Episode 3. Out of Context - for Pina. What if we danced this work forever?

When we think of dance repertoire, we think of pieces that are passed on from generation to generation. But Alain Platel’s Out of Context – For Pina is different. After premiering in 2010 and touring the world extensively, its time on stage was due to end. Until the cast of Out of Context had another idea… 15 years later, the same dancers who created the piece are still performing it at least once a year. 

In this episode, we meet three of the performers—Mélanie Lomoff, Ross McCormack and Rosalba Torres Guerrero—to hear what it takes to perform this piece again and again. What impact does the annual ‘check-in’ with each other and with the audience have on the individuals and the group? What is it like to be confronted with aging as a dancer? How does the choreography change over time, or how do the dancers change within it? 

Sound featured in the episode: — Live sound from Out of Context – For Pina, by Alain Platel. Music: Sam Serruys, featuring the voices of the cast. Recorded by Beeldstorm, March 2023 — Theme music composed by Inne Eysermans.
Voices of: Mélanie Lomoff, Ross McCormack, Rosalba Torres Guerrero

Interviews and narration: Tessa Hall

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

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 art form 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 and 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 Stuck, 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 Stuck, 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. Normally, when a dance piece goes on being staged for years and years, at a certain point, it's passed on to a younger generation of dancers. And that transmission is what makes us call it repertory. Well, that's how we traditionally think about it. Out of context, Forpina is different. It was made by Alain Platal and premiered back in 2010. After two years of extensive touring all over the world, it was due to stop. But the dancers, they had another idea. Fifteen years later, the same dancers who created the piece with Alain Platel are still performing it. In spring 2025, out of context came to Paris once more. And that was when I had the opportunity to meet the dancers. In those conversations, we spoke about what it's like to spend 15 years and counting with the same piece. So now you have the opportunity to listen in on the conversation. To set the scene, at the beginning of the piece, it all seems very simple.

SPEAKER_05 3:41

Light music and space and actions and some bits of choreographies. That's the essence of the piece.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

And what makes it repertoire to you?

SPEAKER_05 3:56

Because it's a very, very specific language and that is decided to be shown through time.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

In this episode, we meet three out of the nine dancers who make up the cast. So how did it all begin?

SPEAKER_04 4:13

When I was 18, I was at the beginning of my career, but I saw a piece from Alain in Theatre de la Ville. The funny thing was that I was really in a ballet and I was not at all in the kind of work like Alain was doing, like theatrical one with uh like more movement from life. The first time I saw a performance from Alain, I was really shocked, and I felt wow, that's for that that I've been dancing actually. That's for something like that. So my name is Melanie Lomov. I come from France. I'm uh 46 and a half years old.

SPEAKER_05 5:08

Rosalva Torres Guerrero, that's my name in Spanish. I'm French, Spanish, and Belgian, and born in Switzerland. And one of the first memories I have is a very white white dress with an ana prints, and that turns, turns, turns with the music. And that's I think one of my first memory of dance. And then I asked quite a long time to my parents to be able to start uh learning, and um very quickly I was in touch with, of course, ballet, with uh modern dance, with jazz, with tap. I did a lot.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

My name is Ross McCormack. I was born in New Zealand in Blenheim in the South Ireland. My dance education was various clubs in Christchurch to which segued into some training, uh more fundamental training at the the National School uh Tefier in Wellington, and that's where I learnt sort of classical ballet and modern dance.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

I'm also from New Zealand, so it was great to be able to meet Ross in Paris on the other side of the world. But how did Ross get from there to here?

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Out of context has a has a long story that's probably different for everyone, as you'll find. Um, but for me it was uh my involvement with La Ballet and meeting Alan uh came in 2005 when I joined the company to for the production Vespers. And for the first time, I believe, Le Ballet held actual auditions and it kind of going out into the ethos of the dance world, like there's an audition for La Ballet C Dela B. So they were really uh on everyone's radar. Plus, I had a long history with seeing them in New Zealand. So joining them there, um forming a very strong group, uh which we still have today, there was something really um that linked us all, and you could feel it right from the first rehearsals. We just felt like a family. It was really, really bizarre. I don't know what it is, but we've all remained really tight.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

It began back in 1984 and since then had a worldwide impact on the contemporary dance and performance scene.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

