Episode 1. Jumping through time. Transmitting THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER

THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER, by Jan Martens, premiered in 2014. Now, 11 years later, this complex and exhausting choreography has returned to the stage as THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER 2.0.

During the final month of rehearsals before the premiere, we went into the studio to meet the people behind this revival. We hear what it takes to pass on this highly demanding work - from the new cast of dancers, to rehearsal directors who were members of the original cast, to health professionals providing physical support and Jan Martens himself. What is it like to shift from being on-stage as a dancer to off-stage as a transmitter? How do the dancers manage their energy in these final intensive rehearsals? What has been learnt from the time of the creation and first years of touring that can be built on this time? 

Sound featured in the episode: Field recordings by Katharina Smets — Theme music composed by Inne Eysermans.
Voices of: Jan Martens, Steven Michel, Naomi Gibson, Elisha Mercelina, Dan Mussett, Jim Buskens, Stijn Vandenbroucke, Loes Meulemans. 

Interviews: Katharina Smets 

Narration: Tessa Hall

Transcript

You could say that dance is ephemeral. That it’s performed in the present and then gone. That the only way to know it, is to experience it, live.

So how can a live artform like dance survive across time? How can we experience choreographies from the past, the same way we can experience paintings in a museum? How would that happen? Especially if the object is movement, not something tangible like stone or canvas. 

To keep dance alive, it needs to be transmitted from body to body, audience to audience. 

Choreographies from the past, revived, and performed in the present—this is what we call 'repertory', and it’s a way of keeping dance alive and connecting us to dance heritage.

But the practice of doing repertoire isn’t always obvious. There are many ways to pass on a work through time and many questions to face. 

Welcome to Body of Work — a podcast that explores the question of ‘doing’ dance heritage. This is a podcast by STUK, House for Dance, Image and Sound, in the city of Leuven. My name is Tessa Hall. I’m a dancer myself and also a dance heritage researcher.  

At STUK, we’ve been researching the heritage of the contemporary dance scene in Flanders, and with this series we’ll share that with you. To do that, we’ll meet all kinds of dance practitioners who’ve been working in the field of repertory. 

The Dog Days Are Over by Jan Martens premiered back in 2014. In 2025, 11 years later, this piece was brought back to the stage. This is The Dog Days Are Over 2.0. We were recording this process during the final month leading up to the world premiere in Lyon and the Dutch premiere in Rotterdam. 

Jan Martens: I'm Jan Martens, choreographer of The Dog Days Are Over, a piece I made back in 2014 and which we are now bringing back with a completely new cast. We are now working our second week in the studios of the Ballet of Flanders Opera Ballet Vlaanderen. And they have been working super hard. And I think today was also the first day we kind of did a run. So I think today they, they, for the first time had a bit of feeling like, okay, this is what it's all about.

No, it's very nice to, to to. Yeah. To see how this piece still works after 12 years later. It's super nice.

VO: Here in the dance studio, The Dog Days Are Over 2.0 is coming along. But what’s it all about? 

Jan Martens: A dancer is always learned to not show how difficult or how challenging something is. You know, like in ballet, they smile while they're dying. So I thought I wanted to do something with that, with making something so challenging that it would be impossible to hide that challenge or the difficulty. And I wanted that to be like a physical challenge, but also a mental challenge. And then I thought about jumping and counts, and that started to become a thing, especially after I saw … dived into the work of Philippe Halsman, the photographer who's known for his pictures of famous people jumping in the 50s.

He made, like a lot of covers for Life magazine, and the pictures were inspiring. But there was a quote which was more inspiring, in which he said, like, "if you ask a person to jump, the mask falls and the real person appears". I found it an interesting quote. Like, later when I read more interviews with him, he talked, for example, about Marilyn Monroe. The portrait he shot of her is very beautiful. She's smiling, but her fists are clenched to the extreme. And he said, like, yeah, there you also saw the difficulty of always portraying the playful Marilyn Monroe. And later we knew the toll that it took on her. And in this picture, it becomes visible, he said, and found it quite beautiful to see, and then I made very quickly you could say the translation in, okay, but what does it mean for a dancer who is trained to never show the effort? How could I let the mask fall there?  

That metaphor that I saw was the art versus entertainment... strand I would call it, because at that time there were massive cuts in culture budgets. I think the Liberal Party in Belgium also said at that moment, like maybe it can be interesting to make the height of the subsidy depending on how much seats you fill. So there was like this whole conversation going on in the field about, okay art versus entertainment. And we had a very conceptual dance field in Belgium. How to wiggle in between those two extremes. And I think that's always been a challenge for my work. How can it be conceptually challenging? But how can it also make a big audience enjoy contemporary dance and not give in too much, not make it easy digestible, but like to make it a challenge and on the other hand, never forget like, hey, but we want to gain souls for dance.

