4Issue 4 June 2012

Benoît Lachambrede Theaterschool2011-12

Jeanne van HeeswijkAcademy of Architecture 2010-11

Ed Spanjaardde Theaterschool 2011-12

Anthony Heidweiller Conservatorium van Amsterdam2010-11

Voices and views from the Artist in Residence programme at the Amsterdam School of the Arts

3

We’re about peopleBy Marijke Hoogenboom

Welcome to the fourth edition of ON AIR, the twice-yearly magazine about the Artists in Residence at the Amsterdam School of the Arts. Our aim is to spread the news about the AIR’s activities and the developments in education that they advance.I’m especially pleased that in this edition we will be high-lighting a number of topical issues that AIRs focused on – very pressing issues in the arts and culture landscape. The school is very much part of that landscape and the pri-mary aims of its AIR programmes are to ensure the school is receptive to impulses from professional practice and to contribute to the dynamic relationship between education, research and the professional field.

In this issueThis issue of ON AIR covers many fine practical expressions of this relationship. AIR Jeanne van Heeswijk’s radical ap-proach to urban developments has fed into a series of new projects based on bottom-up strategies at the Academy of Architecture. Foreign guests such as Funmi Adewole have been invited to reflect on the way teacher training in the school is investing in a multiple cultural perspective – par-ticularly in dance teacher’s training, which places intercul-turalism centre stage. And the Conservatorium van Amster-dam and de Theaterschool are taking on the challenge of interdisciplinary collaborations such as the innovative opera project led by Anthony Heidweiller, Javier López Piñón and Richard Ayres. Last but not least, Benoît Lachambre’s resi-dency at the SNDO represents the department’s continua-tion of research into collective and individual artistic pro-cesses. It examined several challenging questions: what is the relationship between individual and group; where is the dividing line between solo and collective artistic practice; how do we want to be together?

Shifting landscapesAs a school we are more engaged than ever before in dia-logue with the professional arena; we are entering a period in which we will all need to assert ourselves to assure sup-port for arts and culture in society at large. And we must also continue taking responsibility for developing talent across the range of disciplines. My speech in November last year ceremony for the 2011 Critics Award, which went to all Dutch theatre production houses, was an attempt to contem-plate these old and new relationships with professional practice in the perspective of my own sector, the performing arts.

The integrated chain that incorporated workspaces and production houses as crucial intermediate links allowed the educational and professional components of the performing arts field to cooperate in recent years in a way that was as unique as it was extraordinarily comfortable. The produc-tion house system allowed further education the luxury of staying close to home, of maintaining a limited perspective. The theatre schools were a safe haven for personal growth and the production houses provided compelling opportuni-ties for any graduate with the talent and ambition to make work within a tailored professional context. And until very recently, the sector fully endorsed this system of intercon-nection and progression and its internal logic.

As educators, we could rely on this symbiotic cooperation – we could rest assured of our students’ good prospects.

To a certain extent, perhaps we took advantage of these professional centres of talent development. We focused pri-marily on our mutual exchange, perhaps placing the stages, companies and some audiences at a distance. In that sense, the exceptional work done by the production houses freed the educational sector from the need to position itself more clearly – with respect to the professional field and, even more importantly, with respect to societal developments in this country.

The loss of a large number of these production houses due to cuts in spending is set to cause an interesting shift. The Dutch Arts Council and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science have already put forward recommendations for educational institutions that will be connected instrumen-tally to the end user, to ensure the contraction takes place in a controlled way.

Moving onPerhaps it will all go perfectly and perhaps we will create splendid dual masters courses or even trans-institutional educational centres, temporary academies and applied research programmes. Their creation must, however, be the beginning of the story rather than an end in itself. The challenge is twofold: on the one hand we are seeking ways to preserve the chain, while on the other we are examining how to escape from it. The issue is not simply how we can satisfy demand, because we must also come up with new questions – ones no one has yet asked. Perhaps these ques-tions will be posed by people who have rarely visited our theatres, concert halls and museums.

More than ever before, education in a democratic society has a duty to look beyond the issues of the day and demon-strate time and time again that everything that already is can also be different. Particularly in this area, educational institutions and professional centres of talent development are crucially important to one another – and will remain so even after this our final fully funded season. We will come to-gether again and encourage and bolster one another, but we must also look at each other more critically and if necessary sort out our differences.

The production houses have shown that the provision of support and the availability of opportunities to take artistic risks are inextricably bound up with one another. For me, this relationship has always been a key component of the structure. The fact that it is now on shaky ground due to external forces is unacceptable. The consequence for edu-cation is that we can no longer hide in the shadows of the production houses. We have no choice. We must leave the safety of our citadel and once again take on the mantle of responsibility for our place in the world.

Let us be modest. What we do is about people. They are the only thing and the best possible thing that we can offer the professional arts: unpredictable and fearless artists – artists who will not settle for the bleak vision of the future being served up to us today.

Marijke Hoogenboom is professor at the Amsterdam School of the Arts and chair of the Art Practice and Developmentresearch group.

We’re about people 3Introduction by Marijke Hoogenboom

Benoît Lachambre: Snake Charmers’ Ball 4AIR project at de Theaterschool

Space is a body 6Hester van Hasselt finds out what inspires AIR Lachambre

Bottom-down top-up 10Karin Christof on new approaches to cities for citizens

Finding the multiple body 18Funmi Adewole reflects on interculturalism

Ed Spanjaard: The art of creative passion 20AIR project at de Theaterschool

Anthony Heidweiller: 22New spaces / New bordersAIR project at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam

Expanding the modus operandi 24Richard Ayres and Javier López Piñón discuss new music theatre

What’s in the AIR? 27The AIR programme in and outside the school

ON AIR Issue 4, June 2012ON AIR is a twice-yearly publication of the AHK exploring the wide-ranging collaborations between guest artists and institutes, and examining the school’s role as host.

EditorsMarijke HoogenboomHester van Hasselt

Translator, copy editor and co-editorSteve Green

.NL

.NL

.NL

Dutch version at: www.air.ahk.nl .NL

ProductionSanne Kersten

Graphic designThonikSteve Green

ImagesCoco Duivenvoorde (p.20, 21)Jeanne van Heeswijk (p. 14-15)Jessica Doyle (p. 12) Mark McNulty (p. 10,17)Thomas Lenden (p. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 19, 20, 23, 26, 27)Urban - Think Tank (p. 13)

PrintingRotor offsetdruk

PublisherArt Practice and Development research groupAmsterdam School of the Arts+31 (0)20-5277707air@ahk.nlwww.air.ahk.nl

© 2012 Art Practice and Development research group

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the express permission of the copyright holder.