It had a profound effect on a great many of us. Obviously, you could be sitting in your seat and the person next to you detested the work, but it felt like a real early calling. There was something happening on stage that imprinted in me very deeply in my heart.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Like Ross, most of the cast of Out of Context had already worked with Alain Platel on at least one previous piece. So when creation for Out of Context began, they were a tight group with lots of experience working together, and they were excited to get going on this next piece. Normally, back then, Alain Platel could take up to six months to create a piece, but this time it was different. They had just 10 weeks to make the show. To be honest, nowadays, that's closer to what's a normal amount of time, but back then it was a lot less than they were used to. This time the conditions were different, the resources were different, they had the bare minimum. It's interesting to me that something that was made so quickly and so simply has had such a long lifespan.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

The other important thing here is that in 2006, 7-8 there was that financial, quite a large financial crisis, and this idea of like, well, let's just respond to that, and there was some quite some big changes and some big rattles happening inside the um structures that to do with funding or whatever, and it was like, oh well, let's strip it all back, and if there was nothing available, then what would we do? And what if we made a work that was like you the set was the only you could only fit whatever we had on stage into the overhead locker of a plane? And so very quickly that became not a scary thing, but a very exciting thing. Can we make a work with, you know, obviously no set, nothing, just bodies? Let's just celebrate the bodies and dance and the space. Alan normally has a very big composer, you know, perhaps a dramaturg and historian there that he's kind of diverging into, and then it aligns with the cast and the work, and it's a big process like that, whereas this was a completely different thing. We had like 10 weeks, no set, no anything, no information just arrive, and let's start moving and see what happens.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

Starting from bare bones, the rehearsals began. But luckily, there was already a lot that the team shared. There was a collective trust, a playful group energy, shared practices.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Improvisation and tasking and process, you know. There was a lot of knowledge there about how everyone works, and it was all growing, and uh those processes are incredibly inspiring. That they're everything really. It's not that they're m more important than the work, but they are it's hard to explain. But I I really enjoy process, I could say, you know, almost equally, if not more, than an actual performance itself. And it's a very, very short special time that you you never get back. Whereas you get to perform the work for a great many times as we still do. But the process you never get to do again, you know.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

Speaking of the process, I asked Rosalba how did they go about making this piece?

SPEAKER_05 11:08

The method of of Alain is like you have a purpose, uh a theme or uh an intuition, and you work with uh words that you launch to the people, and that he receives an answer. From there, he describes what he sees. He describes what he has seen from your proposal, and then comes a question: does it match to your intention?

SPEAKER_02 11:40

So he gives you some words of inspiration or something like that. You respond, yes, he replies what he observed, yes, and then you decide together, is that what I meant to do, or then becomes a discussion.

SPEAKER_05 11:58

Yeah, and from that discussion you go to work. Alain never shows anything. Yeah. Choreographer, is that the good name? I don't know. But he's the leader, he's the director. Whatever this direction means, he's the director. He just has this way of leading, but at the same time giving you the time to go through all the steps of maturation. So you you work on a thing, then you leave it, then you come back, maybe you put it with something else, maybe you come with a new ID, maybe you come with the music, maybe it's it's an open field.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

It's like Melanie told me the creation process was an immersive experience.

SPEAKER_04 12:51

We had a lot of fun most of the time, also during the process. But lot of questions and doubts and da-da-da. But I liked the unicity of the way of this piece has been created. And the people I found they were all really inspiring. And uh Alain was giving tasks which inspired me also, with documents, with uh readings, with videos, with uh what helped me the most is the fact that Alain never judged, but never. His look was always like uh so well intentioned and so uh reassurant and I thought okay, you're here. Take it. So be uh be zero, be neutral total. I was not judging myself. It's really subtle, but uh how Alain is it makes everybody in the in the piece and in the studio in this energy or state of mind. So it feels that everything is quite fluid, you know, and uh you have space, and uh we were all really different, the dancers. So each one was bringing one material, and every morning we were trying to learn and to make it like uh like a togetherness.