The  parallel that came between was, okay, art versus entertainment. What has entertainment been in the past years, in the past decades? In the past centuries? If I'm talking 2014, it's also a lot of reality TV, Temptation Island, those things,Robinson. Like there was something going on that somehow it was nice to see people suffer or harm each other. That strange thing which is there, or  thinking back about the Roman times that we, that people went to see gladiators kill each other. What is this inside us that we go and watch suffering? So in a sense, that became an important theme really trying to make a performance in which one part of the audience would find it funny and very enjoyable, while another part of the audience would find it cruel and would almost think like this is not possible. Stop. That's the origin story a little bit.

Steven Michel:  So I'm Steven Michel. I'm a performer and a maker. And co-artistic director at Grip which is a dance organization based in Antwerp.

VO: GRIP is an organisation with shared artistic leadership that he and Jan Martens are part of. Steven was one of the original dancers of The Dog Days Are Over. Now he’s passing it on to the new cast. As he says, 11 years later, the dog days are still not over.

Steven Michel: The title also for me contains this. I mean, the dog days are over, they're actually not over. And I think that's why the piece is being revived. I mean, it's maybe a kind of a sad remark, But it's the reality also. And now also in Belgium they have drastic financial cuts. And so the dog days are over. This expression, meaning like an oppressive or difficult period, is coming to an end. It is actually not. So, the jumpers, the performers are back to fight or to question what are we doing it for. 

VO: Let’s set the scene. Jan tells us what we need to know…

Jan Martens: In very short, it's a performance in which eight people jump for more than over an hour. I think it's conceived in such a way that in the beginning we don't shy away from boringness of a lot of repetition. It starts very much as a conceptual performance. You could say. Okay, the dancers are on stage. They're stretching when you enter the theatre space…they walk to the front, they put their shoes on, they're standing silent. Nothing is happening. You see them starting to bounce. They start to jump.

The further we go in the performance, the more and more entertainment language comes in. Like if you're 45 minutes in the piece, there was like a kind of French cancan line in which their finger snapping. 

It was for me also like, okay, how can it almost like, invisibly shift from a very conceptual performance in the most, yeah… in, in the language which we perceive very much as entertainment. 

Steven Michel: Jan already came with a score.  From the beginning, we knew we were going to jump for an hour and ten minutes. We knew we were going to be a bit like machines. I mean, fleshy, fleshy machines. 

Jan Martens: The further in the performance, the more difficult it gets to remain errorless. Which was the aim also. This is also sometimes difficult to explain to the new cast: yeah, it is challenging because it's meant to be challenging. Don't fake mistakes, but I don't mind if there are mistakes on stage, because that's when the mask falls. And when we talk about that real human appearing.  

We're eight people and each person is different. So, everybody fills it in a different way without me asking to fill it in a different way. But me asking to not hide or to not to not perform, those extremes to not hide and to not perform, what comes then out I think is very interesting and very personal.

Do not perform exhaustion. Do not perform ecstatic states. If you're in an ecstatic state. Yes. If that performance brings you in a certain mode because you had a bad day or because you have a very energetic day, then yes, go for it. But don't get into a performative mode to do this piece. No, it's about being in the moment. I think there is nothing as beautiful as a concentrated dancer. Just busy with: where am I in space? Where am I in the counts? How am I gonna survive this round? Where are my colleagues?

Steven Michel: First, there is the beginning of the engine. I mean, there is the fuel that we have to create together. So there is this rigidity where we create lines in space. It takes time. It takes time to build a group.. Then there is the engine coming. Then there are a few pieces that get assembled to the engine in order to create the machine that I would prefer... I don't know an organism than machine maybe. Machine/organism/vehicle… And then there is also  when a vehicle is rolling a lot, you need to bring it to the garage. I mean, you have pieces that get tired. And there was this.. it felt also a rebirth, the machine was back on track. 

Steven Michel:  The score of the piece is crazy, there's no logic. It's numbers. So I do feel that the score controls you and that there is a shifting point where you do control somehow or you do have a power on the score. But maybe it's in my head. But there is a power shift in that.
And I do feel that with the exhaustion, empathy grows from the audience’s part. From intimidation to empathy and to support. But there is a kind of shifting relationship between the two, I think. 

VO: As Steven says, it becomes all about supporting each other inside this “fleshy machine”.

Steven Michel: This engine with this vehicle, this organism needs any one of them. And I think that's the beauty of it. I don't see any leadership. And I don't see any followers, except in the moment where you feel that some bodies on stage are getting tired or sick, and that you want to help them by putting more energy next to them. But it's a question of energies… yeah, to pass energies or support. So maybe there in this thing, some people have specific roles that are on the moment but not pre-set or something. It changes from performance to performance. It changes because the bodies change. It's a kind of performance also that is never the same. Although the structure is super rigid, the inner parts of your body will determine how you will go through the performance of the day. 

