Andrés Corchero dances at a Pinter: “Theater wants people to understand the work, dance doesn’t.”

How can you dance what's going through the brain of a woman with lethargic encephalitis who wakes up 29 years later? That's the challenge for Andrés Corchero (Puertollano, 1957), the dancer and choreographer—who has lived in Catalonia all his life—who always seeks that truth that permeates the body. Ivan Benet sought him out for his new theatrical production, an adaptation—or rather, an expansion—of Harold Pinter's A Certain Alaska , that "short and beautiful" work based on one of neurologist Oliver Sacks's clinical cases. Specifically, that of a young woman for whose bacteria a cure is found three decades later.

Benet suggested opening a door parallel to the work written by Pinter, because his character doesn't exist in the original work.

We've built the soul of Deborah, the protagonist, but also of the doctor and of Pauline, the sister, and that of the father... It's a bird that flies between this whole world, somewhat surreal. I'm a big admirer of Oliver Sacks and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat , of how he describes even very serious cases with a sense of humor and in that easy-to-understand way that goes beyond medicine and the patients themselves.

In your dance piece ...of Saint Vitus you already showed your interest in what movement itself generates.

Those who suffer from a neurological deficiency or motor disability have a different way of understanding and seeing their bodies. This, as a dancer, has always interested me, with all due respect for the problems they face.

Direction and cast Ivan Benet puts together this Pinter with Mireia Aixalà, Carles Martínez and Aida Oset

In Una mena d'Alaska, Benet expands the 35-minute Pinter play to a 1.20-hour production that combines theater with other disciplines, namely, dance by Andrés Corchero and live music by Aida Oset, who also plays Pauline, the protagonist's sister/caretaker. The show will be on view from May 7 to June 1 at the Teatre Lliure de Montjuïc in Barcelona, ​​with a cast led by Mireia Aixalà as Deborah, the patient who wakes up 29 years later, "a character full of symbolism and metaphors that the audience will gradually understand," Benet notes. Carles Martínez, the Catalan actor who has played Pinter the most—and best—of all, will play his doctor.

You often align yourself with the theater. Is that where audiences best appreciate the subtlety of your work?

Here we enter the realm of what is theater and what is dance. I initially came from theater, but I came to dance through the body and a type of work that isn't closely related to what would be the canons of "contemporary dance," which is a more formal dance. I've worked a lot in the field of theater from my way of understanding the body, which is a dance perspective. But many theater people see it as closer to theater than to dance. For me, there's a basic difference—and one that has generated much debate: theater tries to explain and wants to make things understood, while dance doesn't. Many people will debate this, saying that contemporary theater doesn't want that, but for me, it's very clear: theater tries to make people understand the work, even if it's in a more or less abstract way. Dance doesn't seek that.

For me, there is no such thing as a dramatic dance: you have to draw on the texts to, from there, reach the essence and physically transmit that energy.”

Unless it's a dramatic dance.

For me, there's no such thing as dramaturgical dance. Dance tries to appeal, like music, to feelings, sensations, direct emotions, body to body. It's another thing whether we use texts, poems, narratives... but the intention is to nourish yourself with that in order, from there, to reach the essence and physically transmit that energy. The thing is that throughout the history of dance, many things have been done, and classical dance, Swan Lake , and so on, has tried to tell a story through the body, but with the goal of making it understandable to people. Which, from my point of view, hasn't done much good to the very beginnings of dance, which are something much more ancestral, even more animal.

That's why when Nijinsky arrived at the beginning of the 20th century, making Faun, people's ideas were shattered.

Or Isadora Duncan, who can suddenly leap into the middle of nature. That's what dance is all about. As my teacher—one of them, Min Tanaka—says: "I don't dance with my body, I dance the body."

And what happens when you approach a play?

You have to try to approach it from a place of understanding, but at the same time not lose that essence. That's what I try to do. Everyone understands things differently. I myself try to understand things when I'm dancing. But at the same time, while I'm trying to understand them, I try to question them. So I'm always on a border where... as Oliver Sacks said, you don't really know what's happening to you.

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What have you imagined about someone whose brain is working and going at one speed, while the body is unable to carry on with life?

You can watch lots of videos and images, but there's nothing like reading. It's your imagination that builds the character or constructs that being. If you see it, you want to copy from the outside, you want to mime it. Something I learned in Japan—that's why they sometimes say that butō dance, which is where I come from, is like Japanese mime—is that it's about approaching that formality, but questioning and deforming it. I mean, I'm going to pick up a glass, and if I'm miming, I'll show you the glass. But what would it be like to imagine that this glass, for example, was enormous? You wouldn't see a glass. It's like surrealism: how I take and transform that reality into something that isn't real, taking the audience somewhere else, while also exploring with my own body and my way of understanding what I do.