SPEAKER_05 14:33

One of the things that he spoke about before we entered the studio was to take some things that he had already made and put them out of context from existing material of previous pieces as a source, as a seed, and then to put them out of context. And so there was this moment we had done already quite some things, and we're on the bench watching the empty space, and he says, I would like that we do an improvisation first solo on the birth of the giraffe. He said, I would like to work on the birth of the giraffe, and then you've got this sort of question mark floating in space. But at this point of the creation, people are ready for anything. It's just like okay, let's go. I don't it's very mysterious this thing, because like every time we did an improvisation with this task, something very peculiar happened. And and it didn't mean anything like the birth of the giraffe. This word, this phrase every time put us in in uh collectively into a special kind of freedom is really weird. Why? It's mysterious. I cannot answer this question, but what I recall is that a lot of the things that mattered happened in those kinds of improvisation with this task. We had those uh blankets for yoga for Ali yoga of whatever for warm-up. And I think that Ross started to fool around with those blankets, like making like uh haircuts, uh disguise himself with this blanket, trying to and so the blankets slowly found their way into the studio.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

This way of working is all about collaboration in out of context, all the different things we see happening on the stage, the movement, the voice, the silly moments, the serious moments, these materials all exist because of individual contributions from the dances. And all this is a back and forth between the dancers and the choreographer.

SPEAKER_05 17:28

Alain Platel doesn't exist without his interpreters. That's why he chooses very specifically his dancers, because he knows that he's gonna have very specific material and and that the dancers agree to give that material. The same that the dancers cannot do anything without his direction, he cannot do anything without us.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

This piece was made so specifically on the bodies of the dancers, not to mention their personalities, that it almost seems impossible to pass it on to other dancers.

SPEAKER_05 18:10

It's interesting because like it happened that we had to dance sometimes without a dancer, one of the person because couldn't be there, whatever. So we had to replace inside. Already to replace inside is very difficult. I would say it's impossible taking the role of someone. I mean, I cannot do Romeo's, I cannot do Melanie, I cannot do Hyo-sung, I cannot do, I mean, it's it's we can do something around it, but the rest, it's so specific. I think there could be many out of context.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:51

But that one, it exists only with us. Because the material is really made on our bodies, our personalities. Give it to me, baby.

SPEAKER_04 19:06

Because it's really us, it's more about a way of being, yeah, which is a lot uh linked to how who we are, I mean. Oh, let the dog out.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Ross, for one, is convinced that Alain Platal would never restage this piece with the classic approach to transmission.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Nine voices come in and have to do someone else's stuff, that's not possible. I honestly I don't know how you could do it. I mean, it would be absolutely think it was brilliant and hilarious if he did. But because he's so interested in everybody's voice, that even if he set out to do that, he would be so pained by making people learn other people's stuff that he would eventually give in and make a new work. I would pay money that I would bet that he wouldn't even get two weeks in. And he'd start saying things like, Oh well, no, we'll just you just be inspired by it. Be inspired by it to do your thing from it, and then the whole thing would be a completely different work because he'd be so much more fascinated and interested in what people wanted to say or do that represented them.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

So where are we in the story now? Well, the idea of passing this piece on just didn't fit. Normally that's what happens to keep a choreography going. But here we are, 15 years later, listening to Ross, Rosalba and Melanie, who are still performing it. How did we get here?

SPEAKER_05 20:46

That came from a proposal. I mean, we were in Japan for the last tour. We were desperate, I think, to be a part, to know that this will be the end. So we were supposed to finish, and then it came from the proposal of Romeo. He said, Why don't we meet every year to perform out of context once till we die? And everybody sort of looked at each other and and the technician, the direction, and somehow everybody said yes to the idea. Maybe people uh who are not in the profession, they don't know. Let's say you work in a company, you make wonderful work with a wonderful team, and you have the last performance. This last performance is already planned a year, two years in advance. So when you have this wonderful experience with people that come from all over the world, which is the case from Around. Context You've got Portugal, you've got uh New Zealand, you've got uh like France, uh uh Korea, and so you know when you will die. It's written in the planning. Depending on who you are and how you live the things, most of the people audience they don't know how painful this can be. So when Romeo said, yeah, why don't we meet once a year? It was very smart because it's also a way to say, well, everybody will live his life and we meet from time to time.

SPEAKER_06 22:33

Time goes by so slowly.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Oh man, what if we just did this work forever? Like what if we did this work until we couldn't move? It was about our bodies to begin with, but it was about our bodies whilst they were in a very dynamic, um virtuosic kind of um peak state. What if we just kept doing this with our bodies as they slowly became affected by just our age and logistically it's possible, right? There's no massive set to lug around, there's two microphones, and we all take our blankets with us. So you take your costume with you, and that's it.

