Joop Oonk (27) creates dance performances with the Misiconi Dance Company, but not of a standard kind. She also calls it inclusion dance. Dancing with wheelchairs, for example, and then doing it in public spaces. Time for a conversation with this extraordinary choreographer.
Fortunately, you don't have to be an art barbarian not to know the word inclusion dance. Joop Oonk Choreographer, artistic director and founder of Misiconi Dance Company explains: 'I work with dancers with and without mental or physical disabilities. In our new dance #storyteller, much of the piece consists of a duet between a wheelchair user and someone who is 'just' healthy.' What is also interesting about her way of working is that Oonk works in different outdoor locations.
Location dance
The location this time is Amsterdam's Haarlemmerplein. She lives nearby and often sits down there for a while. So too a few minutes before the start of the interview. She is busy talking to a fellow bench sitter at the square, who is there smoking a joint and recuperating from walking the dog. 'When you cycle in from Haarlemmerdijk, you see the Haarlemmerpoort looming. To me, that is already an inspiring building with a lot of history. In summer, children play around the fountains and many people cycle around here. The droplets now hang in the trees here, which I find a pleasant sight. Here the clamour of tourists stops and people from the neighbourhoods around gather to do shopping or sit for a while,' Oonk explains.
The choreographer gets inspired by space. She also asks this of her dancers. 'Before we start a dance, I ask my company if they want to take a break from the journey. Breathe in the place and see where you are. The dances are experimental and modern, sometimes incorporating an animalistic way of moving. The location then greatly influences the mood of the dance. The surroundings can cooperate or counteract. You need some time to get a good feel for the surroundings.'
Dancing with a wheelchair
Jacqueline van Kuilenburg (37) one of the dancers in the company, can tell more about that. She is a wheelchair user says: "Dancing on location is completely different from dancing in a studio. In a studio, the floor is level, but when you dance outdoors, of course, it's not always like that. If the floor is uneven, I sometimes move faster than I had practised, suddenly get stuck or come to a halt too soon. I have a wheelchair with rather thin wheels, which can get stuck in a ledge, for example.'
Van Kuilenburg has Ehlers-Danloss syndrome, a rare connective tissue disorder. Put simply, it means the joints are not held together properly. 'I can basically do anything, but I can't keep it up for long. So I can walk for a while, but I get tired quickly. The wheelchair allows me to rest for a while. She joined the company through a Facebook call: 'I went to the open day and then participated in a workshop. There is no patronising attitude at Misiconi, the same commitment is expected from everyone whether you studied or didn't finish high school. The interesting thing about location theatre is that it becomes a different dance each time. What the idea or the story behind it is is up to the spectator.'
The crazy thing is that this form of inclusion dance did not yet exist in the Netherlands. Oonk started the initiative for a number of different reasons: 'I did my masters in London, but there was only one practical class. There I danced with young people with a disability and I felt then, and have been feeling more and more, that this suits me very much. Someone I really appreciated in the profession said to me, "Joop, you don't need money for a performance, the world is your stage."
Hierarchical dance world
'Furthermore, the dance world often has something hierarchical about it. You have to deal with egos, are busy with your body all the time. That continuous focus on yourself can cause people to become very centred on their own self. When I was a student, I once submitted an assignment where only feet were filmed, but it was not approved because it would not be a dance. Perhaps this is also a backlash against the dance world's old-fashioned focus on the whole body. Why couldn't feet alone also be a dance? Surely dancing in your chair can also be dancing? A dancer and wheelchair user friend sometimes crawled out of his wheelchair while dancing. I found that impressive. That's how you use dance, movement and your surroundings very differently. That inspired me to work in this way.'
The dance is created in consultation with the whole company. Oonk says: "You know those fridge poems? Those magnets where you can make different phrases out of different words. That's how this dance started. We also use sounds we hear when we are doing choreography. Two people with Down Syndrome came up with the idea of using an aeroplane when the doors of our studio were open.'
'I like seeing people respond to what we do. We dance in normal clothes, it might be similar to a flash mob. We engage with the audience, online but also on location. People often come up to us after we dance to ask questions. We also ask people to comment online via our hashtag #storyteller.'
See what inclusion dance looks like? 19 March, Misiconi Company can be seen dancing #storyteller at Haarlemmerplein in Amsterdam. They will dance twice, at 13:00 and 14:00. You can comment on the dance via the instagram account with #misiconistoryteller. More info www.misiconidance.nl
All photos used courtesy of Piet Hermans. This article appeared earlier this month in The Heart of the City.
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