Critical Correspondence

Taoufiq Izzediou in conversation with Katie Baer Schetlick

Katie Baer Schetlick interviews Moroccan choreographer Taoufiq Izzediou in Ramallah, Palestine during the Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival. This is the first in a series of interviews initiated by Schetlick documenting her experience at the festival. The conversation has been “re-choreographed” from a mixture of French, Arabic and English and a few moments of the untranslatable.  For more information about dance in Ramallah, please visit www.foundmovements.com.

Interview date: May 1, 2011

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Katie Baer Schetlick: I could just start by asking, because I have only recently been introduced to your work, about the development of the solo piece, Aléef, that you will be presenting as part of the Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival.

Taoufiq Izzediou: For me I play one male.

Katie: Just you.

Taoufiq: Yes.

Katie: Where is the material sourced from?

Taoufiq: Because it has been ten years since I have given a solo. For ten years I just made pieces for a group; in Europe 40 dancers,10 dancers. But now I need to work on a solo because I think it is a moment that is very difficult for me–about dance, about questions of dance, about what I want to do now. What about the material of dance? I think the solo for me is like–what about identity? What is identity, my identity? Because I am Moroccan but Moroccan is Berber, Arab, African, Mediterranean and well it’s a lot of things. I have questions about my color in Morocco and because I don’t agree with a lot of things about contemporary dance now in Europe, in Arabic countries, in Africa. I don’t agree with the manner, with the…

Katie: With the training?

Taoufiq: With creation and training because together they are similar. The trainer gives creation maybe and the creator tries to train. I don’t agree with trainer and creation.

Katie: When you made your pieces on other bodies in the past in Europe, what was your process? Did the dancers provide most of the material?

Taoufiq: I worked with them, with their problems with their body, with their difficulty with their own body. I ask questions because they need some time to give questions and answers about life, about the world, about relations, about culture, about tradition. Some questions are very hard for a young body, for a younger human. I work with them; it’s like training and creation. I don’t need to erase all of their past. I want to construct with these things. It is not a problem, it is rich. I work with that, with questions, with their questions. I work with what they believe and I give questions about the future, just questions: What about this and these things? And what about other things? And we talk and we take time, we improvise.

Katie: It sounds like an endless research project, improvisations that just beg more questions without the hope for an answer?

Taoufiq: Yes, a lot of questions and the person’s reactions about today for themself. It is about being open and how much is open for these questions. It is very easy to tell a dancer in Europe what I want, but for me it is very important to work and to give work for people in my country or this country. For me it is not good to continue to just give some choreography, for some professional from outside to come in and give me what he wants to do. Like this bottle (grabs water bottle) go by there, no this is the reality go by there, no. We have to work with the people from there. There is no problem to give some regard to exterior. No problem, this is very good. I think outside should have savior faire. We have to look now, we have to create our manner for the training of dance today. Because I don’t think what we do is contemporary dance. It is not contemporary dance for me. In French I call what I want to do “dance du jour” because I don’t want to do “contemporary.” Because we know the story of contemporary dance, for me this is not a continuation. It is does not require the same techniques.  It requires different techniques.

Katie: In New York as well there is a lot of trouble with the word contemporary dance and post modern, downtown dance too. With these terms we seem to be getting trapped because once you are associated with those words people expect to see certain things, certain troupes. But don’t you still need to have some sort of name for what you do or it disappears, you know, or some explanation? It’s a super delicate balance, no doubt… At your school in Morocco what is the curriculum or the structure like?

Taoufiq: In 2003 I gave the first training session in Morocco, but I don’t have a lot of experience with training and I tried to give new things. But finally I just gave something simple because I invite everybody, “dancers” and people from Morocco. But for me the question is what is the new interpretation of dance? This is my new central question.

Katie: I noticed in the program notes for Aléef you ask, “What is your dance?” “What is my dance?” and so this issue of ownership seems to arise again, which is very interesting in the context of bodies especially in places like this. Traditional dance is obviously important for them to keep, have and continue, maintain. But then there also should also be a place for you to keep it and have it in your own way. Like any place, environment, the people share certain things but not their entire history. How do you provide breathing room?

Taoufiq: Yes, after the first training in 2005 finished I took time to think about training. I looked, I observed in Tunisia, Egypt, Europe. Now I have a new idea but I don’t know if it’s very good but I have to try, essayer, to try. And I look. The idea is to work–it is like a module. Chapters. Every chapter is 2 months. What we have to do in 2 months–to think, to invite people from outside Morocco: Japan, Palestine, United States but the person or pedagogy is open and he/she gives questions all the time. He/she doesn’t just transmit. No, he/she is open to adventure.

Katie: To take in instead of imposing? How does this teaching/learning process work?

Taoufiq: The person comes for 5 weeks. The first week we choose the traditional form like Gnawa, Whirling Dervish, Vodun–the “old” practice. This practice may be religious, may be traditional. We have one week with me, the students and the people that come to talk: what is the idea, what is the information they have? What does that book say, what does that movie give? We work and everybody prepares questions. The 2nd week we go together to the site of the style/form/dance. In the 2nd week, all the students go to the “mecca” of the style. More questions, answers and we practice it with them, with them but intelligently. He/she doesn’t give anything, we all just eat. In the 3rd week the students give their version (understanding) of what they ate. For example Gwana is trace, so what about trance, his/her vision of trance. Does he/she need to continue it in the same way? And we, the students have two observers from the shared the style/form. Sometimes they talk about what they see. Sometimes they look. What happens in the development, the transformation? What do they think works, what did we forget, do they see something interesting?