SPEAKER_04 23:17

But I remember also I couldn't really project myself. I think I was not able to imagine myself at 46 years old. You know, I I couldn't really, so it was a bit um abstract in a way, but I follow and I felt okay. That's true, that's something which is really special uh with this adventure, and I think it was really worth it. And when we started, I felt it's precious for me, actually. Each time once a year we were meeting each other. I mean until COVID, but each time each year I was feeling wow, that's great. Oh my god, that's so nice. Wow, it's so good to be able to see again the people, to be on stage, to do that adventure again and again.

SPEAKER_06 24:10

Time goes by so slowly.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

The decision to continue the piece was not just a good one on a personal level. It also made sense artistically. It felt like this was the kind of piece that could keep on going. The kind of piece the performers could keep exploring, the kind of piece that was open to transformation.

SPEAKER_05 24:34

We didn't finish to explore that piece. So that that's one thing, even if we had performed it a hundred, I don't know how many times. Why do you think that is? Well, because the structure is very strong, and so so you have space to develop. And also because it's such a deep listening within the group, and because of its abstraction and full content. Even crossing the space in out of context is super interesting, like just walking, you know, it's just like how you deal with that, how you deal with the transformation of the the actions around you, how you I mean, you have to be extra careful of what you do. And you have to support the main action, you have to be a wonderful counterpoint, and you cannot disappear. I mean, disappear in terms of, yeah, okay, I'm not doing the ru, you know, I'm in the corner in the dark, well, I can relax a little bit. No, you know, you have the structure, but there's many things where you are free to to to do what you do. There's a lot of improvisation also.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

It seems to me that a dance piece is never the same. It's a living thing. At the end of the day, that's the nature of performing arts. And I think that out of context personifies that. The performers too, in the sense that many years later, they still have more to explore.

SPEAKER_04 26:17

The feeling I have, it's like if I'm going back in a known country. When I performed a piece like at the end of 23, it's a bit later, but I felt wow, I have the feeling that it's now that I'm really ready to perform this piece. Wow. I felt myself like at home. I I can't explain. And then I felt okay, I could do it until the end of my life. I mean, if I just move my little finger, but I mean because yeah, I really felt wow. That's crazy, but it's just now that I start to feel ready to do it. That's amazing. Like fully. That's part of the magic. There's still space for us to be who we are now with our body, with our lives. And it's it's also this kind of feeling which makes me realize that wow, that's really a privilege in life to be able to live that.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

And it's important to point out that making this happen is not easy. There are quite some logistics and commitments involved in making all this happen.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Obviously, logistically it it is quite tricky, especially now as we all start to become really involved with other things and families and work and we're all really spread out. But what we do is we've got a the again that long history of really, as you you will know, of knowing each other, um the patience to be able to work through the timetabling, and for sure that takes a lot. But we we get a date arrives of potentially doing it, and then we had all agreed upon a situation where it's like if there's two or more people that can't do it, we don't do it. And then we also made another thing of called birth and death. If you've got the birth of a child or the death of someone, then that means if you have agreed to doing it, they're your only outs, you know. We logistically plan it a long way out so that whatever work we do have we can fit in around it, you know. So it's really kind of like this thing where we're doing it once a year, and sometimes it can be once every two years, you know. And the desire to share your family and what's changed in your life with the group is so is almost bigger than the performance itself. And when we sit down and meet each other again and the works back in the body, we we talk about all the different changes we've taken on, like different jobs we were at, different positions, different perspectives, um, different growths inside our own art and and our own career paths and how they've changed, and and we share all of that, you know, like we share so much of that.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

