Modul-dance experience. By Emma-Cecilia Ajanki from The Mob

[modul-dance]

Modul-dance offers selected dance artists the time, space and economic structure to develop their work. Modul-dance has decided that the creative processes they encourage artists to embark on consists of four chapters; research, residency, production and last presentation. Each chapter with it’s own structure and economics surrounding them.

I didn’t get to do all modules within modul-dance, but none the less, I kept the form that was suggested to me to create within. The piece The Mob developed through modul-dance is called BABY IT’S YOU NOT ME. Having only premiered the piece less than a month ago, I will try to sit here and contemplate my experiences.

Trailer for Baby it's you not me from The Mob on Vimeo.

Since modul-dance has been in my life since spring 2012, I start to think; which one of all the million feelings and thoughts I’ve had in the last two and half years do I want to write about? Professional life: opportunities to work and get to places and meet people I haven’t met before, laughing, crying, work in new contexts. Private life: travelling, eating food I’m not used to eating, breathing unfamiliar air, missing home, laughing, crying, making love, missing my bed and friends + having loads of Skype dates.

How did I experience being a part of modul-dance?
What is my life now?
What was it before modul-dance?
Did modul-dance shape the piece I developed?

I will use the module titles suggested by modul-dance below to represent a timeline and map of fragments of my mind from summer 2012 to the present.

I wrote within these suggested modules to guide both me and you through this brief attempt to write about creating BABY IT’S ME NOT YOU, modul-dance, life and dancing.

Ok, lets go!

1. Research
MONSTER AND THE MONSTROUS. A big unknown. Stockholm, Poznań, Maribor.
New collaborators. Black metal. The monstrosity of the norm. The SHADOWS of our minds. What we can’t speak about. THE WHITE MALE = SCARY! Christianity really made things complicated for our bodies and us.

2. Residency
Let’s embody all the above-mentioned Lyon, Dresden! We have so many answers to all our questions now! Lets make make make play play play. Gold is a fancy colour.

3. Production
What the f**k am I doing? Copenhagen. What is monstrosity anyways? And who thought it was a good idea to do a dance performance based on that anyways? Oh my goddess! This is brilliant. I’m nervous now. I feel like puking. Everyone else in the team is awesome. Nobody understands me.
MONSTER MONSTER MONSTER.

4. Presentation
Are you a monster?
Is it in your nature to never succeed?
Do you have difficulties communicating with others?
Is your form constantly changing?
Is it true that you live in the shadows?

BABY IT’S YOU NOT ME is a search for the monster, a performance that materializes on stage, in the imagination of the audience and in the exchange between those two. Through an exploration of recognizable movements and inundating live music, the choreography and performance structures dissect the qualities and aspects of monsters and the monstrous. The audience is thus invited to spend some time with the undefinable and the nameless.

BABY IT’S YOU NOT ME is also a concert. In a simple, blunt yet playful way it unfolds through speech, dance and music that stays short of expectations.

Functioning as a fluent symbiotic trio, performers Emma-Cecilia Ajanki and Piet Gitz-Johansen along with saxophone player Otis Sandsjö move through elements of sound, light and body in a way that affects, confuses and blurs the experience of the audience.