"I only have feelings and visions about the future, but whether things are going in the right direction, I do not know. But I am certain that it will not be without battles," you said in an interview in the autumn of 2005 after MU Theatre presented Portrait, as part of the entire repertoire performed on seven consecutive evenings. Your statement did not show much optimism.
I experienced the period around Portrait as a time of great change, if not a crisis. It posed a serious problem that we were unable to perform our shows. I was fed up with being forced into other people's productions and them being forced into my productions. But now we are going the right way.
This April and May, something similar happened as two-and-a-half years ago at the MU Theatre. All of the company's shows are on the programme. Is this just a coincidence or did you again want to sum things up?
It is a coincidence, but not entirely so. Our current repertoire consists of accomplished pieces that must be kept alive. If we can keep performing them, it will bring new energy to the performance and the people involved in it. The aim is not so much to offer a summary as to show that it is possible to be simultaneously present in all of the pieces being performed. Portrait in 2005 was a completely different situation: there was too much uncertainty in my work and therefore I had to bid farewell to it, in order to seek new paths. It was during that week that the piece entitled It is Good Everywhere but it is Best in Paradise... came together, representing an essence of all the experimenting in previous pieces. I put all of my experience into it, but not as a weight.
It was also during that time that you performed Spring Sacrifice. Other than the music, it has nothing to do with the performance of the same title currently on the repertoire.
The piece at that time had too much information in it, which made it inaccessible. We did not consider it a failure but we could tell that in that form it had no future. The new Spring Sacrifice has the potential to become a repertoire piece for the company because we can relate better to the piece and the music.
The most important change occurred within the company. Since Portrait, you have set up your own company named GKI Impersonators (not just dance company).
I have since changed the name, simply to Krisztián Gergye Company.
Why?
First, I wanted to make it simpler, and second, because many people could not remember such a long name. I came up with the original name for Portrait. At the time, I called everyone I had ever worked with together to join forces and use the impetus of private mythology to build new things. Existing in a company also brought important changes from the point of financing. I cannot say that everyone lives from the company, but at least we do not have to rely on favours and go into forced situations anymore. We know exactly why we receive what we receive and we want to create new performances because of the links between us.
In addition to being a contemporary dancer and choreographer, you have been signed to the Bárka Theatre where you have received acting roles.
It is a very different situation if you are already the head of thought in a community to being invited into an existing community. Because of the differences between dance and theatre, the two fields are difficult to compare, but being a member of Bárka has taught me some important lessons.
Your insistence on freedom must have remained intact, considering that you looked for and found new creative partners.
Yes, because it is impossible to make theatre - whether good or bad - without personal human contacts. In a conventional theatre, this is all up to the director. It is important for the director to make sure that those working on the stage should do so out of personal choice and not only for the salary.
How can you handle training for a prose piece in the morning, working on a new choreography in the afternoon and then appearing in a third piece in the evening?
I find it increasingly easy to move between roles, but deep down, it is very difficult. If I do not assess for myself the experiences gained from the various stories, I leap into it instead of fully experiencing it. Very rarely, there is an easy transfer between different ways of performing, such as in the Bárka's production of Darling, What a Slut you Are. The communication we have started can continue because the Bárka's new director Zoltán Seress has already asked me to continue working for them next year.
Does the actor Krisztián Gergye feel different on stage than the dancer?
Verbal expression requires a very different type of concentration. When I dance, it is impossible to take me out of the role, I feel like there is a protective shield around me. As soon as I enter the space, I experience it through my body. In prose, things work differently. The whole thing is less smooth and lacks the power of an avalanche.
You once said it is impossible to reach certain depths only through motion and therefore it is necessary to use prose. It would seem more logical the other way round: words can lie, but motions cannot.
A few words can sometimes strongly identify the field of interpretation and at such times, motion and verbality can point in the same direction. I can admit my most intimate secrets with the help of my body but it is still more specific if I tell them with words.
The performance of Darling, What a Slut you Are, based on poems by Ágens, has been running for around 15 times. Is this a personal record for you?
Yes, it is. It is a great experience that I can take something to run its full course. Something I had not done before.
Few contemporary dancers have.
Looking at my profession, I can see that some performances do not require such treatment, they are only for one occasion. But for instance in the case of egonegonegon, we have had enough performances to say that the play is running its own course and reaching new levels of interpretation. I am very excited to see how long it is possible to take a play and when we should let go of it.
Are you still chiselling pieces?
Small changes serve to make things more specific. It is wonderful when a character feels this process is his own and has the experience that it is possible to make changes. My working method is not to love our soul inside, but never look out. We operate in front of people, paying attention to them.
Does the communication work differently with audiences who arrive without preconceptions - innocently?
They can bring in surprisingly new approaches. We performed Paradise in Kőszeg where my former classmates from primary school watched the show. It is not true that they do not understand contemporary dance. They dare think in an open way. The same happened in Portugal where we appeared together with Niki Gresó at a festival and the entire village came to watch the show starting at midnight. At such times, a safe theatrical situation is born in which viewers do not feel attacked by a contemporary performance, but instead they get an invitation for a journey.
While critics often talk about provocation in connection with your pieces, I think you approach theatre in a rather conservative way. The stage works as a sacral space. When you perform a rite, you reconstruct a mythological time.
Although I have often said that what I do has nothing to do with dances from Java, the philosophy of my stage existence and my approach to time do indeed originate from Java. I learnt in Indonesia how time can be condensed or stopped. In the dance rituals of Java, nothing seems to happen for ages, while the story is about gods that passionately love or brutally murder each other. The signs of the Java tradition are impossible to translate for us but the condition can be reconstructed. I must "translate" the vision and the sound, therefore I looked for extreme approaches. These are implanted in our cells even if we do not have a deep understanding of for instance the works of Francis Bacon or Shostakovich.
Three years ago, you said that you kept your dancers under a hysterical terror. Is it still the case?
When would someone become hysterical? When they want to express something very much but do not manage to do it. It was the time when my first piece was born for many characters. If you have no experience about how to involve 13 people in a joint project then you get scared. And although I did manage in the end, it was a very hasty and suffocating condition. By now, I have learnt to wait patiently until things naturally come forward from the body.