5

The School for New Dance Development (SNDO) provides bachelor-level training in choreography and dance direction. The school believes it is crucial that students experience the artistic practice of an internationally renowned choreo-grapher – not just as performing dance artists but first and foremost as emerging equals participating in a fellow mak-er’s work. Starting with Deborah Hay’s residency in 2010, which all SNDO students participated in simultaneously, the faculty has continued nurturing the tension between the ‘we’ and the ‘I’. Last year this took place in Ann Liv Young’s 37 Sherrys project, and this year in Benoît Lachambre’s 37 Solos/Snake Charmers’ Ball

About the project In 37 Solos/Snake Charmers’ Ball, choreographer and dancer Benoît Lachambre worked on making ‘solos’ with the entire student body of the SNDO, the choreography course at de Theaterschool Amsterdam. This project formed part of the preparations for Lachambre’s new solo Snakeskins.Lachambre’s residency project introduced the students to his highly individual approach to his work and practice. Each student made his or her own solo, and they all shared the same space throughout the entire process – up to and including the performance itself. The students were encour-aged to become fully aware of the space and of the influence exerted upon them by everything and everyone around them. 37 Solos/Snake Charmers’ Ball was presented in February 2012 at the Something Raw festival, which is a collabora-tion between Brakke Grond and Frascati theatres. The audience were free to wander in and out of this remarkable living exhibition in a single large room, where they enjoyed the many solos as they overlapped and intertwined over a period of four hours. Bastian Manders produced the project as a part of his graduation from the Production and Stage Management department. Daniele Albanese assisted Benoît Lachambre and Maria Ines Villasmil was the repetitor.

About the artist Canadian dancer and choreographer Benoît Lachambre is also a teacher and dance ‘improvisator’. He has been choreo graphing for more than thirty years and is involved with the work of fellow choreographers such as Meg Stuart, Sasha Waltz, and Boris Charmatz. He sees his dance work as inextricably bound up with visual and performance art. His group Par B.L.eux, founded in 1996, is dedicated to research and creation. Lachambre premiered his new solo work Snakeskins in May 2012 in Essen, Germany.

37 Solos/Snake Charmers’ Ball

Hosted by de Theaterschool 2011-2012

Benoît Lachambre

7

Space is a bodyBy Hester van Hasselt

Hester van Hasselt closely followed Benoît Lachambre’s AIR project at the School of New Dance Development, attending rehearsals, interviewing the artist and watching the performance itself.

oeuvre is wild and highly expressive. It challenges and confounds me, but above all else I am transfixed by Benoît’s physical being, his body – that gesticulating body that is at once muscled and almost translucent. His movements are stripped-down and graceful, as if there is space, as if there is air, between the bones and skin. I realise that I see be-fore me someone who is a dancer to his very core– just like previous AIRs Steve Paxton and Deborah Hay about whom Gabriel Smeets once said: ‘The life they lead isn’t just about dance, it is dance.’

Space is a bodyAll the residencies at the SNDO follow a similar pattern: the school invites an artist to come and share his or her practice with the students. It is then up to the artist to decide what the project will be. Lachambre chose to open up the creative process of making his new solo Snakeskins to the students. His four-week residency in Amsterdam marked the first phase in his own rehearsal process.The knife cuts both ways, because as well as teaching them he hoped to learn from the students: ‘After this process I go on with my process. I want to have a lot of questions.’ Lachambre took the morning to introduce the students to his working method; in the afternoon the students all worked on their own solo. His concept of ‘space’ played an essential role in this process.

Benoît Lachambre explained how he experiences the space around us as a body, rather than as an empty volume that is to be filled with dance. The space is alive. It exists, in its shape, in the sound, in the temperature, in the floor under your feet and in the presence of other people. ‘Just that in itself is something that totally revolutionises my notion of existence.’ ‘I am always influenced by the outside, no matter what. I like the presence of a body that is aware of this. Not only of what he is influencing but also what he is influenced by. It changes the politics of presence. There is no more hierar-chy. You are not the centre. You are just influenced. You are part of a bigger dynamic.’

Solo?This idea put the ‘solo’ on which the students worked with the AIR into a very different light. Students are used to thinking of solos as performances for which they withdraw into solitary studios to create ‘the ultimate individual artis-tic expression.’ For this project, however, they had to share their ‘solo’ space with 36 other fellow students. This was a new and strange experience for many of them. Lachambre: ‘Actually, the performance we are making isn’t a series of solos; it’s a group piece, but it’s still all about the solo. The individual students place their own signature under their work, and by doing that they take on their own artistic responsibility. That responsibility goes further than their own material, because I ’m asking them to stay con-scious of what happens in the space as they work. What kind of atmosphere are you creating together? What is hap-pening between everything and everyone? And what does it mean to be conscious of this, as an artist?’

Shedding, yielding, shiftingLachambre would not be the man he is if he did not ap-proach these questions in a physical way. The first two hours of each day of rehearsal were devoted to physical training. But this wasn’t the kind of training one might normally expect to see: there was no instruction in dance techniques, no stretching and no focus on stamina train-ing or physical excellence. Instead, guided by Lachambre, each student carried out research into his or her own body. He asked them to place their feet in full contact with the ground, and to visualise space around their ankle bones and in their hips. One student pulled on high-heeled thigh-length boots to feel how they opened up the space in his pelvis.

Wailing loudly, a girl kneels down before us, beseeching us. Her cries abruptly transform into a friendly but forceful ma-chine-like voice, saying ‘Please sit down... please sit down... please sit down.’ Meanwhile, two people nearby are slith-ering past one another like snakes. And elsewhere Benoît Lachambre is asking a woman in the audience to grab hold of the two leashes attached to the leather band around his neck and to pull and to pull harder – and harder and harder again.All of this, and more, is going on at the same time in the vast, seatless Expo hall of the Brakke Grond. Audience members are free to walk in and out as they choose for themselves what they watch – or even participate in.Just like last year, when Ann Liv Young’s 37 Sherrys was performed here, this year’s Something Raw festival is the venue for a one-off performance by the SNDO’s AIR – Benoît Lachambre. And it couldn’t be fresher, or more raw, than this.

Wild and highly expressive Day one of rehearsals at a studio on the Entrepotdok and it is time to meet Benoît Lachambre. We shake hands as I explain that I will be following the project. I am struck by his intensely pale face and his piercing gaze – his eyes are the lightest blue, almost white.The artistic director of the SNDO Gabriel Smeets introduces Lachambre, a Canadian choreographer, dancer and collabo-rator who has made an important contribution to the devel-opment of dance as an art form. That Lachambre is the new AIR needs no explanation: it was the students themselves who asked for him to be invited.

In the hours that follow I learn more about Lachambre’s work. In his solo Délire Défait he snarls and screams into a camera, makes tiny tap dance leaps and then rolls over the ground winding red tape around his face. Lachambre’s

9

In these and other ways they zoomed in ever deeper on the experience of the body, increasing their sensitivity to what was going on around them.

