On 30 January, choreographer Erik Kaiel was presented with the prestigious Victor Award at IPAY, an international youth theatre fair in Canada, for his performance Tetris. "It's a kind of Buchmesse for youth theatre. If you get picked up there, you go around the world" says Kaiel. Kaiel (1973) has been working in the Netherlands since 2003 and has so far produced his work with Korzo, AYA, DOX and De Dansers and youth theatre festival Tweetakt.
During IPAY hundreds of international producers, agents, programmers and youth theatre makers gather in Montreal every year. Together with local audiences, the professionals flown in from all over the world watch all the performances. Everyone gives points and whoever gets the most points wins. This year Tetris Of Kaiel and his group Arch8 first. Last year Youth Theatre Kwatta came second, the year before Kwatta won with the performance Mouse. Previously, performances by Huis aan de Amstel and Speeltheater Holland won. Never before has a dance performance received this prestigious youth theatre award.
Totally engrossed in writing his first four-year grant application to the Fund, Kaiel finds some time to explain his international career, "as an artist in exile" as he calls it himself. Because in the Netherlands, it has so far been impossible to set up an independent working structure.
What does it mean to you to win this prize now?
It means that I will give even more performances abroad and with that income I can give my group Arch8 a stable base. So that I no longer have to organise my work from the laptop on the kitchen table, as I did until now. And it means that even more children worldwide will see our performances. Of course, you never know exactly what it will do to your audience, but I really think it is very important to introduce children to creativity and imagination in a playful way. You hope it will ignite them.
Never before has a dance performance won the Victor Award. What did you do to make that difference?
I think it comes from the way we transfer creativity to the audience in the performance. We start on stage, but then the performance moves to the auditorium while dancing and then we invite the audience to join us on stage. The audience very quickly picks up the choreographic principles of Tetris on. At first they imitate it, but then they take it up themselves. Often the children get so absorbed in the game that they don't realise that the dancers have snuck out. In Montreal, too, it ended with the dancers sitting in the auditorium and the stage filled with children trying out all sorts of things. Insane. A form of co-creation that I really love. Tetris is so more than just an ordinary performance.
Tetris is about belonging, fitting in or being yourself. And I very deliberately reverse the proportions, turning a video game back into a game in the theatre. Instead of passively gaming, the performance encourages children to get out of their seats and make up their own game rules. "Dont obey, imaginatively play!"
The price will make you tour abroad even more. Is that compatible with a family and a better half with at least as busy a job?
I like to see a lot of the world, but the truth is that in the Netherlands it has not been possible to release my work independently until now. Budget cuts have meant that only existing companies can survive. There are lots of performances of my work in the Netherlands every year, guest choreographing with groups like Aya or De Dansers, who once produced the first version of Tetris. You can charge very little money for youth performances. Without subsidies, you can't compete with subsidised companies, unless you want to underpay your dancers outrageously. So I was forced to enter the international market, which is a nice challenge by the way: only very strong work gets through. The fact is that the current subsidy system very rarely admits new players. I have underpaid myself for 20 years now, which went because my wife has a good job, but underpaying dancers I refuse.
An independent grant for Arch8 means I don't have to spend all my energy organising money, management and production. I can finally concentrate on content, play a role artistically and socially. The current system does not reward artists, not creators. Even if you deliver world-class work, all the credits go to the middlemen, those who release your work.
How is it coming home? What is the state of youth dance and theatre in the Netherlands?
The cuts to the performing arts have brought with them a certain fear, a conservative mindset, and not just in youth theatre. Across the arts, conservative tendencies are winning out over bravado. While risk-taking is at the heart of artistry and art that needs leeway to move forward. There are still a lot of good performances and dedicated people working, but the system as a whole functions less openly, is conservative. On the other hand, there is something to be gained from working together so much. People appreciate each other more, and try to take the changes as an opportunity to share expertise and experience, a bright spot in other words. Of course, I have a global and a local perspective. It is really important for me to work with the Dutch field, to build relevance there too, to engage with Dutch youth.
Your work often deals with very concrete mechanisms of movement. Even Tetris shows a kind of hands-on composing to the audience. Why is that transparency so important?
I try to make a kind of wordless dance theatre. I would like my work to be of value to everyone who walks into the theatre, whether that is a child or young person coming for the first time or someone who has been going to performances for years. Both deserve respect and I want them both to derive satisfaction from their theatre visits. Furthermore, I like to achieve maximum effect with minimal means. The more it comes from the movement alone, the better. And preferably in all possible places, indoors and outdoors, in the auditorium and on stage. And I think it is important that the performer does not come first, that the work speaks for itself. It is not the experience of the dancers that is central, but that of the spectator.
Work by Erik Kaiel can be seen during Tweetakt festival in Utrecht, for further performance dates, see website Arch8
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