VO: But now a new cast of dancers have become the “fleshy machine”. Elisha Mercelina and Dan Mussett, are new dancers in the revival. 

Elisha Mercelina:  My name is Elisha and I'm working with Grip now for two and a half  years. Now we've started since August to work on taking back the Dog Days 2.0. Which has been really exciting because I feel the work... Yes, it's a repertoire work, but it's also a lot about the person and the humanness behind the repertoire. So there's a lot of space, even though it's very square and repetitive for the person to appear. Which I've been really enjoying. Also, we've been creating our own material in parts of the piece. So in that sense it's a 2.0, but still in the familiar frame of what the Dog Days was before, yeah.  

Dan Musset: So my name is Dan. I'm a dancer and choreographer. I have worked with Jan now since 2017. And now here I am in the retake of the Dog Days.  

VO: They both remember seeing The Dog Days Are Over when they were students.

Dan Musset: So I arrived in Antwerp in 2014 to study here in the Conservatory. I think I was couch surfing with a guy and he had a spare ticket to go and see a show. I had no idea who Jan Martens was. I had no idea about the dog days, and then I saw the Dog Days and it blew me away. 

I remember being totally transfixed…hypnotized almost by this super precise and mathematical choreography and all the shapes and patterns and formations, and how this was sort of coexisting with this very human as Elisha said, this very human presence and or this stripping away of performativity. And so I'd never sort of experienced that in work before. Yeah, and so I think here, 11  years later, it's a nice moment for me to kind of, yeah, have this full circle now doing something that I…that brought me into also Belgian dance, I think I wasn't so aware of it before I arrived here.

Elisha Mercelina: My first meeting of Dog Days actually happened in university in Amsterdam. We had this class called Dance Analysis.  And you basically watch a lot of iconic works on the timeline of dance and the development. And then our teacher showed us the Dog Days are over. And then I was like, wait, this is crazy. And even through the screen, I mean, I've never seen it live. I can imagine that's very, very different. You're just totally mesmerized or so impressed by something that appears so simple. But you know, how complex and how demanding it is for the bodies. It's a very, very, very, I think, iconic work. Yeah.

VO: One of great things about bringing back a piece, is that it doesn't need to be a ‘copy paste’ situation. Not choreographically, but also not in terms of the working process. The original cast learnt a lot through trial and error, so now, coming back with this revival, they can improve on things they learnt the first time. 

Steven Michel: It's a work that can be compared to an athletic contest or something. Yeah, I don't think we saw it coming. We didn't know that a specific diet would be better. I mean, of course, we were not eating burgers, like, ten minutes before we or so, but still, we. I think we didn't realize that it was such a big physical thing to do. I chose my shoes because they looked good, but not because the soles was maybe better for jumping. It was every day figuring it out.

VO: In between rehearsals, the dancers are being massaged by the physiotherapists Stijn Vandenbroucke and Loes Meulemans. What did they learn the first time? and what are they doing now to help the dancers manage their bodies?

Stijn Vandenbroucke: My wife performed in the first Dog Days. So that's how I'm involved. I think in the beginning, there was no... Nobody had an idea how hard it would be for the dancers. So only from home from Jan and my wife, Laura, we noticed: okay, some things need to change along the way. So that's how I got involved the first time, trying to fix some problems. And now we try to be more proactive. So the dancers have less time this time so that they're really ready for the performance and the rehearsals.

The continuous jumping, it's very hard. It's very monotonous for some parts of the body, especially the belly we had in the past. When you get problems in the intestines, what you had the last time, there's nothing you can do really. You can only jump less. And that's difficult. So now we made a program for six months. How to build up the jumping.

Loes Meulemans: My name is Loes. I'm a physiotherapist. I think, yeah, nutrition is maybe one of the most important things for them. When to eat, what to eat. Because they're jumping for one hour, maybe more than 60 minutes. Up until 90 minutes. I think the best thing to eat is at least three hours before starting. But that's, of course, hard to do when in trainings. But for the performance, that's definitely the way to go. It's so repetitive that that's what makes it hard, very hard for the calves. It's about jumping and like single leg jumping, double leg jumping. If you're not well prepared, then it will be hard when you start jumping because rehearsals are going hard from the beginning. So if you're not building up the jumps in front, then it's. Yeah, it's getting hard. 

VO: And in the meantime, Jim Buskens is up on the massage table.

Jim Buskens:  I'm getting a very strong massage. Which is very nice and very needed.

Because I build up a lot of stress because of all the counting. So I feel my shoulders are quite towards my ears, which creates a lot of tension. I would be so happy if Loes could also massage my brain, but it's not really possible. The physicality is obviously a challenge. But I like to be challenged physically. But for me, it's really remembering the score.