Throughout the process, Lachambre took as his metaphor the image of a snake shedding its skin: it’s all about letting go, yielding and shifting. In essence, this is what his new piece Snakeskins is also about: repeatedly casting off skins – or identities, or thoughts – and becoming ever more sensi-tive to what is.Meeting with Lachambre after a rehearsal, we talked about death as the shedding of a skin. Lachambre has been seri-ously ill for some time. ‘This work is changing how I look at things and it’s changing the way I live,’ he explained. ‘To be honest, it’s not only a choice. My body is breaking down on different levels, and I have had to face changes. I’m coping with it by accepting change, by allowing my notions to ex-ist. It’s a way of healing.’ Although Lachambre is convinced of the power of his method, he is also fully aware that it may be insufficient to cure him. Laughing he added: ‘I may never heal completely. But okay...’ At the end of our conversation, Lachambre cautiously brought together his ideas on dance and the body to form a more general plan: ‘I think the time has come – these are my convictions – that there will have to be changes if we want to survive. I mean as humans on earth. We can’t continue like this. Things have to shift. So I’m working on shifting as much as I can. I don’t know what is going to change in the future, but I believe that the work I’m doing is investing in a change towards a certain direction that is more peaceful.’

Charming the snakeLook at what’s going on around you and inside you; remain alert as you look, and make choices about how you move in response to: that’s what Lachambre calls ‘charming the snake’. It’s about your own body, but just as much it is about the space, your fellow performers and the spectator: ‘There’s always a game with the spectator. And I love that game. I find it very interesting. At a certain point in Délire Défait I listened to the spectator, to the spectator’s body. I saw it as my task not only to do the piece but also to listen. During a very aggressive scene I noticed that the audience started resisting, and if I went along with that I noticed that the monologue that followed was much gentler than I conceived it. Choreography is also that shared body. I am a participant in that body. I interact and I am also touched, taken, wan-dering through. Sometimes the space shifts so much that everyone changes: the whole audience’. Lachambre grabs his own arm, his skin, and says, ‘this is my tool of recogni-tion.’

The performance on 18 February at the Something Raw festival demonstrated that this inclusiveness, this approach to participating and relating to one another, can happen in a challenging way and in a context that is simultaneously sensitive and wildly dynamic. The performers and audience members mingled so thoroughly in the space that it was sometimes unclear who belonged to which group. All of us were ‘solo’ and ‘part of a bigger dynamic’. While a girl at one side of the hall stuttered quietly into a microphone (‘Can I, can I, can I, can I ask you for a dance?’), a young man clambered three metres up a wall to demand that spectators immediately gathered below him to catch him ‘en masse’ when he jumped into their upreached arms. Other perform-ers spoke directly to individual spectators: ‘Let me know if you’re planning on going and I’ll do my solo for you. I’ll make sure I’m the last person you see here this evening.’ Still oth-ers attracted attention in less explicit ways, and these we (or some of us) discovered as they quietly went about their own ‘solo’ performance. The sense of generosity hanging in the air was very inviting.

Who is actually responsible?‘A rollercoaster.’ ‘A super-open playground.’ ‘Tough, beauti-ful, opening.’Some days after the performance there followed the assess-ment. The entire SNDO came together, including the four who stepped out of the project halfway through. One by one they took their turn to speak about their experiences, elo-quently and in detail. It was not an easy process, but most of them made their way through it and reaped the rewards.

Two Japanese students, Jija Sohn and Yui Nakagami, ex-plained how Lachambre’s work struck them as having a very Eastern character. Used as they are to the rigid struc-tures of European approaches, it was a breath of fresh air for them to work with Lachambre: ’I was gradually melting into the process, connecting to his method without speak-ing with him.’ Referring to the performance at Something Raw, Marina Colomina said: ‘It was great to activate the spectator I was relating to, and that the spectator and the performer could have different entrances to the work: the conditions allowed for a constant renewal. And it was great that roles could swap; some spectators were more nerv-ous than me.’ Oneka Von Schroder described Benoît as a ‘kinetic wonder wolf’. And Louis Vanhaverbeke had this to say about the solo: ‘The more I tested out my solo material in the group, the deeper my process went. The angle of approach, the reference points and the immediate responses in this temporary social context always provided a fresh perspective. There was enrichment and broadening rather than a narrow focus on the individual in a closed process.’ And, with reference to the space as a body, Louis continued, ‘For me, attuning myself to the space was simply a matter of saying ‘yes’ to proposals I encountered on my path. When you’re working together in a group, a range of possible courses emerges. I discovered that the potential for doing something with them depended on my motivation. Yes we can? But of course, this kind of behaviour can also conceal the danger of opportunism. I remember Benoît emphasising the fact that not everything we engaged in was by definition interesting. It required self observation and sensitivity to the group to fully appreciate whether a particular behaviour suited a particular climate. Consciousness and observation of oneself forms the basis of this work and they unveil the guidelines for a physical practice. It is a brilliant and accessible concept.’

Now that Deborah Hay, Ann Liv Young and Benoît Lachambre have all done an AIR project in the school, the penny is dropping: In the regular curriculum the students are used to consuming; the teachers provide them with their tools. But an AIR is an artist who doesn’t serve any-thing, explain anything or provide any answers. As William Collins pointed out: ‘It’s liberating to deal with this respon-sibility. It demands a lot of commitment. I was constantly analysing how I could engage.’ Essential questions about the profession and education were posed once again: What does it mean to choreograph? What does it mean to teach? Who is actually responsible for making it happen? In this way, a particular experience with a unique artist triggers self-reflection on two levels: by the young artists and by the educational institution itself. I believe a great deal of credit should go to the school, the theatre and the students and artists involved, who are willing to take the risk to achieve something so incredibly important for all of them – and I think, thereby for dance as such.

Hester van Hasselt is a performer, writer and funeral speaker.

11

that comparing Europe with other global regions sheds light on how urbanism is practiced: in European cities dealing with the economic crisis, large-scale projects are disappear-ing from the landscape and small-scale urbanism based on bottom-up initiatives is on the rise; meanwhile, countries such as Brazil and India, whose economies are thriving, are preserving small-scale change through the use of the existing local social fabric as an appropriate approach for alleviating poor urban living conditions.

Taking notion of the Smart City as their framework, Acade-my of Architecture students carried out research on location in Anfield (UK), Sao Paolo (Brazil) and Danyigba (Ghana).The students worked with a range of professionals and citi-zens in interdisciplinary teams spanning various faculties, disciplines and cultures. They explored how these cities intervene in an appropriate and sustainable way to improve living conditions in the diverse situations they encountered.

On the following pages we present a summary of their expe-riences and research.

What is the role of the architect and urban designer in our society? Should urban design be more oriented towards developing people as citizens instead of producing and de-veloping goods and commodities? If so, is it the task of an architect and urban designer to plan the urban environment with the local community and to incorporate their wishes and ideas?

