How has your process toward dance and choreography started?
My professional journey started when I was a child, I started to dance at quite a young age. I had some experience in martial arts, later on I had a classical education, I have also been interested in the theoretical background. I have been studying media and theatre science before I came back to contemporary dance, and started to investigate the choreographic processes. This is where I am at now.
What power and positive impact have dance and corporal expression in your opinion, what can dance achieve?
Wow, that’s an amazing question! I would love to hear your opinion!
I think the beauty of dance is that it relates on such a personal level. You will have five thousand people watching a piece and there will be five thousand truths of what this piece is about. I think that’s the magic of dance. I truly believe that watching a piece or being in a workshop is about the experience. It is like listening to music; when you listen to Bach or Mozart you do not think what is this piece about, you are using your senses, trying to describe your experience. So, this is what dance really is about to me.
How would you define your personal choreographic language, style or characteristics?
I have spent some time investigating because I have always wanted to have been an individual with their language, within their choreographic style. So it was a challenge for me personally because I couldn’t just create a phrase and teach it all. I wanted to have their language within the choreographic material. So, within the last two years, I came up with the method blueprint, which is a holistic approach towards creation, movement creation but also creation of pieces. Blueprint is working basically with cartography (maps), it helps to visualise the process of creating movement and it helps to have a very inclusive approach towards choreography, since it doesn’t matter what your background in dance is. You can have all of these people, cultures work together in a movement language. I am super excited to share this.
What inspires or fascinates you the most in your work?
I think it is working with people, I love to share. It is like I said before, the fact that people have their own personal relationship with dance, that is the beauty. If you are in a studio with dancers and you are spending time with them, it is a very honest and pure relationship, because you do what you love. You create.
What do you appreciate and enjoy about the work with Harriet, and how is your experience working for IDI?
I have known Harriet for over a year and it’s been a very intense relationship. We are talking a lot about the event, about dance and art in general and also about cultural differences. Since we are both Barcelona based but we are both not from here [Raphael is from Austria for over three years]. So, we both have this intercultural approach being international artists based in Barcelona. We are also both interested in using digital technologies in choreographic language, the duality which is also the main topic of the event. To have a digital aspect within the artistic statement and process. It will be a very important part of my workshop which I will be holding during the event in October. The experience so far has been very much an adventure with it’s ups and downs, it is enthusiastic. I am very excited about what Harriet is building in IDI and I can not wait to be in the studio and to work.
Do you have ideas about your future collaborations with Harriet and the IDI?
I do not, we have a lot of conversations with Harriet but it always takes time for things to get to the ground of reality in this industry we are working in. I am excited about the Duality event and what amazing collaborations we will have in the future together.
When you think about IDI, what is the first thing that comes to your mind in terms of dance? How do you see IDI?
International! What I personally like is that it is within the InDance international, it is a very simple motto but which brings people from different cultures and languages together. Having this kind of exchange and having this journey as an experience together is amazing, and of course to create peace and art together.
Do you want to tell us about your fondest memory of working with IDI?
I have had a lot of conversations with Harriet about the amazing potential of the festival and this event . What I have seen so far is very interesting and I can not wait to be in the studio.
Can you tell us about the effect that Covid had on your work, particularly within the project with IDI in October, and if it made you rethink certain things about your job?
As far as I know IDI was affected as everyone else in this industry , we have been kicked out of our comfort zones back into our chairs having digital conversations as of right now. It is challenging and interesting at the same time. I have had a big part of my research about blueprint on a digital base. We started in a studio as an artistic residency but then Corona kicked in, and then we finally did research with artists throughout europe. I recall calling a dancer in Berlin who was dancing on the rooftop and one from Barcelona in the kitchen. It gave us a lot of time to dive into this artistic process and now it’s part of the journey and it is part of the work I will share in the IDI event.
What do you consider as opportunities for the future of dance? Maybe related technologies and multimedia?
I think it is important that we start to see technology as a tool rather than a limitation. I am working intensively on how to integrate technology in the creation process and I cannot wait to share this with other artists in the studio, this kind of intersection of dance and technology.
Do you want to tell us about your upcoming work within your company “ desire de paraguas”?
It is the first piece of my company, it will be presented on the last day of the duality event. It is a professional piece created during the covid times and it has had quite a journey. We are having a few performances, and one of them will be a short version in IDI. Please don’t ask me what it is about, because for me it is not that I know the truth about it, at the end of the day it is about the experience. Each of us will have a different opinion, I am just the composer and then I will ask you what it is about.
Raphael Miro Holzer, IDI collaborator, professor, performer, choreographer 2021.
