A talk with Ymist

The performance text portrays a world that is "teetering," and a sense of impending doom. Do you find this a relevant depiction of our own time, and how has it, if at all, affected your work?

When we wrote this quite some time ago, we wondered if we might have been a bit too dramatic. A sense of doom is a strong expression. I don't think we were. In fact, I’m more afraid now than when it was first written. The anxiety feels more present now than when we first began thinking about the project. More present now than when we started rehearsals in December. Even more now than when we had the premiere at the end of March.

It’s clear that this accelerating fear has influenced our work and our relationship to Thomas Mann’s original text. At times, it has felt like being surrounded by the darkness of both the text and the world. And we invite the audience into a space that becomes increasingly darker. But we hope that the performance can have a healing effect. That by creating a performance which acknowledges the darkness that is here, the anxiety that forces itself upon us, and how it can make us act in ways we perhaps otherwise wouldn’t or don’t want to, it may offer comfort to those who need it.

Gustav von Aschenbach flees to the South when faced with a crisis. What do you think this says about human reactions to fear and uncertainty?

I think it’s human to turn to distraction when the pressure becomes too great. And that’s completely fine too—one needs breaks. I just wish, for my part, that I were better at not staying in the distraction for too long, because it can numb the will to act. I need to act more.

You say that “the choreographed movement is just as important as the spoken text”. How do you work on integrating these two elements in the performance?

Practically speaking, we start by keeping the work with movement – or choreography, if you will – separate from the work with the text. The text is already there; it just needs to be learned. The movement has to be created. Once the movement is in place, and the text is learned well enough to endure the confusing process of combining the two elements, that’s when we do it. Coordinating this within the body is a very frustrating and slow process.

You want the elements in the performance to “challenge and stand in opposition to each other”. How do you work concretely to create this tension?

In my work with text and movement, we talk about them as two separate but equal layers – or two different modes of storytelling. Each has its own logic and its own development. The two elements must be synthesized within the actor’s body, but we still want them to be experienced as two distinct layers. The space between these layers, the distance between them, creates a resonant space that wasn’t there before they were brought together. They can have different intentions and create friction and dissonance.

In addition, there are all the other elements: the dancer has their own choreographic progression, their own standpoint, and thus creates their own tonal qualities, which sometimes play off the text – or against it. The composer brings emotionality into the space through the music and their physical presence. The lighting follows its own logic, and the scenography and costumes have their own expression, their own stance toward the material. We try to allow the different perspectives on the material to stand out with their own character, yet harmonized and adjusted through the lens of the choreographer and the dramaturge.

This, we hope, creates a complexity in the elements the audience must navigate, and one in which they feel free to make their own associations. That the multiplicity of voices creates a resonant space that is sensory. That the audience can experience and understand the sum of the various expressions on a personal level. Something as wordless as music, as sensory as a good poem. Something they may not always fully understand or be able to put into words afterward.