Artist and cultural producer Jeanne van Heeswijk, AIR at the Academy of Architecture in 2011, is an inspiration for alternative approaches in urban design practices today. The Academy decided to focus this winter semester on research and design around the theme of the ‘smart city’, with an emphasis on alternative forms of town planning. The par-ticipants examined a wide range of issues: what does a city need in order to function more effectively in terms of intelligent communication, efficient transport and applied technologies such as for water supply, renewable resources, waste and electricity? Through the collection of different perspectives on building a Smart City, Rogier van den Berg, head of Urbanism at the Academy of Architecture, believes

By Karin Christof

As part of her AIR project A Public Practice, Jeanne van Heeswijk invited students from the Academy of Architecture to participate in her 2Up 2Down project in Anfield, Liverpool. Karin Christof sheds light on this and comparable projects with which the academy is involved.

Bottom-up − top-down:the neighbourhood as a tool for urban design

13

Anfield As the last part of her residency, the artist and urban cura-tor Jeanne van Heeswijk invited Academy students to par-ticipate in a workshop on her long-term project in Anfield, a residential borough of Liverpool where development has ceased and there are many empty buildings. However, emp-ty urban areas have plenty of potential if local people take charge – they can reinvest meaning into public space and the community, reactivate interpersonal connections and reinforce a sense of stewardship in a natural way.

Van Heeswijk took the non-governmental artistic project 2Up 2Down as on opportunity to create a real-time play-ground where people could learn how to build a house – for themselves and for the community. 2Up 2Down is part of the Liverpool Biennial 2012, and it offers young people from the Anfield area the chance to engage with architecture and to develop spaces for the community. Architects, social work-ers, a group of builders, artists, members of the local com-munity, volunteers and municipality workers are all contrib-uting to making it happen. The project encourages young people to think about their future and their neighbourhood. By building the house they will not only have made a great creative achievement: they will also be changing the fu-ture for their entire neighbourhood. Over a period of two years and with the collaboration of the interdisciplinary professional team, local people will be trained up in all the necessary skills (carpentry, masonry, interior design, etc) to develop, design and complete an affordable and sustainable building.

Meritxell Blanco Diaz is a student at the Academy of Ar-chitecture in Amsterdam. She assisted at the project for a week and half during the workshop in August 2011 and was impressed by the opportunities and skills being passed on to these young people. On first impressions, she found the neighbourhood depressing, because it seemed like the proposed rebuilding of the area was a hopeless enterprise. But watching the children working on their self-designed houses with such enthusiasm, humour and energy, she saw there was real reason for believing in the possibility of change. Children are the soul of the neighbourhood, Diaz believes: they have very little materially, but no one can take away their dreams – and these dreams can be articulated and realised.

Sao Paolo One of the fastest growing favelas (slums) in Sao Paulo is Heliopolis – ‘city of the sun’. Heliopolis was the test case for a group of 40 students of architecture, landscape architec-ture, urban design, media studies and social sciences, who had come from New York, Sao Paulo and Amsterdam. Fave-las are often romanticised as examples of the self-initiated urbanism of a self-made city. But favelas lack useful infra-structure – there are no street names and no addresses, for example. Under the guidance of the local municipality work-ers, students visited the location twice, talking with the favela committee leaders and finding out what it was that they liked about their environment. As third-year student Veronika Kovacsova pointed out, they decided it was better to ask the people what they were proud of than what they lacked, because to do otherwise might have pushed them into pointing out negative aspects of their local area. For Veronika, architecture is as much about people as it is about the construction itself: ‘It’s about thinking together and thinking differently.’ In areas like the favelas, architecture can be made by anyone who has a good idea. As the work-shop leader and urban designer Donald van Dansik pointed out, ‘Any kid can build if there’s Lego; every adult can build if there’s an opportunity.’

The project aimed at upgrading Heliopolis favela is of in-terest to the municipality because it is looking to improve infrastructure and living conditions and to create a sustain-able and healthy city. In recent years, the common practice has been to tear down sections of the favela and replace them with housing blocks – a form of social housing. How-ever, costs have been an issue and many people were not keen on living in these new but dull buildings.They also lacked any ‘in-between’ public space for collective ameni-ties – those spaces that are the lubricant for community interaction.

The students approached the urban issues of the favelas from their own very different angles, but they were all very much impressed by the existing urban and social structure, which is rooted in close family bonds and overlapping do-mestic activities. The students were unanimous in wanting to preserve and strengthen this multi-generational social structure, so they proposed adding ‘cores’ by taking away some of the buildings from the dense housing structure and building a steel frame structure over the existing construc-tions. These cores would then serve as communal public spaces and provide ventilation and fire security, while still leaving areas that could be adapted by local residents.

The project’s head of urban design Rogier van den Berg or-ganised an additional collaboration: a laboratory was set up on behalf of the educational institutions involved1 and the local government, for the further development of Heliopolis. Financed by public companies, it is made up of research-ers, locals and communications experts who will work on the project for the coming two years. This will maintain the level of discussion and allow the students’ plans and ideas to permeate into the further development of the neighbour-hood and a better environment for informal settlements. The results of the project will be included in the Parallel Cases II – Smart Cities exhibition, part of the main programme of Making City, the 5th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, starting in April 2012.

1. Smart Cities: Sao Paulo, New York and Amsterdam is an interdiscipli-nary and joint design project of the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urban-ismo da Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, Sao Paulo; the Parsons New School for Design, New York; and the Academy of Architecture, Amsterdam. for more information see Facebook page smartcities.newyork-saopaoloamsterdam

15

For the last phase of her residency, AIR Jeanne van Heeswijk invited students of the Academy of Architecture to participate in her two year community project 2Up 2Down in the working-class neighbourhood of Anfield in Liverpool. The project of-fers an imaginative, experimental approach to dealing with empty properties and spaces in Liverpool and beyond – and it

integrates the ideas and visions of local people in the development of their neighbourhood.2Up 2Down is being made in collaboration with Liverpool Biennial 2012 and Sheffield University.

17

From Ghana to AlmereStudents involved in the Ghanascapes2 project examined in-formal settlements and building techniques in Danyigba in the Volta Region of West Africa. Their aim was to study and map ‘qualities of the informal’, slowly evolving structures based on traditional local architecture. As well as analysing the local people’s approach to place-making and participat-ing in a practical workshop on local building techniques, the students developed models for new settlements in the Netherlands. They hope that these models will serve as tools for future spatial planning and housing; the informal adaptations and the internal systems of self-organisation the students encountered in Ghana exerted a particularly big influence on the designs they made once back in the Neth-erlands.3

In Ghana, public space does not display any of the charac-teristics of property: fences only exist to protect gardens from animals, and the spaces between the houses are at everyone’s disposal. Everyone takes care of their own house and the public space surrounding it. As third-year student Narda Beunders pointed out, people there live with one an-other, as a community, rather than next to one another.For Beunders, the most important aspect of this commu-nity was the sense of personal responsibility for the public domain, as demonstrated by the initiatives they took and the sense of stewardship they had for a given plot or area of land. Here, the in-between space thus serves as a motor for a healthy and vibrant community: local residents are proud to be in charge of the land around their home: it is land that they share with their neighbours and that is available for the whole community to use.