How do you approach someone who wakes up after 29 years and doesn't know what happened to them?

Through the little things Harold Pinter explained: small spasms, memory lapses before it happened to him, other cases of encephalitis lethargica like Sacks's Awakenings , which I've just reread. There's a lot of information there. And I go further, because what I'm trying to do is pass it through my body.

The text tells the woman that her head was not affected, but that there were times when she made involuntary movements and moved very quickly.

I try to provoke those kinds of things in myself. And from there, types of movements or gestures will emerge that align with what the work calls for, based on our approach: here I am a soul, Deborah's soul, traveling around. And at various moments, even graphically, I am Deborah. I am Deborah before this happened to her, while it's happening to her, or when they're giving her the L-Dopa and she gets high. I express it based on how I'm feeling and how I'm feeling. As I go through the process, I add and subtract things. There have been moments in the process when I said, "This is too explanatory. I don't want to go into this." Or, "Yes, at this moment, yes, because it's interesting, Iván is interested in it being more explanatory at this moment." There's a correlation of forces between what you see from the outside and what I carry inside... But yes, it's difficult, because you have to go through it yourself. And not copy.

Slowness isn't about going slowly, but about going too fast mentally. Because the faster your mind goes, the harder it is to transmit that information to your body.

What would happen if Deborah's experiences were digitally connected, and her thoughts were reproduced on a screen? Too much information?

It depends on how you use it. I read a lot of Nazareth Castellanos, the neuroscientist who talks about mirror neurons, the heart in the stomach... In a world where everything moves very fast, the key is whether you want to work at those two speeds. For example, I think for you to move very slowly, your mind has to be moving very fast. You get bad news, and what does your mind do? It's going a mile a minute, but you can't move. You freeze. Slowness isn't about going slowly, but about going very fast mentally. Because the faster your mind is going, the harder it will be to transmit that information to your body.

How does he achieve that?

That's a training I do: I generate a ton of images so I can go through them micro and macro. In other words, slow motion doesn't exist. Slow motion is boring, it's a single sound. For me, slow motion is millions of sounds going at once, like a flower opening. In the end, it's a question of how, not what. How you approach the body, how you make a super-elegant movement lively while you're doing it, because in that elegant movement, there are millions of things happening; it's not a straight line. That's the difference when you see a company of 12 dancers and you focus on one. The others do very well, but you focus on one. Why?

Because?

Because that person is going through places that others aren't. It has to do with how the body is experienced. That reaches you directly; it's pure energy. There's nothing else. That's why people with difficulties, disabilities, young children, older people, those with a different physical state, attract you more than normal people. Because they have something that makes them special. The job of a good dancer is to find those mechanisms, to be able to become those things. And that's the difficult part. The training I try to do and transmit is that: to reach that type of body that is constantly alive. No matter what you do, it captivates the viewer.

I moved away from the word butō because it was like with so many things: 'I paint myself white, I photograph myself naked and I start acting weird.' No, we don't act weird."

Was there a turning point in your life that made you realize this was your path?

When I decided to go to Japan. That changed my course. I was returning from military service, unemployed for a year and a half, and I met someone who did theater, another who made music, and I started... without really knowing why, gravitating towards here. At one point, I saw a butō dance company and decided I wanted to do that, because there was something there that really attracted me. That was the first turning point. And when I arrived in Japan, I saw that this was the way to go. What they were doing there wasn't done anywhere else, or how they did it... I had the chance to work with Kazuoh Ohno, who was one of the founders, and with Min Tanaka, who is my main influence, for his training system, which aims to understand those mechanisms. Since then, I've moved away from the word butō, because it's like with many things: "I paint myself white, photograph myself naked, and start acting weird." No. We don't act weird. We are or we are not.

How old was he?

When I went there, I was 28. Now I'm 68.

Would you say that the public in the West has not had the opportunity or facility to understand what butō is?

It hasn't been widely understood. In fact, Min Tanaka has always rejected the label because it's not understood outside of the important names in the field. It's like someone who dances sevillanas and says they dance flamenco, right? They don't understand flamenco. There's a lot of perversion, and the West has made a kind of exoticism out of something that isn't even traditional. Because only a few people in Japan know butō. People know kabuki, noh, traditional Japanese dance... No one has been able to explain it, because there isn't much quality written about it. Not even we, those of us who have experienced it directly, have wanted to write it down. Because writing it down means someone copying those words instead of actually transmitting it. Butō isn't a type of dance; it's a way of understanding dance, a way of understanding the body, of approaching it from another place that's a bit inexplicable. And it doesn't belong only to us.