Naomi Gibson: It's a challenge, but you're doing it. You're so connected as a group that it feels like, I don't know, the adrenaline rush and the endorphin high that you get after. People say. It's like after running Marathons or Iron Mans or whatever... whatever they choose to do.

VO: Naomi Gibson is responsible for passing on the piece.

Naomi Gibson: Yes. My name is Naomi Sophia Gibson. And for this, Dog Days Are Over 2.0. I am rehearsal director and project leader. I was in the original cast of The Dog Days Are Over back in 2014.

VO:  And she remembers how challenging it was to perform this piece, but rewarding at the same time. 

Naomi Gibson: I loved it. I loved performing this piece. I love a mental challenge, and I love a physical challenge. So this is kind of the perfect combination of those things. But it is, I think one of the hardest things about touring this piece, specifically because we toured it a lot. Was that before every show you never know how it's going to go. I knew the score, like, you know, like I could do it in my sleep, but you never know. Even if you're having an amazing day, you feel great, your body feels fresh, you're awake, you're happy. Sometimes there's just this one muscle that's like, no, not today. And then it would be a lot harder than you expect it to be. But the opposite could also be true. You could be exhausted and think right before you go on stage, you could be thinking like, I don't know if I'm going to make it and still pull it out of the bag somehow. I think this, this level of never knowing what's going to happen, even though you know exactly what's going to happen step by step, was something that kept the piece alive for all of us. 

VO: Ilse Gekhiere, one of the original dancers, once wrote a first-hand reflection on her experience with The Dog Days Are Over. She wrote: "I imagine the choreography itself as a kind of loving sadist, and us as dancers, as generous, powerful masochists. Through jumping, we bring something beautiful to the audience, but we also get something beautiful back."

Steven Michel: We made a monster. I mean, it's a bit like the Frankenstein. Like we built something that was like, Oh my God. Like, are we going to be able to do this? How are we gonna? Yeah, survive in between brackets. But there is a moment where the beast gets tamed because of all of us working together with it and not against it. Anyway, if you go against it, you're done. You cannot. You cannot go against the thing. You have to move with it. You have to embrace it because otherwise it's… it's going to be very difficult. So, yeah. How to go further with the beast or this "loving sadist" if I take the words of Ilse.

Steven Michel: But I have to have a little story. We were performing in Paris. And in the piece, there's a moment where we stop jumping for one minute and a half, two minutes. And during this silence, there was someone from the audience shouting “this is torture…bravo to the dancers, but shame to the choreographer." I was shocked a bit with this remark also because some other people started reacting. "Oh c'est pas vrai, no no no,". Oh, like some other people: "Mais oui elle a raison". It was the whole thing. I was like, oh my God, let us rest. It's not finished. And yeah, but it also brought when we started again, it also brought in us…yeah this energy and this we wanted to also show them that we were not puppets. 

Naomi Gibson: "Bravo pour les danseurs, mais pas pour la choreograph, c'est la torture!" That made me laugh. And also at the time, I remember thinking, but it's my choice to do this. I’m not being used…I chose to do this, I'm excited to do this. I want to do this. I love doing this. Is it killer? Yeah, but I choose to do it, and I love it. It's bold of you to assume that this wasn't my choice, you know? 

Steven Michel: Dancers are not only puppets or robots, but they also have brains and they have been thinking about this or like. There is a message that is a bit deeper, more than on the surface of what you see. 

VO: Apart from that heckler in Paris, The Dog Days Are Over was hugely successful and had an impact on the field. So why not leave it there? Why bring it back 11 years later?

Steven Michel: Nowadays, I do think we are living in not so good times regarding money for the Arts... It's everywhere. And I do feel the value of retaking this work and to and to see how the work lives through our troubled times of the now. Why a revival? Also, because I hear a lot of students when I go to some schools and they say: "I wish I saw this work because I heard about it so much". And of course, it's not like I can go on Netflix, the movie is there. So I do think work deserves to be seen more. And audiences change over time. People change, everybody, everything  changes. And I do feel there is a big resonance in … how this work generates more reflection and how it can be seen through new audiences or audiences of the now.

Jan Martens: Why the revival. Because it's been, on one hand, a very big pleasure for me to create it. So there is a very egoistic reason for it that I found the creation of The Dog days Are Over a very beautiful and intense experience. I mean, I met a lot of people in this creation which are very close to me still now. There's a lot of people that stuck also in the later pieces and that I collaborate with a lot. We did a lot of restagings with schools. So I think there was also the desire to pass it on to a new generation. So also quite quickly, when we decided to retake it we said, okay, but let's do it with a complete new cast, because I think some of the first original cast would still be very eager and happy to do it. But it felt also like yeah, it's also with all materials with them, it would become a combination of the old and the new, and it felt like, no, it's nice to also see what it means today, what composition means, if it still can stand. And I think what it will mean today is something to figure out. I mean, I notice that at this stage of the creation, the suffering of the performer is quite much more there than it will be, because now they lose still a lot of energy. Their bodies are not following. That makes me think about observing suffering which is, of course, very much happening nowadays, how action is not taken.