Back in the Netherlands, the students were able to test out their findings in the new town of Almere. How would the schemes they analysed in Ghana fit into this new environ-ment and in what ways would they be re-interpreted? Would the regulated inflexibility of the Dutch context limit the po-tential for spontaneity in the urban domain? Where to start? Currently, residents are required to submit a request for planting a tree, having a sheep in the backyard or building a shed, no matter how small it might be. This means that there is little scope for people doing anything without hav-ing to asking permission. So the students proposed asking the municipality to provide more freedom for citizens to ini-tiate projects, make decisions and do things for themselves.

The architect, the urban designer, the citizen and the public space Our public space is communal; it belongs to everyone. There is, then, a need to exert influence on this space and maintain it. As well as the citizen as initiator, producer or participant who wants to actively shape the surroundings, the architect and urban designer can also intervene within existing structures and play a key role in the alliances be-tween the stakeholders in urban design projects. But what is the best approach taking an issue put forward by resi-dents, policy makers or private parties and translating it into an urban strategy or design? How can one most effectively use the input from local people on developments in architec-ture and urban design, so that they can co-shape the future urban environment?

The participants in all these projects have a range of views on these issues. Veronika Kovacsova was most impressed by the strong opinions and visions of the young people of the favela in Heliopolis. Although they were accustomed to their living conditions and were shaped by them, they were at the same time amazingly responsive and engaged when it came to new designs and functions. She believes we should try to perceive the world through the eyes of this new generation. How might the input of these young people impact on the development of a future district?

Meritxell Blanco Diaz, who worked on the Anfield project, took on the role of architect-teacher as she advised and guided the group towards achieving their dreams of build-ing their homes. Blanco Diaz was fascinated by how people are able to plan their own home within a pre-set structure. This kind of activity could become reality, a sort of ‘free space’ that could help to form every responsible citizen. The project also questions existing power systems by breaking open existing structures for the benefit of the end user; as Jeanne van Heeswijk put it, ‘We take our surroundings for granted, but we shouldn’t: everything in it has been thought of and decided about by somebody.’4

As to the question of who should be responsible for the public space, one could argue that cities should be for the people, organised by the people and made with the peo-ple – preferably current or potential long-term residents. A framework, or storyboard, could be created to indicate what citizens are and are not allowed to do within their own com-munity. This structure would imply that they can actually do anything they want, because the ground is open for every-body to use. Your own backyard is the starting point: small plots could become a large public garden maintained by the citizens – the people. Is this realistic? Or is just idealistic, wishful thinking?

What are your rights and what are your duties as a city dweller and community member? Renowned activist urban planner Jane Jacobs believed that, in the end, people will do what is best for a city through their individual actions. And in 1915 the Scottish biologist and writer Patrick Geddes wrote that, ‘All planning should take account of three core issues: folk, work and place.’5

Thanks to the interviewees Veronika Kovacsova (Sao Paulo), Narda Beunders (Ghana/Almere), Meritxell Blanco Diaz (An-field), the students at Amsterdam’s Academy of Architec-ture, and Rogier van den Berg, head of Urban Design at the Academy of Architecture.

Karin Christof is a freelance researcher, curator and writer, developing art and architectural projects.

2. The Ghanascapes project is a collaboration between the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture and Ho Polytechnic, Ghana.

3. The results of the workshop were shown at the exhibition Ghana; An Organic Experience: Joe Osae Addo An Inno-Native Architect, 16 December to 10 March 2012 at the Casla cen-tre for architecture in Almere, the Netherlands.

4. BNG conference report, 5 November 2005.

5. Patrick Geddes, Cities in Evolution, 1915.

19

The school is a stimulating, evolving context. On visit-ing the AHK to work in 2011, I was delighted to discover a school that I felt to be very different from when I last taught there in 2007. In the intervening period, the school had hosted two AIRs, Nita Liem and Germaine Acogny, whose respective theatre and dance practices are intercultural. The success of these residencies inspired the setting up of a new intervention in the curriculum: The Multiple Body mod-ule, a space for the faculty, the students and visiting artists to reflect on de Theaterschool’s ongoing investigation into transcultural dance practices.

As a concept, ‘The Multiple Body’ emerges partly from the discourses on social cohesion that bring together ideas from transculturalism, interculturalism, and multiculturalism. The school has chosen to take a transculturalist approach. Un-like multiculturalism which can promote allegiances to past heritage by placing value on distinct cultures, transcultural-ism draws our focus to the present need for dialogue and ex-change. Interculturalist and transculturalist approaches both promote dialogue and exchange between cultures, and I feel the subtle distinction between them lies in their respective emphasis on process and outcome: interculturalism empha-sises the method and means by which dialogue is enabled between the participating cultures, while transculturalism emphasises the breaking down of boundaries between cul-tures to produce a new common culture.

Imagining the multiple bodyI imagine The Multiple Body to be one that can transcend, confound or confront limitations imposed by sociocultural realities or the gaze and perception of others. I imagine it to be a body – whether trained in a specific dance style or in an eclectic mix of dance styles – that can hold dialogues through dance. It is an intuitive body that loves dance and will find out how dance operates in a multiplicity of contexts – the social sphere, the theatre, the school – and under-stands how each dance form embodies aesthetics that rep-resent philosophical and cultural values, making them pow-

erful tools for communication, transformation and creating space. In short, it is a body that can ‘do things’ with dance. In view of this I envisage the Multiple Body module as a natural context in which to carry out dance projects rather than to take a traditional dance class, and a place for engag-ing with the dancing body’s role in society.

The multiple body in practiceWhilst teaching my course at de Theaterschool I realised that some of my tasks were not making any sense to the students. It was then that I enquired into the nature of the curriculum and was surprised to discover that it was not style based. This means the students do not have main dance style, such as modern dance, which they have thor-oughly mastered and into which they can assimilate aspects of other styles. The curriculum could thus be described as transcultural; the students are exposed to a range of dance forms and styles, and they receive training to become re-flective, creative and analytical. Each student effectively devises his or her own dance vocabulary and choreographic practice.

The failure of the workshop was an instructive and hum-bling reminder that in cross-cultural encounters one must be fully acquainted with the context and perspectives that are informing the various participants’ approaches to the activity. This experience did, however, bring home the use-fulness of understanding the principles of working in and across different genres or styles. In social contexts, people generally learn to dance through learning a specific style, whether this be Salsa or House. The eclectic training of the students at de Theaterschool means they are opened up to explore these encounters in different ways aesthetically and structurally and to create new processes and forms.

This opens up another potential area for investigation as part of the Multiple Body module: the relationship between structure and dance style. Dance artists working in intercul-tural ways tend to have a style-based approach. They create

Finding the multiple body By Funmi Adewole Kruczkowska

wider frames of reference for participants and audiences by mixing dance styles, because each dance style represents a culture, population group and/or value system. Some dance makers expand the framework of one dance form to incorpo-rate elements of others, while others apply the rules of one dance form to another. Still others create a new framework into which they draw elements from a variety of dances. Working with frameworks can be political, with the potential to trigger discussions around representation and its ethics.