Katie: So they see their own style in a different way and maybe see things they didn’t know about it?

Taoufiq: Yes we look, look, look and in the 4th week try to create it.

Katie: Create something new?

Taoufiq: Yes or not. And the 5th week–digestion. Just to let it stay there, sit at a café to decide with the other how we continue, where does it all take us?

Katie: Kind of like deciding what aspects of their form are pertinent to your own personal history/practice? So none of it is about performance? It’s more like an anthropological study but with the body? You aren’t making something to just put on a stage. You are just consuming things?

Taoufiq: Yes, consuming dance. And if we can give some things, ok. But if we cannot, maybe after, or not. But with these things I think we talk about traditional and we talk about contemporary dance. We talk about changing the manner of professional and student. The professional also is a student. He doesn’t just come with the eyes and give me his dance and go and then another comes and duh duh and ciao. No. For me it is interesting to look. What did you see? Me, I don’t see. What did you think? Me, I didn’t forget. This is the exchange. And at the same time it not just to talk about Gnawa with a grand big title. No I look.

Katie: You seem to want to get underneath and underneath again.

Taoufiq: Yes, yes. And either open it to a new project or maybe people are interested about these things and give a creation with others about this certain element that intrigues them.

Katie: Is it about putting it in a larger context to understand the context and function, how it fits in the world?

Taoufiq: Yes and to create a Pong between. Because I don’t believe in just traditional, or just abstract, no. I believe what about today, now. Because like here, now we didn’t leave our other things behind, we are talking French, English, Arabic.

Katie: Yes, we are trying to make sense of this all. Dealing with reality now what we have right now. You are right even our languages, the material, and how we are trying to make sense out of this conversation.

Taoufiq: And for me it is about self, it is important. Not to forget you. All of this is you. We have to cruise, go inside and make open to world.

Katie: Yeah, it’s in between like that performance we just saw. The thing I just loved was the kids performing Debke in their colorful converse. I think a lot of people fear that, but they don’t cancel out one another, really they feed each other, no? How did you find dance then? Were you looking for something for these ideas you had about identity. Or did you know dance and thought it opened up a place for these questions? How did you choose dance to answer these questions?

Taoufiq: Why did I choose dance?

Katie: Yeah like, why not math?

Taufiq: Today, I think the dance chose me. When I was young I was active. I was a boxer. I did theater, but I don’t believe just to talk to talk and talk because before we didn’t have contemporary theater. I know I had a good voice but … When I was 15 years old I liked very much Michael Jackson, modern dance. I liked very much the movie Fame. Mix between sport and rhythm–you just need to work the motion. During four years of training, modern and classical, I discovered that didn’t like classical. The day of classical I wouldn’t go and I would get punished, have to work additional one hour. At the same time I studied architecture and one day there was a French choreographer of contemporary dance, “what is that?” I went. It was between theater, dance, voice, space and for me, there is theater, there is dance, there is architecture of space and all of these things. I have all of these things.

Katie: Poetry.

Taoufiq: Yes, ahh. I tried to learn to look one trainer one week in one year, for me it was very interesting. I went to the French Institute in Marrakesh. I went to one woman who works for the culture and she said “What you want, I’ll give you.” “I want to try this.” and so I stayed in Morocco and they brought in three people with different training. First, I began like this with contemporary dance. After that I got to work with a professional dance company in France. Then I got to work at Choreographic Centre National of Dance and I just breathed it all in (takes a deep long breath in). Little by little I developed my reflection about this because I am in between Morocco and France–this is not the same culture in Morocco. I don’t give performances, we don’t really have anything, company, festival, or trainers. In France there are a lot of things about dance everyday–new things, good things, and bad things.

Katie: (laughs) Yes, New York too. Oversaturated, sort of loses it’s purpose sometimes.

Taoufiq: In Morocco there is nothing. Well not nothing but I have to work there. This country needs it. But France, too much. What about training, what is training? What about a festival, what does it mean, festival? Think about what does it mean in Morocco in an Arabic country. It is not French it is not American. It is Arabic and all these things are good for reflection.

Katie: The festival that you have started in Marrakesh how is it structured differently?

– Taoufiq goes on to reveal undisclosed details for next festival in Marrakesh –

 

Katie: So it continues with the “dance du jour” idea.

Taoufiq: And at the same time–And to simply erase the differences between the old generation and the new generation style. We are all artists now, maybe we simply dance together.

Katie: Right, sounds it’s like about the artists’ bodies in the moment. Because dance can become very imperialistic, I’m going to come and bring my dance to you and show you how it is done. And same with training it’s like colonizing a body at least that’s how I see it sometimes and it can be frightening. This is why I very much appreciated your workshop the other day. Because like you said we all have different bodies different questions, different histories and so to impose a movement on some one, especially here it is kind of like who are you to come in and tell me how to move my own body or what things “should” look like.

Taoufiq: What about the place of the individual in the family? This is another question because all the time we are together. What do we have to do if the individual is strong in the community, why not?

Katie: Yes, exactly why the revolutions have been some interesting especially watching them from here.

Taoufiq: Yes, very interesting.

The voice of an individual…

(And this is when the conversation diverges)