There is something in the body that is universal, that has to do with daring, with understanding it, listening to it, and that does not depend on forms or academies.

Are there people who approach from a place that is neither formal nor academic?

A lot. When I returned from Japan, I saw Mónica Valenciano performing a solo performance, and the first thing I did was go over to congratulate her and say, "Hey, have you had any contact with butō?" "No." There's something in the body that's universal, that has to do with daring, with understanding it, with listening to it, and that doesn't depend on forms or academies. It depends on reality, on saying, "Well, I'm here or I'm not." That's it.

Have you felt understood in Catalonia?

Yes. Throughout my life—which is still ongoing—I've built an audience, I have a certain appreciation for it. I've never been interested in being famous for the sake of being famous. And I think the important thing is to persevere in what you believe in. There are always moments when you're tempted to do something else, to say, "Wow, this has worked really well," because it reaches people and you believe you have to continue down that path. But there's something natural in me: let's keep questioning things. If not, you get bored. I get bored.

But at one point, in your early days at the Tàrrega Festival... there were always those who objected to seeing someone—you—dancing with just your eyelashes. Does the lack of movement terrify the audience? Does the imperceptibility upset you?

If you're where you need to be, even if you don't seem to move, you generate something that draws the audience to you. If you manage to get the audience to be with you, even if they don't like it, then this "non-movement" doesn't exist. It's impossible. Does the Earth move or not? It's impossible to be still even if you are. The point is that when you want to move and show something, then it seems like you're still, because you're not: you're trying to get the other person to see something. If you train for that and do it because you want to do it, it's great, because then yes, you are, because you do it consciously. But when it's not conscious, then it becomes boring. If you're really there, you're experiencing your body, because you can be alone here. But if you're with your whole body seemingly still, it's very difficult for people not to look at you. A lot. But of course, that requires a lot of training and intensity.

What dance moves you today?

The thing is, I can't talk about styles; I talk about people: Mal Pelo, Àngels Margarit, Rosalia López... At one time, those Belgians. Peeping Tom. Although then you get bored because you get into the aesthetic and repetitive. I really like Complicité, for example, in theater: I think it's a very good balance between what would be the performance and the technology. Baró d'evel, for example, is a company that does fantastic work. I like Ohad Naharin, I like how he approaches the body. There are some Israelis who are very good, it's a shame what's happening. At the Grec, we saw Sharon Eyal... Because there are mathematical things that have nothing to do with what I do, but you say: wow! Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker with Rosas...

I'm not against contemporary dance, but I do see that there is a lot of it that is formal and beautiful."

It is not at odds with contemporary dance.

No, but I do see a lot of contemporary dance that's formal and beautiful. In the years I've taught at the Institut del Teatre, I've seen that the students pay a lot of attention to the exterior. And when you ask them, "So, what about you now?" "Oh... they didn't tell me that." Well, that's the first thing. You're the one who has to dance, right? You're not a robot.

Is your subject called...?

I had several. Mine is called Bodyweather, which is the work I do. And I taught classes at both, the Institut del Teatre and the ESAT, mostly at the ESAT, in addition to physical theater students.

And now he's retired?

Yes, for almost two years now.

Is the world of opera very foreign to you?

I danced The Magic Flute in Amsterdam, choreographed by Min Tanaka, and that's when I realized we were the nobodies. Dance was like filler. And divas are divas. I've never quite understood that opera's success.

You're now entering a phase where stage direction is being assigned to choreographers. Some people think that opera, if it isn't delivered through dance and dance concept and movement, wouldn't be sustainable. If you were asked to stage direct an opera, would you be interested?

I think they'd give me a hard time. They'd give any choreographer a hard time, because the vision is so different...

Conducting an entire opera? There are people, like Sidi Larbi, who are geniuses, and there are people like me who have to work hard.

We have examples: Trisha Brown directed operas in Paris, Sidi Larbi now directs them at the Grand Théâtre de Gèneve...

Sidi Larbi is a genius. He does everything well. Even when he started with Les Ballets C. de la B, it was clear he was gifted. There are people who are geniuses, and there are people like me who have to work hard for it. There are people who have it genetically. It doesn't surprise me that they've asked him to conduct an opera in Geneva. That won't happen here.