The Multiple Body module could also be a place for stu-dents to work with a choreographer to investigate his or her relationship with community, theatre and education. Ad-ditionally, they could explore scenarios that might transpire during their professional careers and answer a variety of questions: in what form does marginalisation or social exclu-sion show up in classrooms or community settings? How might dance bridging gaps and broadening horizons? How might we facilitate the emergence of new identities and fos-ter self-expression?

Transcultural challengesOne of the challenges facing teachers at de Theaterschool is how to incorporate the ideas from the residencies into their practice. Teachers are generally involved in research-ing transculturalism primarily in relation to their own dance practice; at present, there is little opportunity for them to share ideas and develop a ‘faculty-wide’ perspective. For the students, the challenge is to ensure that they do not lose touch with the reason they are training in a non-style based curriculum and end up seeing their practice as simply an-other style.

Transcultural AIR legacyNita Liem’s and Germaine Acogny’s work provides a model of how engagement with a specific social context can in-spire an expanded vision. Nita Liem has a palpable engage-ment with Amsterdam as a culturally diverse metropolis, and many of her dancers come straight from the city’s clubs. Her productions feature journeys in which the dancers tell their stories through encounters with each other and the audience. Germaine Acogny’s technique bears witness to Africa’s emergence from colonisation. She has brought the qualities of African dance from the village to the city and onto the international stage. Drawing on modern and ballet structures and African dance movements, she has created a technique that focuses attention on the aesthetics of African dance forms creating a technique that transcends institutional contexts. As an outside observer, I believe that the legacies of Nita Liem’s and Germaine Acogny’s residencies will most likely be found in broad concepts in their practice. One aspect of Nita Liem’s work, for example, centres on how dancers connect with each other through rhythm. And Germaine Acogny’s technique is famous for its focus on the use of the spine. These two principles could form the basis of a variety of practical research projects.

The future of The Multiple BodyIt seems likely that The Multiple Body module will place transcultural practice centre stage and encourage expan-sion through encounters with other approaches. This will demand new ways of seeing and working but it is just the kind of intervention needed in these challenging times – times that demand we re-examine the interface between society and artistic practice.

Funmi Adewole Kruczkowska is a performing arts lecturer and dance researcher. Raised in Nigeria and based in England, her work focuses on African dance as a theatrical practice.

Funmi Adewole first visited de Theaterschool in Amsterdam in 2007 at the invitation of Nita Liem, who was AIR at the time. Since then she has returned to the school several times to develop new perspectives for intercultural dance education. Here, she offers her reflections on the situation in the school.

From top: Funmi Adewole Kruczkowska, Nita Liem, Germaine Acogny

21

If you are a creative producer, what is the best approach to engaging with an inspired artist? And how can you develop your own vision and define your own position in the process?

Last year, students from the Production and Stage Manage-ment course worked together with theatre maker and AIR Paul Koek. This time it was the turn of conductor and AIR Ed Spanjaard. It was another stage in the course’s ongoing research into the changing role of creative producers and stage managers in the cultural field.

During his residency at the school in the autumn of 2011, Spanjaard conducted Ravel’s Valses Nobles et Sentimentales as well as the more modern Déserts Varèse by Varèse. The subjects of these works were incorporated in workshops on costume, set design, video and sound. These culminated in Paradigmata, a theatrical installation. At the opening of the installation at de Theaterschool, Conservatorium student Wouter Bergenhuizen played Valses Nobles et Sentimen-tales on the piano. Sometime later, part of the installation was put on view at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, where Spanjaard conducted the orchestral version of the same piece.

Ed Spanjaard is one of the Netherlands’ greatest classical conductors. He studied piano and conducting in Amster-dam and London. His debut conducting the Concertgebouw orchestra was a remarkable success. Spanjaard has given many world premieres with the Nieuw Ensemble, and he is also involved in the Atlas Ensemble, which was formed by musicians from all over the globe. As an opera conductor, Ed Spanjaard has worked at the Dutch Opera, Amsterdam; the Opéra National de Lyon, the Nationale Reisopera, Enschede; Opera Zuid, Maastricht, and Opera in Ahoy, Rotterdam.

‘I see the central subject of inspiration as having a clear parallel with the work of Varèse, a composer who was ex-plicit in his engagement with the searching artist in himself.’Bart Visser, video workshop leader

‘Research? To me it’s more like a big sweet jar, or Obelix’ cauldron of magic potion – although it is one that you have to fill up yourself.’Barbara Westra, maquette and set workshop leader

‘Your hands, eyes and ears have now been opened by the workshops. This has been a key experience in your develop-ment as a professional.’Geert Oddens, audio workshop leader

Hosted by de Theaterschool2011-12

Ed Spanjaard

The art of creative passion

23

New spaces/ New bordersAnthony Heidweiller

In line with the Conservatorium van Amsterdam’s desire to expand the interdisciplinary and intercultural knowhow of its students and teaching staff, it invited Anthony Heid-weiller to become the school’s Artist in Residence and to initiate collaborative projects with other arts departments.In his project New spaces/New borders, Anthony Heid-weiller challenges teachers and students to reach out to a wider audience and to operate in a broader social context. A key component of his approach is the interdisciplinary collaboration between courses at de Theaterschool and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. They explored the relevance of his art practice to education throughout the academy.

About the projectFor New spaces/New borders, Anthony Heidweiller invited teachers from de Theaterschool and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam to form cross-faculty pairs and to enter into an exchange on their inspiration and their passion for their field and for education. One of the projects that emerged from this collaboration was run by Javier López Piñón and Richard Ayers. Their opera project examined specific char-acteristics of music theatre. Students entered each other’s territory and created five new seven-minute operas based on an interview with a chorister at the Dutch Opera. The operas were created in a collaborative project involving students of the Theatre Director’s department at de Theater-school, the Master of Music in Composition at the Conserva-torium van Amsterdam and the Dramaturgy Masters at the University of Amsterdam.The operas were performed at de Theaterschool‘s studios in Amsterdam and at Nationaal Toneel in The Hague by instrumentalists and singers from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.

About the artistsThe opera project was coordinated by Javier López Piñón, Richard Ayres and Anthony Heidweiller. Opera and stage director Javier López Piñón is Head of Drama at the Dutch National Opera Academy, the Opera Masters at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Composer Richard Ayres works with the ASKO Ensemble, the Schönberg Ensemble, the Ives Ensemble, the Orkest de Volharding and the Maarten Altena Ensemble. He teaches major courses at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.Anthony Heidweiller is a singer and opera director. He is the founder and artistic director of the International Yo! Opera festival and workshop in Utrecht. From 2010 to 2011, Heid-weiller was Artist in Residence at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and de Theaterschool.

Hosted by the Conservatorium van Amsterdam2010-11

25

From 2010 to 2011, singer and opera director Anthony Heidweiller was the AIR at the Conservatorium van Am-sterdam and de Theaterschool. The primary aim of his residency was to bring members of the teaching staff from a wide range of courses into con-tact to foster exchanges rooted in their individual art practices.