And of course, there's the aging side of things.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Yeah, d there's definitely a new challenge going on, and no one's gonna say it. No one's gonna go like, oh, but your body not being able to achieve what your body once made is a love-hate thing. Like you love it because it's kind of beautiful, but you also go like, oh damn, like you know, and then there's looking down at your body as well and going like oh okay, that's uh that's not hitting the lights as well as it used to, and then going like, oh Carlo, come on, can you just can you dim those lights a bit? My hair's like thinning out in grey, like take it down a bit. Can we make something a bit more flattering? Like, and of course, we're all coming back now, and we all want once we all get out of into our undies, we're all like, ah, you're looking good, like it's like, oh well, I'm really busy, and it's like and and then and it's like oh man, yeah, well, I've got my dad bot on because I mean, you know, it's I'm I'm a dad now and I'm not I haven't been as busy like oh and then it's like oh you're standing on me, remember, so let's just you know there's a little bit of this that goes on, but of course, and it but it's only always in good spirit and it's somehow you know, but it you know, maybe there is it's not confronting yet, I say yet, like but I think in the next sort of ten years, if this was if this dream of doing it once a year was to still to continue, which I really hope it does, then one hundred percent the the we start to turn a corner soon, all of us. Because I think we're all between 45 and 52, and I think when that becomes fifty-five and sixty-two there's a corner we've turned there, and one hundred percent we will look very different on stage collectively as a group, and it will be a different statement altogether. And I haven't had to alter anything yet. I haven't had to pull anything back or tailor it down, you know. I know exactly the material. I know I almost have exactly in my head, I could write it out, this will be a challenge soon, and so will this one. Uh this will need to be changed, and so will this. I know, I know that's coming, but it's not here just yet. Like I stand on someone and balance on top of them whilst they do something, and I'm like, how like I'm like, how long can this last like this before we have to really start adapting? Or I don't know. Like it's quite funny in that sense, but there's another movement section that is on my head, and it's incredibly painful, and I just like what was I thinking? Like, why what was the deal there? Like this is and I guess it was like, well, I never thought I'd be doing that when I was nearly 50, so you know I know the upside-down thing on the head is not gonna have a long life.

SPEAKER_04 32:05

You know, for example, the last performances, my body was really in pain, and you feel but uh what's for me it's also a present and really important, it's how to feel how to find a way to keep dancing, to keep being on stage. Physically, you cannot I cannot feel so light as I was sixteen years ago, so in a shape of putting my legs like this, like that, jumping like this, like that. But strangely, I prefer myself now. So I prefer to give to an audience what I have to give now than what I had to give before, and I really hope it's gonna keep going like that. So the way I live this experience in the performance for me, each time I'm doing it is um stronger one, I feel. I evolve with it. I have to bring each year my new self in it.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

We are letting the work in our bodies and in our minds for sure that's evolving constantly.

SPEAKER_05 33:22

And it doesn't mean that it wasn't interesting when we were younger, it's just that it's like richer. And especially now in this period where we still have the full power of the body, and on top of it we have that maturity. I guess after it will shift a little bit, but for now it's still um hearing them talk about their bodies changing.

SPEAKER_02 33:47

I wondered if the choreography was changing too.

SPEAKER_04 33:51

Alain told us you can adjust, uh, you know, with time, uh with the body, it's gonna transform. So I like to have this phrase in my head all the time because it's reassure me so much. Yeah, Alain said we could evolve with a bit.

SPEAKER_02 34:09

You don't need to be 30 years old forever.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

I think the nature of the work in terms of the the what we how we enter the space, how we look in terms of the our blankets and the soundscape, and there's some big there are some big um design structures there that are guiding a particular narrative. That's untouched. Lots of things have been added in, you know. And also the fine-tuning of something, and I think a lot of people could relate to this in terms of dance because it's like, oh look, this duet, it's not working, let's keep working on it and working on it and working on it, and it's like a duo or a trio or something. That we understand very easily in dance that it changes, you know. But psychologically things seem to change in Alan's works. You want to alter what you're doing to say something else, or it feels like you want to go a bit deeper inside to reveal something a bit more, and and he's just very good at talking that through, and then he's very brave in going, Well, I think we need to see it. In fact, I would say that's if I had a t-shirt of Alan's, it would be Alain Platel quote, I think we need to see it. Full stop. Because and then when it's on and he has the guts for it to be seen live in the show, the next night the notes might be like, I I don't know, what are you how did you feel? And you go, like, yeah, I don't think so. And he goes, Yeah, I know I don't think so either. But it was important to see it. And so that is something that not a lot of people, not a lot of directors that I've I've I've experienced easier said than done.

SPEAKER_05 35:45

Transformation are very small. They're they're very technical.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

So it's a bit too early, yes. It's still early.

SPEAKER_05 35:52

It's too early.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:53

And and it's one of the frustration of I don't say it doesn't look too good. Yes, yes, he says that as a joke. He says it still is doesn't happen. It didn't. I think he's also like waiting for for it to see how it happens.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Every year or two from all corners of the world, the dancers come back together to perform. What happens each time they meet?

