I think, for me I came here because I find London especially is a very multicultural, very rich culturally, city and a lot of different stories a lot of different communities which I was very curious about and I felt was full with inspiration.

Alistair: So if we keep to this subject of issues, if you like then another piece which really had issues in it and was saying something about, maybe, viewpoints or perspectives was Justitia and this was a piece made around a courtroom decision about whether someone was murdered or not and who murdered and, you know from different perspectives and, of course, you also, kind of had a perspective by having a turning stage so that you’re constantly looking at things differently. So that was a chance to look at that area.

Jasmin: I was very interested in perspective in general and how it actually influences our point of view but not just the physical point of view but, obviously, them and if the point of view dictates what we see or if what we see dictates our point of view. I was really interested in that question and, you know, we always have this thing, that a terrorist from one side could look like a freedom fighter and so much depends on what angle you’re looking at one person and it’s always about subjectivity and point of view.

So, in that, Justitia it was about the justice system and again seeing the story from different angles revealing a completely different reality and also different the audience are they’re as juries who have to make a decision and every time there is a different reality revealed to them which will change their point of view on the story.

Alistair: So, in that piece obviously the set is totally you know essential in that as a way of literally showing that, kind of different perspectives and how does it work in that set? Did you think immediately of having this revolve so that that’s something, or did that come about as part of the investigation of what you might want to say in the piece?

Jasmin: So, actually, the sets came quite early on because I wanted to reveal different points of view and to reveal different information. So there are also, the fact that there are shutters and through the shutters you can see different information and, in fact reflecting and also, through working on NOW reflecting on my old repertoire I dealt with point of view almost in every piece.

Also, in 7734, which deals with our capacity to produce brutality against each other as human beings and 7734 in itself has, when you look at it from upside down, it reads like ‘hell’ and it was very much dealing with that kind of perspective and in NOW, we obviously have a lot of perspectives because we have different cameras on stage that reveal different perspectives to the audience and completely give different information added into the live action that is on stage.

Alistair: Yes, I wanted to talk about 7734 because that was really going to the heart of a very difficult issue, you know because it was, basically, set the set was a tower in a concentration camp and did you how did you feel about approaching that you know, especially coming from where you came from, you know, and how did you did you shy away from it at first, or did you think ‘I must do this’, or what was the process before you actually wanted to approach it?

Jasmin: So, I grew up into a family of Holocaust survivors in the kibbutz with a lot of Holocaust survivors so stories were part of our upbringing and I visited the concentration camps in Poland when I was 18 years old and my grandma who never came back to Poland after the war gave me a map of Warsaw which is were my family house is, to look for it.

So I was 18 years old, going through Warsaw and looking for the family home and looking through so there were a lot of things that were with me from very early age and I never thought ‘I will do a piece about it’ – it just happened to engage my mind.

I guess, after I became a mother and felt like there are some things that you inherit even without wanting to inherit so, the pain and the trauma and I was interested in, kind of, actually that process of inheritance of pain or storytelling.

But, again, in 7734 even though it’s very dark and it’s dealing with that kind of subject matter of the Holocaust or of brutal of the capacity of the human nature to produce brutality because similar things are still happening and happened in history in different places.

I also had the reverse perspective so, this tower you were talking about that is actually a tower, too in the Holocaust connotation was to make sure that people don’t escape.

Then there is the moment that everything changes and it’s actually a safety tower on a seaside so it, kind of, changed the whole perspective actually to save your life so I’m playing in the piece with quite a lot of different perspectives.

Alistair: And I was looking at a section of it before to prepare for this and, actually, you know your, the choreographic language really lends itself, sorry to say! To this because there’s a moment where a woman is really, like, commanding and just with this power just throwing people off and out of the way.

It’s a common theme in your work this sense that you know, you can if you have power, you can really destroy people or you can manipulate them in a certain way without even touching them you know, just by that’s something that’s a trope in many of your works and I wonder where it comes from.