One of the plans realised in this period was the regeneration of the Director course’s opera project. Heidweiller invited opera and stage director Javier López Piñón to work together for the first time with composer Richard Ay-res. From the outset, López Piñón and Ayres took as the basis for their col-laboration the synergy between their individual interests and disciplines. In a similar way, the students from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and de Theaterschool were asked to share the entire artistic process with one another and to accompany each other all the way along the road from initial concept to final performance.

The restructured music theatre project has now earned itself a permanent place in the curriculum for both Direc-tion and Composition students. Javier López Piñón has also been able to expand his mission and is presently working with the Dutch National Op-era Academy on two new collabora-tions between the schools – the aim is to make combined music and theatre training an indispensable component in the students’ education.

What was your personal motiva-tion for initiating this collabora-tion between music and theatre students? And how do you relate to the different disciplines and their ideas about education?

Javier López Piñón (JLP): I already wanted to make opera, right from when I started out on my education as a stage director in 1975. But everybody thought that opera was in its last days: even Pierre Boulez declared opera dead. So there was no specialised cur-riculum and I had to organise every-thing I was interested in myself. Now, I often encounter directing students who have the ambition to at least in-clude opera and music theatre in their practice, if not totally specialise in it. So I’m very pleased that I can now help building a programme that I myself missed so much. The other development I see is that concerts are getting more and more theatrical, and contemporary forms of opera and music theatre have devel-oped further. Students should be en-couraged to think in terms of music as well as theatre within the framework of their education. I am fully aware that the process of arriving at music is to-tally different from the process of arriv-ing at theatre. And that’s the biggest challenge: when the two worlds meet – even in the organisation of our own project. We are inviting musicians to do something different from what they have been trained for. They are used to working very quickly, very efficiently, using the smallest amount of time to achieve the maximum result. Theatre is a very different thing. With theatre you start with nothing and then the process itself actually determines what kind of product will result from it. Bringing these different approaches, these modus operandi, together pre-sents the greatest risk in this project – and gives me the greatest joy.

Richard Ayres (AR): It’s true, usually a composition is finished before you put it in front of the performers and most composers are not involved in an extended collaboration where things

might change – even though opera or music theatre as a final product is a combination of many art forms. For me personally, the two perspec-tives of music and theatre are not so different from each other. I stud-ied technical theatre arts and stage management before I enrolled at the conservatory. I just didn’t know that composing was something one could study or do. Most of my work now is with opera, but most of my other pieces in the past twelve years have theatrical elements as well. These ex-periences of sitting in rehearsals have always remained very important to me. I try to combine all my past into what’s happening now, so I think I’m naturally interested in the theatre. In general, I think it’s very difficult to separate musical performance from theatre. Concert is theatre. You can’t get away from that. It’s fully embedded in theatrical rituals: the lights go out and you create theatre in your imagi-nation. It’s not literary theatre, but it is theatre.

So, what is the perspective for education in the situation you’re describing?

JLP: This ritualisation of the live con-cert and the whole idea of a symphony orchestra with a conductor belongs to the 19th century. It’s curious how noth-ing disappears: things only get added to the practice. One can still, even in Holland, witness a concert as if it was in the 19th century, with the same repertoire and the same habits. As an audience, we should be aware that we are taking part in a ritual or a specta-cle from another time. But why do we keep reproducing it? Parts of that herit-age are still valid, but it’s not the only possibility. In my opinion things have to change in a major way in order to acknowledge that there is much more

happening in the field.

RA: A conservatory is basically a school for modernist chamber music. We have no permanent orchestra. Anything theatrical – the lighting, the staging – is really hard to organise. Everything is set up against that. So people end up writing for small ensem-bles in a traditional concert hall. That is strange and worrying and almost alienating because I have nothing to do with that in my own work. I tend to see organisations outside the school resisting small-scale and traditional composition.At the moment, disciplines and depart-ments are so divided in the art school. It wouldn’t take so much to restructure that, but I think there is little ambition to offer another kind of environment to the students or to stimulate interschool projects.

JLP: There is a big difference between the educational cultures at the Con-servatorium and de Theaterschool. At the Conservatorium, the schooling is individualised, grouped around one in-strument. One student and one teacher get together in a room. Instrumental-ists are such highly trained individuals that it is very difficult to go beyond the existing educational system. But the attitude of singer students does seem to have changed over the last twenty years. In the beginning they resem-bled instrumentalists and focused only on their quality as a singer, but now students are equally ambitious about acting, moving, understanding, in-terpreting style and so on. They have to if they want to be competitive, be-cause the norm for singers has become outrageously complicated and very high-standard. At de Theaterschool, collaboration is essential. Especially stage directors have to look at all the different aspects of making theatre and blend them into one thing.

RA: Another struggle is that 99 per cent of the education of student-composers is hearing their own music, but in a school situation it’s really hard to get players to play their music, let alone to get a ten-piece chamber en-semble together. There isn’t enough structure to solve that problem: dedi-cated time with a student orchestra, for example, or study points given to players to encourage them to join in with this kind of project. If we had just had three hours a year with an orches-tra so that six composers could hear their work for half an hour, it would change their lives and expand their education tremendously. For instrumentalists, too, it’s a valuable experience to collaborate and to work in different contexts. There are about 100 violin and woodwind players in the school and I doubt if they’re all going

to be good enough for the Concert-gebouw. Instrumentalists have to be flexible – just like singers, actors and directors. But in order to open up their experience, you would need to include teachers from other backgrounds, from other instrumental practices. At present, the Conservatorium mainly focuses on people who play in an or-chestra teaching other people to play in an orchestra.

How did you translate these concerns into a single pro-ject and what were the chal-lenges?

JLP: The framing of our project was actually dictated by the fact that it is a theatre project. On the one hand, we wanted to foster the musicality of stage directors because music is such an essential tool for their work. On the other hand, we wanted to initiate a new kind of collaboration between directors and composers: two groups of artists who are used to taking the lead in artistic processes. We asked stage directors and compos-ers to find common ground and to work out a shared concept, and at the same time we restricted the parameters al-most beyond acceptability: one singer, one instrument, and seven minutes maximum. The inspiration for the piece was an interview with a singer from the choir of the Netherlands Op-era about his career. The whole point is for students to cre-ate a starting point together that is different from their normal practice. Now they are really having to com-municate. We hope the opera project has given them a huge boost in firing their curiosity about using other tools and approaches. My understanding of the genre we are dealing with here is much larger than only music theatre or opera. I see stage directing in this con-text as composing in time and space.

