Inner Work

20 years doing ballet class every day. That was my anker. 

I believed that doing ballet class everyday was like going to church everyday for a highly devoted christian, or even closer, like muslims pray to Allah, 5 times a day.

I did barre before every performance, even when I was just walking on stage. My teacher taught me that. I believed it was a necessity to perform on top level. And I did perform on top level. So maybe it was :) 

October 2020. The first rehearsal of ‚Tears of Petrus‘. A co production between Nanine Linning, the infamous Nederlands Kamerkoor and myself. 

I had worked with Nanine once before on her prize winning performance ‚Bacon‘. It was a great experience. Before each rehearsal of Bacon we did ballet class. I don’t know if its because I asked her if there was gonna be class before or if they always did that. 

One day she told me: ‚you should use your body more in class, use the extremities‘. 

If was like, ok lets see, so I tried and felt strange. It was ballet class after all. I had my idea of what that should be like. But right there, probably unconsciously, maybe consciously, she planted a seed.

So back to Petrus. We met, and I said that I was gonna warm up and do class. Nanine said she would join and so did Lisa Lareida (Nanine’s assistant). I don’t think they do ballet class very often so I felt a bit weird. I didn’t want them to do anything that they didn’t want. But hey, they wanted to join :) The next day I told them that they didn’t have to join if they didn’t want to so I believed that they didn’t anymore. But me of course, kept going with barre and centre.

Nanine said that maybe we should warm up together once in a different way someday? Not because she didn’t want me to do ballet class but only because she wanted to show me something else too. Her movement requires also something different. Inner work. Ok, inner work, I thought I understood. Somehow her question created a short circuit in my head. I couldn’t see myself functioning without at least a ballet barre. I still had a gala coming up where I thought I had to still do ballet barre for. Ok she said, but maybe after? Ok…..maybe after…

I have always been an open person, willing to try a lot. Get over myself, fall and get up. So after the gala I was like, ok let’s do this. Let’s dive in this new experience head first. Let’s warm up together in a different way. At this time Luca Cappai, my understudy, joined too. Just coming from Codarts (a contemporary school) he had many of the movement qualities that Nanine was looking for. Lisa taught the warm up, also coming from a contemporary background and then of course Nanine herself, a force of nature. 

So there I stood, ‚Mr. Principal dancer having danced everything‘. After 20 years doing ballet class basically every day, awkwardly naked, nervous but excited. And blessed by the openness of these beautiful people to embrace me and show new things.

I started to see what inner work meant, I started to see even more dimensions to dance that I personally didn’t see before.

How Luca helped me and showed me why things happen in a body, where the attention lies, and how Lisa helped me with transitions to make things more smooth and not cut movements. And Nanine’s amazing physicality and her talks about inner work towards the outside. Reaching over border with the physicality of the body..

I absolutely loved it. Since that day I haven’t done a ballet class anymore and I don’t think I will do one anymore. That doesn’t mean I don’t like ballet. I love ballet with all my heart. I love the style, the tradition, the technic, all of it. But what I love more is dance. Dance in its fullest form. So I am here. Here to see what else is there to discover. What else there is to love.