Jasmin: Life. I mean, see some politicians in some countries that influence by their decisions and can, you know, it’s, I think this power is very impactful a lot of the time on a lot of communities. Some decisions could change people’s lives and in 7734, there is a uniform that whoever wears the uniform has the power so it’s starts for the man, but then the woman takes the uniform off him and she becomes to be the one in the power so the powers keep changing. Who is in power keeps changing which is, again, something that we see.

Alistair: Yeah, I mean, just carrying on with this or moving onto, sort of, location so, there’s always a location isn’t there, somehow? A park, we talked about the courtroom you know, in Freedom there’s a jungle so, again, you’re always like, making it a place, right? And I’m interested in where that comes from. There’s always a decision and, definitely, the jungle in Freedom is the overriding design element, you know?

Is it because you think ‘I can play with this material I can use the context’? It lends itself, again, very well to your movement style but where does that decision come?

Jasmin: Yeah. I think I’m interested in kinetic sets. I’m interested in choreographing set as well and our relationship with object and with set and our body’s relationship with it. So I like to work with props and sets and, also, when I’m creating I think in a very cinematic way so, I’m thinking of where we are what is the environment that we are performing in?

So, for example Lullaby which was one of my earliest pieces was set in a hospital and I was interested in that very cold architecture that’s actually hosting the most fragile emotional journey in life no matter if it’s for a birth of a child or for dealing with a serious illness that you need to be in hospital. Our relationship with illness and hospitalisation was the subject matter of the piece and I wanted it to be set in a hospital because I wanted to explore that environment.

When we are on stage we can pretend to be everywhere anywhere we want so I want to use the power of theatre to, kind of, convey and to bring us to different locations, different stories.

Alistair: Yes, I mean that piece, Lullaby was the first piece I saw of yours. I remember it very well and it was one of the first times I saw projection used you know in a dance space where you projected a heart onto the person. It was a very effective thing and I think you know, I wonder whether, you know that’s been part of your experimentation to bring new ways of seeing.

You talked about film you know having live cameras and stuff has that always been part of your investigation as well?

Jasmin: I think so, because I’m interested in telling the story or conveying the story in different through different tools and different ways and to engage in different levels physically, obviously, emotionally through the process of the performance but also visually through different information and, yeah, so, always use projection or technology and VR in the work but, also, I only see it as a tool to communicate and in NOW, for example there are a lot of there are the cameras and screen because I feel like we, now, in current time we receive so much information from screen that actually dictates our point of view a lot of the time so I wanted to explore that idea of getting different information from the screen than what we see live from stage which is also real but it just provides a different angle or a very zoomed-in focus on a detail that you would not see when you’re live.

Alistair: Can I move onto sort of, process and your dancers actually, you know how you work with your dancers and, I mean, I guess the first thing is what are you looking for when you’re auditioning?

What sort of dancer do you want to be working with and has that stayed the same throughout your career, or what are you looking for?

Jasmin: Yeah, I’m looking for people that are able to express again or use their entire capacity to express and by entire capacity I mean physically but also vocally and, most importantly, emotionally and conceptually. And through the process we always investigate and play a different way of telling stories using those capacities and those abilities.

Alistair: How do you do that in an audition?

Jasmin: I give a lot of creative tasks and I ask to well, it’s hard to describe it. Yeah, there are different tools and techniques that I use throughout my career to try to make a performer as versatile as he can be.

So, to open I don’t like I never want the dancers to copy my way of movement. I wanted, actually to empower them to become as well-rounded and as versatile as they can be and the process in the studio is a lot about that is to reach that versatility.

So, I’m really looking for dancers who can become as versatile as possible.

Alistair: They also have to be quite physical I mean, and that’s maybe an obvious thing to say in dance but I just mean that there’s a lot of falling and, you know quite, sort of they used to call it Eurocrash in the old days, you know, this sense that you also have a little bit of danger. It’s not, I mean, it’s very carefully done but there is a lot of that in your work, isn’t there? So there has to be a sort of courage, I guess.