So I'm curious how it will reflect on that. Maybe because there is also something in the piece also in the first, like in the first promo text, we also had written like contemporary dance, a striptease for the upper class, because it is also about vanity. There's a lot of skin. There is the sweat. It always was about responsibility of the spectator: "Do I watch this? What do I feel with this? Do I find this pleasant? Humoristic? Do I find this cruel?" And so about suffering. And I'm curious how that will be in, in, these days. 

VO: Now, with The Dog Days Are Over 2.0, the piece becomes ‘repertoire’. In the past, the standard way to make this shift to repertoire would be for the new dancers to learn the piece as close as possible to how it was originally performed. But for Jan Martes, reviving the piece has also been about rewriting the piece. 

Naomi Gibson: The Dog Days are over 2.0 underlines the fact that it's not an exact copy of what it was. The first half, pretty much of the piece is…was set material that also Jan brought us. However, the second half of the piece is all the dancer's own material. And because we have now 12 new incredible dancers, it's all new material. It's all theirs. And so that's the modification. It's the practical aspect of having their material, them doing it. And the people doing it because the people doing it really changes the piece. So now we have 12 fresh faces performing it. I'm very excited to see them all do it. Yeah, I think Jan is so about seeing the human behind the performer, behind… the human who is the performer and creating this piece as exhausting as he possibly could and as difficult as he possibly could you know, helps this mask fall and shows the audience who the person really is. And that's… we're doing the same now, that rule hasn't changed, but it's 12 completely new people. So you will see a completely new piece in a way.

Jan Martens: I was really questioning like, okay, how important are the movements? Will it be easy to replace some movements by new movements that come from the new dancers? And what will that mean for the dramaturgy of the piece? That was a very big interest of mine. I think the other question is indeed: It is a very challenging piece. We're  11 years later. A lot has been going on about protecting your borders, about abuse, about…And I'm wondering how a younger generation will look at it now.

Jan Martens: But I think both, in the first creation, I think there was a lot of care and space, and that is something that we're trying to reinstall now as well. Even though I must say that now, we underestimated a little bit the difficulty of restaging. And the limited time we have also due to limited budgets and you need to cut in your process. And what pressure does that bring on a creation, especially when it's so challenging physically. So, yeah, these questions come to the foreground. 

After Covid, it's been a disaster to find budgets to be able to create with 12 people is taking a lot of investment of the company. And still you feel it's not enough that actually we need two more weeks. We need more money for physical coaching, kinesitherapy, those things. But, I mean, it could be more, it always could be more comfortable. Because there is an eagerness, there is a super hard work mentality. There is a desire to, to go there, to make it work. 

VO: For Naomi this revival means a change in role from the inside to the outside.

Naomi Gibson: I am very, very grateful that I performed this piece as much as I did before taking on this role as rehearsal director, because I think it gives a lot of... Insight as well, when I'm correcting the dancers and when I ask them to do things, or I ask them to change or edit things, it's usually because I know what it's like to have to do it. And sometimes I'll write down a correction or write down a note and then I'll be like…but I know that point is always really tough. So maybe this note is not applicable right now. It helps me a lot to have been a performer in this piece that now I can see it from within and from outside. 

I think it was a conscious choice for Jan to do that to have the original cast involved. It would be very difficult for me also if I was still dancing, if someone who had never even tried to do it decided to tell me or told me what to do and corrected me the whole time. I think having done it, you know they're exhausted. We've had a lot of, you know, sit downs with original casts. Like today, we had even more people come in and give insights or even advice. Someone asked about their feet falling asleep during the show, which happens a lot. If you tie your laces too tight, for example, you get pins and needles in your feet. Sometimes they fall asleep. So everybody was giving their advice on that. And you know, he'll see tomorrow if it works.

VO: How are Naomi and Steven feeling about their new roles? Is there an element of feeling replaced? Does it feel strange to pass on a dance you had such an intimate relationship with? 

Steven Michel: Here's not this question of comparing, which can be really annoying if you are a dancer coming to replace someone. That's why I don't replace it. I don't really like the term in general, but I think we should find a better term.

I would put a little line between re-place or something. It's not that you take the place of someone, but you put your own trace within this place of the other, which is now your own.