SPEAKER_05 36:19

I'm looking forward every time so much, otherwise we wouldn't do. We become hysterical when we we we see each other. It's a home. And also, we have a day and a half. It could seem short to retake a piece after a year and a half or two years sometime. So you have two days. You have a day you meet, you start to work, you have a general, and then you go. And it's just like it goes like this, you know, it's it swings. You enter the space, you remember everything, you know where everybody is, you know, like it's pure joy and pure love. Alain is laughing all the time, and we are we are at the same time extremely serious, also very curious. But how is it gonna be this time?

SPEAKER_06 37:12

No humano cry, no humano cry.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Lots of hugs, lots of like laughter, heaps of people going, oh my god, a lot of like oh counting of more grey hair, and then there's like okay, we've got to do something, we've got to do something, and then it's like a lot of crowding around screens, and then a lot of laughing at what we last did. We might have to go right back and look at an original one, and then we just get, and then that's just a waste of time because that kills about half an or doesn't it? It kills like a good 15 minutes of us laughing and looking at ourselves and how amazing we used to look, or something like that, and that sparks a whole heap of conversations that spiral down this way, and then Alan's got a wrangle ever on back. Huge amounts of joy. It's always hard and chaotic, and then sort of somehow it sort of arrives.

SPEAKER_03 38:08

That's the way uh-huh uh I like it.

SPEAKER_04 38:13

It's in the body, so it comes back. We watch the video before to come.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

It's getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes.

SPEAKER_04 38:23

We anticipate a little bit. We have the video, so we check, we okay this, that, that, that, that. But you know, you check a few times video and it already comes back. And when you are in the studio with the others, with the sound, it's like Hello!

SPEAKER_01 38:40

The learnt material is learned material. It's really ingrained, and also you go like, oh, you know, can I just go over that again and again and again? And then even you can go to your room and go like and have something and then go, oh shit, I'm just gonna stand up and go over that again. Set material is set material, and then you can kind of everyone else can help you as well and go, oh your arm is up here on one and two, and then we went here three, four, and then it was head five and six, and everyone goes like oh yeah, yeah, head five and six, blah, blah, blah. But not everyone is there to help you when it's an improvisation and it's open because they're in another world. So that I would say that part is the part where everyone is swimming a bit. And you know what it's like when there's a very beautiful synergy that's just right for that kind of group improvisation scene or where everybody's moving. It's very hard to recapture that. That kind of really nice balance of just the right energy from everyone and placement from everyone in terms of a section being quite improvised and open. That's the hardest part for sure.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Well they try to make me go to rehab, and I said no, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 39:51

I'm calling you.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

What if you saw the piece 15 years ago and are seeing it again now? Do you perceive it differently? Or what about people seeing it for the first time?

SPEAKER_01 40:12

What will they think when they see a cast of 45 to 50 year olds? What are they gonna make of this, you know? Like, so they're not gonna look at this and go like, Whoa this is really old-fashioned, what's going on here? Like, what are they trying to say? Or because you not everyone can know the context. Like, oh, you can't go, oh yeah, PS by the way, don't worry, big because they they premiered this 15 years ago when they were kind of in your zone, and this was really kind of cutting edge, so you've got to look at it through that lens. Ah, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

You know, like do you think it's old fashioned? Or do you think people think it's old fashioned?

SPEAKER_01 40:51

I have no idea. I just wonder if I just wonder what that would be. I mean, and it surely there has to be elements of it that are, but that's beautiful. I mean, it's great to watch some things like that. That's why n none of the music's changed, none of the movement's really changed in that sense, other than just holding on to it. Does that make it old fashioned? I don't even know what that word is. Sometimes I hate it, but then I also think it's brilliant. It's true, it's a real conflict. And what would it mean if yeah, uh some young creators went to it and went, yeah, I don't know, I found it a bit old-fashioned, you know. It's a little bit old school for me. You can't then go like, hey, but it's not we we we're we're holding on to something. No, no, no, it no, please don't think that way. Because w this was made uh, you know, like 15, 16 years ago. And that's why it looks like that, because we've decided not to change it. So does that make it not old fashioned now? Does that make it kind of what does that make it? Is that a newer because you can't give everybody the lens. I just find that's the part that I find also really exciting.