Jasmin: I guess so but it’s not something that I’m looking for. It’s happened through the process. A lot of the time, that’s something that the dancers bring through the process. It’s not something that I’m asking them. So, a lot of our work is very creative so I would give a task and then they will bring something and then I ask them to create the antagonism for it or I would ask them to add a layer a specific layer or perform it in a specific quality and then we slowly kind of, evolve like that.

So it’s a complete dialogue with the dancers and, as I said it’s very the subject matter is very universal but the process is very personal, it’s very personal to the dancer that’s in the studio and what they bring to that creation process.

Alistair: So, if we take a piece let’s take Freedom as a when you start when you’re in the first day of rehearsals what is it that happens? You know, so, obviously you have your kind of, concept and you may have talked about it before, but what when you get into the rehearsal room is that a process of then, of improvisation working with the dancers, then and you pulling out particular material that interests you? Is that how it works?

Jasmin: Yeah. Actually the first day I asked them what freedom means to them and I was very surprised of how many different reactions we got. So, one person was saying ‘for me it’s running naked’ and another person was saying ‘Absolutely not. For me, it’s just ‘able to do whatever I want.’ And then another person said ‘No, that’s actually really restricting. ‘I want to have a…’ So, each one had their own understanding of what freedom is because we are all individual and we have different needs and different backgrounds and different desires.

So we explore what freedom might mean to different to us and then how we can tell that story and then try to push it to different extremes and put it in different scenarios and there is a lot of playing in the studio. A lot of scenarios a lot of different ways of telling the story and then the hardest thing for me is, at the end is to choose what I actually want to bring to the stage and what I want to develop and how I weave it together and a lot of material stays out and never get into we always create at least 3 or 4 hours piece and then we edit it.

Alistair: And there must be moments in that process where dancers are particularly fond of something they brought and then you throw it out or you just say ‘that’s not going to be in the’ How do you deal with that? Is that something that crops up?

Jasmin: It always happens and I think they have to they do understand that it’s for the best of the piece and sometimes it happens in NOW, that we’re performing, NOW there is a section there is a duet between Donny and Juliette that actually was created through the process of ALiCE and I didn’t put it in ALiCE because it just was not right for what ALiCE became.

But I really love this duet and during the creation of NOW I actually reminded them of that duet and we decided to recreate it for NOW.

Alistair: Can I talk about the work you’ve made for families? So, Pinocchio and ALiCE what drew you to those to that subject matter? Because, I mean I know there are in the stories there’s something as well, obviously but it’s also the audience is a family audience and children you know? So, just wondered why you were attracted to working in that way.

Jasmin: So, I created ALiCE when my daughter was a teenager going through the process of adolescence and I was interested in looking at Alice in the transition from childhood to womanhood and what it means and the whole process of changing identity as revealed through the process of the questioning by the caterpillar who keeps questioning Alice ‘Who are you?’ and while itself turning from a caterpillar into a butterfly.

So, the whole process of changing identity and also entering the new worlds and, again, the concept of Alice as a traveller or immigrant entering a new land.

Alistair: That’s interesting hearing you say this because that’s your interpretation of that story it’s not actually probably as it was originally meant and that’s quite an interesting thing to do, isn’t it? So, you take something which exists but then maybe take a twist on it for a modern audience or wanting to say something else through a work which you know people will know and might be attracted to come and see your interpretation.

Jasmin: Yeah. I think my main challenge both with Pinocchio and ALiCE was the Disney interpretation because a lot of people have seen the Disney interpretation but never read the original books and, for me, it was interesting to read the original books especially with Pinocchio because most people haven’t read the original book and retell in my own interpretation of the story. I wanted to be free from all other interpretations.

Alice obviously had so many interpretations but that’s the beauty in arts if you have 100 painters painting the same tree each painting will look very different but it’s exactly the same tree.

Alistair: So, obviously, we’ve talked about the choreography and your influences but what about the other kind of, elements? So, set, lighting, music we haven’t spoken about.

So how do you work with collaborators? I mean, you don’t often work with composers

you often choose different music to work with, that’s right isn’t it?