Naomi Gibson: While I've been doing this whole creation,recreation, I haven't thought about being replaced once. Whereas before I thought I might feel that, I thought maybe I would have a little bit of, "oh, I would still like to dance it. And oh, now they're doing my role." But while we've been doing it, not at all. I think for me right now, this is going to sound a bit corny, but it's really, you know, we're I'm teaching them the score and it's all very practical. And there's lots of notes about, you know, just cleaning things and stuff like that. But it's… I really want to pass on the joy of doing this piece. And I'm starting to hear more and more now that they're learning, learning more and more of it and they know most of it. Like, oh, that part. Oh, it was actually really fun. I remember loving this piece. I mean, I still love this piece and I love touring this piece and I love the group that we toured this piece with. And  I want to pass that on. So yeah, replace me, but feel the feelings that I had, which were all very positive. You know, that's what I hope for.

Steven Michel: Because of the sports dimension of the piece and because the piece is being brought back to life. I mean, it's not that it was dead, but it's dance. So if it's not on stage, it's not visible. It feels more like we give the fire of a relay, you know, the sports when you run, and then you work in a team, and then, yeah, to hold the torch or something. With this revival… I do have this image now when I see them. Now you're seeing. And when I was watching. Because now I will also be director on tour. I do have this image like we…yeah, we are there for the same thing. It's not the same time. It's a different generation. But it's holding the same, the same idea, the same energy, the same ritual.

VO: A month has passed and we’re back in the dance studio to follow the rehearsals. Now, we are only 1 week before the première in Lyon, and 2 weeks before the Dutch première in Rotterdam.

Jan Martens: we are now in the fourth week of the creation, a very fragile moment, I would say. Because we're starting to do our first runs. The first fun with the dance is a little bit gone. And the realization of what it means physically is there. It's a state in which they are very oversaturated with information still, but having to cope now also with the physical challenges. So yes, it's a tricky moment, I would say.

Naomi Gibson: So we are about two weeks to premiere. Which is a bit scary but very exciting. And they have learnt, I would say like 85% of the piece right now. So what's going to happen now is we're going to, for the next few days, keep working on this 85%. We're going to do a lot of runs, and then next week we're going to finish teaching that last 15%. And then we're just going to repeat it and do it over and over, make sure everybody's really comfortable in what they're doing, that they feel like they know exactly what they're doing…Jan talks about the difference between taming the beast or having the beast tame you, the beast being the choreography. We now want to get them to a point where they feel like they can tame the beast as much as they can, and we will get them there for sure.

Steven Michel: What I expect to happen until the premiere… I expect a lot of different feelings. A cocktail of different emotions with a very large spectrum ranging from deep frustration to deep catharsis. It's going to be beautiful the moment where we feel comfortable with the structure and the score. I expect the beautiful moment when it starts singing, when you start tuning with the others also, because now everybody is a bit in their heads, because of course there is a memory, the learning process of the counts… But when you start connecting, then you gain more power somehow. So there will be these moments of like, "oh yeah, we're together, I'm not alone". Or we can support each other, when the sense of collectivity will rise.  

VO: How are Dan and Elisha feeling at this point in the process?

Elisha Mercelina: I think the most challenging part is gonna be now. I mean, every phase of the process had its challenging parts. I think in the first weeks it was very much the speed of the information that we would get, and then we would continue without all the information really being digested yet. And then there is it's a very layered work when it comes to spacing and counting and direction…it's a lot at the same time. But then I think what the actual challenge will be will be maybe the management of energy.  Sometimes you really want to give it your all, but your body is like putting a brake on you. 

Okay, if I give my full everything here, oh, I don't have any energy left now for the next 30 minutes, you know, and I think that's gonna be the real challenge. And also how to be kind within that to your future self still having to jump the last 30 minutes, you know. Also I think with the food, I'm very curious how that will go, like planning of meals and what type of food will go well, because sometimes even now in the rehearsals and we haven't been jumping for that long, extensive time yet, like maybe the max is 30 minutes, I would get like stomach ache because I ate something that was too heavy in lunch. So there's a lot of things outside of just doing the show that ask for very intricate planning, like sleep and training and care and preventional care and like, yeah, it's quite a lot.

Coming home after rehearsal, sometimes I was so tired that it's really like this sort of loop where it's work and really needing to take the responsibility of like, okay, I cannot really do anything outside of work because I really need to rest if I want to work well tomorrow again. So that has been maybe physically the most challenging part, where you demand a lot of your body and your body is granting you that, but then also asking in return to really take care and responsibility, even though sometimes you maybe mentally have a bit of a different need. So that balance is a bit searching sometimes. I would say maybe that the mental preparation is as important as the physical in order to get through it and make sure that they stay in conversation with each other.