RA: I think composition students will realise that the finished product that comes out of a process such as this isn’t just about them. It’s truly about a group of people working together. In a way, the music becomes functional: it serves the production. It could also help them to make music for film for instance, or for dance; they discover the functional aspect of making music. Also, the principle of getting out there and finding a theme in real people’s stories was challenging. Music can be very enclosed in its own little ritual; this is a step towards getting it beyond the concert hall and getting composers talking to people and thinking of music representing something or conveying a message.JLP: As a teacher and facilitator in this project, I am first of all trying to break down the prejudices that both

stage directors and composers have. And then I’m helping them to ask each other the right questions, because they don’t yet understand each other’s language. So it’s my responsibility to mediate and to talk drama to the composers and music to the directors. Finally I’ve witnessed stage directors accepting the space that composers need to take.

RA: That’s exactly what impressed me too. In the five final opera works that we performed in Amsterdam and The Hague, I actually saw composers direct and directors compose and I’m not sure anymore what the difference is between listening to a concert or watching a concert, or between listen-ing to a theatre piece or seeing a thea-tre piece.

What feedback did the students give, and what is the long-term perspective of an initiative like this?

JLP: Musically speaking, the most dif-ficult thing to address in this context is the classical singing voice. A lot of composers are actually not willing to use classically trained operatic voices because they seem very artificial to them. Ninety per cent of the music surrounding us has amplified voices and it’s become hard for composers to imagine singing without microphones. So, what kind of opera will young di-rectors and composers conceive for the future? Will they keep hanging on to the classical operatic voice? That’s a big issue.

RA: I think things have changed al-ready. Classically trained singers can also sing musicals and pop songs. Everything was so divided between light music, which is amplified, and classical, which isn’t. Now it’s all get-ting more mixed up. People come from a variety of backgrounds. The classical voice can be very versatile: they can sing very softly, with and without a microphone. So I’d hope that a trained singer would be able to sing in many different ways, and that singing train-ing becomes a technical thing, rather than a matter of exclusive styles.

JLP: The stage directors felt pretty un-certain about their performance: they felt they couldn’t judge it from their usual frame of reference. They were asking themselves whether it was a good piece, whether it was really valid. It would be helpful for them if stage di-rectors and composers could find each other more easily.

RA: The student composers have been very enthusiastic about creating some-thing other than concerts, but it’s not easy for them to carry collaborations on.

Expanding the modus operandi

Richard Ayres and Javier López Piñón in conversation about their cross-faculty music theatre project.

Interview by Marijke Hoogenboom

27

What’s in the AIR?

Follow us on www.air.ahk.nl

In the next issue of ON AIR, which will will appear in autumn 2012, we’ll be taking an in-depth look at AIR Eboman’s remix culture project and the work of the Academy of Architecture’s AIR Studio Makkink & Bey on their field-works site-specific project in the North-East Polder.

The school is very demanding and they have to be very strong in order to do something unusual. What’s frightening for them is that in this kind of project you’re not entirely in control. If we were to pitch this project as an experiment that you’re allowed to screw up, maybe that would reduce the pressure at the end when it comes to an audience watching.

JLP: Last year we said this was a project for the right side of the brain, for training your intuition, for making choices you can’t yet articulate.

RA: For me it would be important to stretch out this process so that every composer has practical experience in the theatre and gets introduced into the theatrical theory, gets to see pro-ductions and gets involved in collabo-rative processes over a longer period of time. If we keep everything so compartmen-talised in the school, I’m afraid we’ll not be educating them for the real situ-ation. Strangely enough, there’s more time, more openness and more creativ-ity in the professional world outside the conservatory. In opera as well as in the theatre, everything is set up to be crea-tive and everyone is working towards one thing. JLP: That’s why I’m advocating an ongoing programme. Our opera project is a starting point, but of course I’m en-visioning more continuity throughout the curriculums. One example might be an introduction to theatre history for composition students, right at the beginning of their study. The same goes for directing students: this year I’ve already been challenging them to develop their musical tastes. I’m ask-ing them to think about the presence of music in their lives, in all the differ-ent contexts in which music is used. I’m encouraging them to tap into their own experiences with music and to find a vocabulary to exchange with composers.My goal is to realise contemporary productions more often with the Dutch National Opera Academy where we can include an orchestra and an en-semble of singers. The Opera Academy always wanted to do new work by student composers as well, and next season we’ll actually be able to achieve that for the first time.

Marijke Hoogenboom is professor at the Amsterdam School of the Arts and chair of the Art Practice and Develop-ment research group.

AIR in the worldThe book Zij aan zij, rug aan rug – produceren in de podiumkunsten was produced in collaboration with AIR Paul Koek. It was launched at De Balie in Amsterdam as part of a public debate with Adriana Esmeijer, Kees Debets, Rachel Feuchtwang and Adelheid Roosen. Working with the entire SNDO student body, Benoît Lachambre presented the four-hour group performance 37 Solo’s/Snake Charmers’ Ball at the Something Raw festival in Brakke Grond and Frascati theatre Amsterdam. And an adapted version NIGHTWALKERS was performed at Springdance festival. The theatrical installation inspired by AIR Ed Spanjaard and made by the Production and Stage Management course was open to the public at de Theaterschool. Ed Spanjaard conducted the Conservatorium van Amster-dam Symphony Orchestra.

AIR and research ARTI research group produces the RTRSRCH periodical under the auspices of the Art Practice and Development research group. This publication serves as an open platform for ARTI artistic researchers’ projects, exploring their themes, processes and outcomes. Each issue is the product of a new combi-nation of editor, content, format and method of distribution.Karen Lancel and Hermen Maat compiled RTRSRCH Vol 3 No 2: Tele_Trust 10 Steps to Create Your Own Networking Body, which is also the title of their transdisciplinary research project that explores new parameters for on-line trust.RTRSRCH Vol. 4 No 1: Hospitality is Not a Home was put together in col-laboration with nine Film Masters students who for a period of six months explored the theme of hospitality.

AIR in the futureSample and remix artist Eboman is joining the school for an intense project as AIR, working together with students and teachers at the Academy of Fine Art in Education and the Bachelor of Music in Education department at the Conservatorium. Over the course of one week the students will experi-ment with remixing self-made and found image and sound material. These experiments culminate in two performances. Eboman follows Terry Barrett as AIR at the Academy of Fine Art in Education – Barrett was AIR there from 2009 to 2010.Studio Makkink & Bey will be joining the AHK as AIRs at the master for Landscape Architecture at the Academy of Architecture. De Theaterschool, the Netherlands Film and Television Academy and the Reinwardt Academy have all announced new AIR initiatives.

Academy of Architecture Adriaan

Beukers / Ed van Hinte, Erik Kessels, Jeroen Kooijmans, Krisztina de Châtel, Luc Deleu, Paul

Shepheard, Studio Makkink & Bey Academy of Fine Art in Education Eboman, Terry Barrett Conservatori-

um van Amsterdam Bart Schneemann, Joël Bons, John Clayton Interfaculty Pierre Audi Netherlands Film

and Television Academy Horst Rickels, Peter Delpeut de Theaterschool Ann Liv Young, Deborah Hay, Emio Greco | PC, Germaine Acogny, LISA, Maaike Bleeker,

Nita Liem, Paul Koek, Steve Paxton