SPEAKER_02 41:51

When the piece was first made, it certainly wasn't conceptually about aging or longevity. And so it's almost as if the concept of the piece starts to transform into these dancers who do it every year for so long and will age and will be 80 years old. Does how does that sit with you?

SPEAKER_05 42:17

Perfect. I mean, it's it's just it feels right. It's just what happened. It's the life of this piece. So it's it feels it feels completely organic. And every time, you know, like we wonder, is it gonna work? Is it gonna touch people? And and I think it it touches more and more.

SPEAKER_02 42:40

Yeah. I really like what you said about the audience aging with you as well.

SPEAKER_05 42:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there are some people, for example, who saw it uh at the beginning and then um we performed some years ago in Kent, and people said, Oh, it's just like it's so much better now. And that they have like this thing of like, oh, I want to see it again because now it's it was really very nice, but now it says something much deeper.

SPEAKER_04 43:11

People there told me, Wow, I saw the first one in it. Was not the really first one, but it was like in the first period we started in Theatre de la Ville in 2010. And I came back now and it was wow! I was so touched, it was so powerful, and you are and I feel that we don't even remember or realize what it can produce, the people they are really touched.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

Ross McCormick come as the dances and public transfer.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Out of context is also transforming. But amongst all the transformation, the choreography still seems to hold its strength. Why is that?

SPEAKER_05 44:13

Because it has no context and also because it's nude. It's an empty space. So you don't give a context. For other pieces, you would see oh, this is more the type of scenographies of the 80s, 90s, of the 2000s, that you can sort of space it in time.

SPEAKER_04 44:30

I think in Alan's piece, but I I I like to speak about Alan's world because for me that there's no time. How the human survive or live or how they deal with life and so for me it's uh it cross the epoch the periods.

SPEAKER_02 45:07

Out of context carries a history for the dances and also for audiences. For Ross, it's not about heritage, it's about being part of a bigger story.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Yeah, coming over here and and becoming a part of Labelle's and a part of that. I can't say heritage, but I can say I think very unique style of dance theatre and dance worlds and productions. And then this particular work is becoming a type of heritage in itself, you know, because it's garnishing a new ty uh its own type of talk-generated history attached to it. Like people are really fascinated by it, fascinated by how far it will go, how far are they gonna go with this? Are these guys really gonna go? Are they gonna go as far as they can go with this? Are they really gonna be doing this when they're 65 and 70? So, yeah, it f I feel so honoured and proud to be a part of that. I can't associate myself to the word heritage, but I can definitely associate myself to um something that feels much, much bigger than me.

SPEAKER_05 46:29

You know, it's just a miracle that we can still do that. You do that also because you have people in an administration that do agree to search for, you know, and to put I mean it's all logistic also, you know, to put all those dancers together that come from all over the world. You have to find the budget, you have to find the it's everybody who works for that. So it's a little miracle to do.

SPEAKER_04 46:54

And it's about uh having the privilege to live this experience, to meet Alan, to meet his work, all of that, to meet this possibility of dancing, of being on stage, of being offered to even if you're not young and uh in a shape, still being able to make sense on stage. Yeah, it's not about only dance history, but it's uh yeah, to having been able to live that. It's not about dance, it's more uh than that for me.

SPEAKER_02 47:32

And so I guess what we're all thinking is what might be the end for out of context.

SPEAKER_05 47:38

I don't think this piece is gonna finish. No. I don't think so. It will finish when when we die or when we decided together that it's finished. We have to see. Yeah. I think nobody wants this piece to end for now. And everybody is extremely curious for the future.

SPEAKER_02 48:28

This series is developed in the frame of Dance Map, a European research project and network funded by the European Union Horizon Europe. The podcast was conceived by Delphine Hestes. Katharina Smetz worked on the edit and the scenario. Tessa Hall, that's me, I did research and narration. The interviews were done by myself, Katarina Smetz, and Delphine Hestes. Theresa van Erken assisted the audio production. The theme music for the podcast was composed by Ina Essermans, and the mix was done by Ina Esemans and Yves Demay. You heard the voices of Melanie Lomov, Ross McCormack, and Rosalba Torres Guerrero. Special thanks to Lajeste and Alain Platel, and to Clunk Verbond for using their studio at Passa Porta.