Dan Musset: We haven't yet done a full run, we do the first run today of the whole piece. I'm very sure when I get to the end of that, if I get to the end of that, that will be really rewarding. Like Yeah. There's something also very pleasing about completing a score, having certain very precise counts and spacing to do and managing to hit them. And when you hit them and you know, you're right and I'm like, this is where I need to be. And it's not a centimeter that way. It's not a centimeter that way. And it's exactly on five. It's not on six. It's like, it's very pleasing, maybe that's because I'm a Virgo.

Elisha Mercelina: Me too! 

It's very much about completing it. We get tired, but you also install like the memories of the bodies in space, all the spatial pathways, and then the sweat on the clothes, the eyes that get tired. Maybe you see that it's harder for people to physically manage. But then there is all these moments which we have experienced a bit, I would say, where you feel like your energy is going down, and then all of a sudden it comes back and it's like such a journey that you actually don't really have the control over. But in a way, you just have to surrender to it.

VO: While Jan Martens is clearly the author of The Dog Days Are Over, this piece has raised some questions about ‘authorship’. These questions are welcomed by the dance organisation GRIP. 

Jan Martens: As Dog Days was so much about executing it was also needed that there was one author. Even though they created their own movements who have a very personal individual taste, they are created in a very clear, limited frame which I gave. And then we constructed it. It's completely written, it's divided into different phrases and then mixed up again into a different phrase. So, yes, they deliver material, but I completely remix it. Of course, the authorship of the dancers was really big in a sense that there would be a lot of negotiation of, okay, this step, can we repeat it nine times? And then it would say like nine is a lot. But seven. Yes. And then we would settle on seven. The people who are in the space are always authors. I'm the author. But  the iconic-ness of the piece is also Naomi, is Kimmy, is Laura. 

VO: And of course, Steven Michel too.

Steven Michel:  Yes. Grip, we are, yeah we are... But it's not only that, it's also in the sector, but yeah indeed for the revival of the Dog Days Are Over questions were raised by Jan and Klaartje Oelemans, who is a business manager at Grip. And we decided also to give author rights to the performers from the first edition of the dog days are over. And yeah, everybody from the cast really appreciated it. And it is also, I think, fair because at the end, for me, a work belongs to no one and everyone included in the process. I think it's also important for dancers to be recognized. As a dancer, it's not that you're not just executing. You have a responsibility towards the work. I'm not going there on stage and thinking: "whatever, it's not my piece or it's not my message". No, there is this sense of responsibility. Therefore there is a sense of recognition or like we carried it also.

VO:  The recognition of the original members reaches another level, because now they are the rehearsal directors. They’ve become responsible for passing on the work to the new dancers. 

Jan Martens: Yeah. I think it's very important to have the original cast here because their experience was maybe very different than mine as a maker. It's also very beautiful to hear all the original cast talk about the work,  the different ways. Some are very analytical, some put a lot of imagination and fantasy in it. Yes, some are more talking about the spirit is the most important. Your desire to want to get 'till the end. Yeah. For me it is also very inspiring to hear them talk. And the other side, I do think that it was maybe a bit overwhelming for the new cast to hear all those different perspectives and to hear how it felt, felt for them while not yet feeling yourself how it feels. And yes, also, I think again, for us an instigation to, to look deeper on how to, how to do that in the future, if we might work again with repertoire or bringing ten years back Dog Days Are Over 3.0, like. How do you work? What is the time frame? What is the information you give? How much do you keep to discover for the people themselves, the new cast themselves, rather than filling it in or giving too much information? 

It's indeed a larger thinking about how to bring it back to life. Who is involved? Who was involved and should be involved again? What can we do better than we didn't do the first time? What? Yeah. The whole reflection part about it. What does it mean today?  What is a new generation's way of performing it? I don't have the answers yet to this, but I see them, I see them being answered or in the process of answering while I see them perform the work now. All very interesting thoughts, I think about how to handle repertoire. 

VO: At this point in the process, what it means to be part of the story of this piece becomes more meaningful.

Naomi Gibson: I feel like it's tooting our own horn a bit to say this, but I think this feels like repertoire because it's kind of iconic. It became an iconic piece at the time when Jan made it and when we toured it a lot. Say in 2014, early 2014, maybe a few people would know him as a choreographer. But if then after a while I would say Jan Martens, you know, the jumping piece? Everybody knew what it was and it started to become like, "oh, this piece. Yeah, they just jumped for an hour and ten minutes. Crazy. All they do is jump. What do you mean all they do is jump? No, you have to see it. They're just jumping." And so yeah, it became like, almost as if rumors are spread about it, you know. Yeah, then he decided to bring it back. So we're going for round two.

VO: What does it mean for Elisha to now be dancing a piece she studied in school? What makes this work iconic to her?

Elisha Mercelina: For me, it has to do with the fact that no matter what time it would be placed in, it would still be relatable or relevant. It can be many different bodies performing it, and as a spectator, you can access the work in a way that, of course, for different people unlocks different things. But you can entrance it in like a human level and I feel with this work it's very relatable because you can see the exhaustion, you can see the bodies getting tired, and there is all the space for that, and I feel it's very interesting to sometimes bring things back and see how the feedback of the current times mirror the work that has been done before. 