Jasmin: Yeah. So, for 15 years or so I’ve been designing my own sound for my creations because I feel like the music or the sound have such a strong influence on the experience and I remember as a child that I used to watch Hitchcock films because my brother loved it and it was super scary for me but then we used to turn the music down and play a different music and it’s actually funny if you play funny music on top of it so it’s the sound that makes it so scary. And so I like to play with different music different sound and see what impact it will make on the piece.

I never create to music. I use it more, as you would do in film more as a soundscape to enhance the atmosphere or to bring a different element a different texture and lyric is very important for me. So, for example, there is a scene in Park that we use Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s The Power of Love while at the same time clearly, it’s the power of hate that’s demonstrated on stage so I wanted to create that contradiction with the music and the lyric. I always use a lot of the time text as a texture because I think that’s it’s another texture that we bring into the whole kind of experience.

Alistair: And is that chosen once you’ve created the material the music landscape or do you do that at the same time?

Jasmin: Some of it is through the process and some of it is after the piece is created. Some music’s selected through the process for that reason that I was interested in the lyric and, in NOW there is Now or Never which is I wanted to have that song in it to represent a specific moment.

Alistair: And sets I mean you always have a set and that’s always actually, less in the latest work but that’s also it’s wonderful but it’s also a restriction. You’ve talked about it in terms of touring these days that it’s lovely to have this physicality but it’s quite hard to move it around the world.

Jasmin: Yeah. It’s true and it’s my yeah, it’s one of the things I love working with set and with props. As I said before I’m interested in our relationship with objects and how we relate to them how our body relates to them and a piece of string or a piece, or a rope can change completely in NOW, a rope becomes to be stairs it’s become to be a border it’s become to be text so many things happen just with one rope and I’m interested of the capacity of one object to change and to change our view of it like the body because we all have the same bodies how we use it, using it as a tool of expression to convey different stories it’s we all have quite similar bodies, so, yeah.

Alistair: I want to finish by just talking about two works, which have a similarity in that they both looked back at a particular period. So, Yesterday was a certain point in your career and you did the same thing you looked back and took some of the things that you’d made and then but now you’ve made something in a similar way to celebrate, in a way 25th year of your company but it’s also about now so I wondered why you’re interested in this looking backwards in your repertoire and bringing those things back.

Jasmin: I think I like to do it to, every now and then to stop and reflect and look backwards and I just was interested to look at the company repertoire and what moment left a mark on me and to revisit them and to make them relevant and current for today.

I realised that a lot of the subject matter are still relevant today but they will they’ve got a different perspective and a different approach and, actually only one section remains exactly the same. In NOW, one section remains exactly the same how it used to be and it’s the heart-giving projection from Lullaby. I don’t know I think it’s part of I am interested in my work always to reflect about our culture our history. That’s why I created work about Pinocchio and Alice or looked at the history of my personal history and our I think those are the things that inspire me to create and the main drive is imagination.

Alistair: Just to talk about the future just to say, very quickly that you also have a second company and you also do a lot of training so you’re also interested in the future, in a way as well as now. You’ve built a lovely space in Kent in Ashford and so you are also trying to build something for the future as well as looking back.

Jasmin: I think there is a stage in life that you have to start to share the knowledge that you obtained over the years with others and I have a lot of joy in nurturing other artists.

So, JV2 actually was formed 12 years ago after I was the first artistic director guest artistic director of the National Youth Dance Company and helped, kind of set it up. I was actually inspired by how much you can develop young dancers and nurture their progress and their artistry and I wanted to do that as well through my company and through the training that we provide but I also felt like there is, in the training that we have now we don’t have

so much training that explores that dialogue between dance and theatre that I’m interested in so I wanted to provide alternative to training and most of the company dancers have come through JV2.

Some of them like Donny only did our training did our youth group and then did JV2 and then joined the company. So, it works well for the company as well but a lot of them 85% of our graduates are dancing now around the world so it’s a joy to see they succeed and develop.

Alistair: Well, on that very positive and optimistic note I want to thank you so much for joining this Choreographer Conversation. Thank you, Jasmin Vardimon.

Jasmin: Thank you.

[Applause]