So in that sense, I think it's always interesting when repertoire and the current performer meets and it stays kind of honest in a way where you don't have to aim for something of the past. 

Dan Musset: I think it's important in your education as a dancer to put your body in the bodies of tradition in a way, like to acknowledge these pieces that are forming a canon. I think it's also important to question what that canon is and who's making it, and who's deciding what dance repertoire is and what should be taught in schools. I think it should be a lot broader, actually involving different styles. And I think, yeah, this idea of also canon should be criticized and questioned as much as possible. 

VO: Here we are at the Dutch première of The Dog Days Are Over 2.0. Just for a bit of context, this revival has been done with 12 dancers, but 8 are in each show. This system allows them to rotate the touring, manage practicalities, and protect the dancers’ bodies. But that means that some people already did the ‘world’ première in Lyon last week, while others did not. So, tonight’s Dutch première includes some dancers who have already performed and some who are getting out there for the first time. 

Jan Martens:  Today we are having the Dutch première of the Dog Days Are Over 2.0, which means that we had the world premiere last week in Lyon. Met again yesterday, we had a rehearsal, feeling the space here in Theater Rotterdam. Today we just rehearsed, and now they are having their lunch break, and in three hours they are jumping.

The première was a culmination of a very intense period. I would say a very good premiere was very happy with the premiere. And then we had three very different shows. All very good. But that's how it is with this piece. You work also with the  state of the day. And it was very beautiful to see how they carried each other through it.  It was nice to read some articles also about people who saw it ten years ago, who wrote about it again about the impacts back then and the impact now. Yes. Lovely, lovely time, but intense.

VO: And no one was shouting from the audience…

Jan Martens: No, nobody was shouting from the audience. Maybe it's because it's a known piece now. Maybe that's because it's part of repertoire. As soon as something becomes repertoire there's maybe a less critical eye towards it. I don't know, interesting question I think.

I'm gonna take a little detour. Because we're now headlining a performance festival Feeling Curious in, in Rotterdam and had an interview with NRC who talked about performance and was questioning me a lot about performance and influence of performance in my work. And if I would describe it as a performance work and I said, no, for me, it's a dance work. For me, it's a matter of opening up the image of what dance can be. And I think similarly, I think it's also opening up what repertoire can be.  That repertoire doesn't need to be necessarily old or from a different era.

 I think for me, there is a little bit of a negative connotation to it, almost conservative reflex. "The old times were better" this feeling. While I think it doesn't necessarily need to be that.

VO:  So what’s going to happen tonight?

Jan Martens:  Oh. Dangerous question. I hope and wish and think that it will be a good one. And then we're all ready to start this crazy trip of the coming years. There is only so much that we could do in preparing and doing it. But the piece is really coming to life by touring it and, and living those 70 minutes again and again and again and seeing the freedom and the restriction and starting to work with that and the different stories that it can take. That's happening now, I think after tonight.

VO: We’re backstage, with Dan, right after the Dutch premiere. He’s looking after his post-show feet.

Dan Musset: Now I'm just putting one foot in an ice bucket, and I'm gonna put the other one in right now. Oh, yeah. There we go.

It was really good. Yeah. I mean, yesterday we had a super shaky rehearsal because four of us did the show last week. So we came from doing four shows in a row. And four of the other ones, it was their premiere, so we were putting the two groups together, and that was very difficult, actually, because we're also doing two roles. So we all had to do different roles, the one we did last week.  So I was a bit nervous today, but we had a good rehearsal this afternoon, which kind of grounded everyone. And that was very important to now going to the show and feel the groundedness and the togetherness and. Yeah.

VO: And now they are ready for the tour

Dan: Yeah. Bring it on.

You are listening to Body of Work. A podcast created by STUK, House for Dance, Image and Sound, in the city of Leuven. This series is developed in the frame of DanceMap, a European research project and network, funded by the European Union (Horizon Europe). 

The podcast was conceived by Delphine Hesters.

Katharina Smets worked on the edit and the scenario.

Tessa Hall, that's me, I did research and narration.

The interviews were done by myself, Katharina Smets and Delphine Hesters. 

Teressa Van Eycken assisted the audio production.

The theme music for the podcast was composed by Inne Eysermans, and the mix was done by Inne Eysermans & Yves De Mey.

You heard the voices of: Jan Martens, Steven Michel, Naomi Gibson, Elisha Mercelina, Dan Musset, Jim Buskens, Stijn Vandenbroucke and Loes Meulemans 

Special thanks to GRIP, and also to Klankverbond, for using their studio at Passa Porta.