Performers: Beáta Egyed, Beatrix Simkó, Szonja Stetina, Márton Csuzi, Andor Rusu, László Takács
Costume: Fruzsina Rembeczki
Production assistant: Barbara Czveiber
Direction and choreography: Gregor Lustek, Rosana Hribar

Working as partners, Gregor Lustek and Rosana Hribar are prominent choreographers of the Slovenian dance scene, who like to create duets and have won various international awards.

Their works are characterised by a uniquely personal and intimate atmosphere and focus on relationships, while they also exhibit highly precise and intense dance techniques. In 2013, Gregor and Rosana accepted our company’s invitation to make the piece entitled Did it Start with a Kiss?, that has earned recognition at festivals in England, Germany and at Hungary’s Sziget Festival.

Source: evaduda.net

Interview with Rosana Hribar and Gregor Lustek

-You are both dancers originally. How did you become choreographers? What were your influences?

Gregor: The question how I became choreographer is really difficult. I remember when we did the first choreography, one senior choreographer, a very well-known one in Slovenia said: ‘Welcome to this side of the story!’ I think he meant with all the other things it brings, what is different.

Rosana: I suppose, most of the dancers -with time- got the desire to express their own ideas. You work with different people, you collect knowledge, concept, and in the end you make your own kind of methods. Of course you want to put that out to be seen.

-Basically, you always work together, which is quite rare.

Rosana: Yes, we were partners for a really long time, dancing together all the time, we’ve got some kind of connection. In aesthetic we are pretty much different, but our mindset is common.

-How can two people work together as choreographers? I can’t imagine how it works. One of you says the dancer should raise his left leg and the other says this is good, but I want him to raise his right one? What is the method?

Gregor: There is no method actually.

Rosana: Yes. We fight a lot. That’s true of course, but we want to achieve the same thing. It is just that his way of working and my way of working often goes separated.

Gregor: There was one method we had. When we did Duet12 or 14, at the beginning we said okay, if one of us says no for something, you have to leave it, even if you like your idea so much. It is really hard when you think and you have a feeling that something is going to be really good, and you try and you put it out then she says no, I don’t like it. It’s gone.

Rosana: It’s a big frustration. But it’s also very good to be a couple in business, because you have all the time to have a dialogue. Like I would bring my dramaturgies with me, but even better, because he is a dancer, he is a choreographer. It’s very important to have a dialogue with somebody when you work. The most important thing. Otherwise you get too involved and blind. This is how you can maintain freshness.

Gregor: Even if somebody goes the wrong way, and you see no, definitely not that way. Sometimes when you don’t find the solution, it’s good to find what is not working. The more you find it, the closer you are to the real solution.

-How do you start a new production?

Rosana: First you search for some basic idea, concept, but what in your mind is really abstract, and what is okay in theory, is not functioning in practice. You have to rebuild the concept again when you go to the rehearsal hall.

Gregor: It’s important who you are working with. If you know people, you see them, you know what kind of people they are, what they are able to do, what characters they have, it’s easier, but if you work with people you’re going to meet the first time when you start the rehearsal that’s tough. You can have whatever kind of concept, but when you see the dancers, it can totally change it. You work with them, they are going to be on the stage.

-What is the concept of the new show you’re doing with the Eva Duda Company?

Rosana: I think the title -Outbreak- tells a lot already. The feeling of this Outbreak generated in your personal life, individual life, -as you are an individual in the world- also as a dancer, all the frustrations you have as a dancer, also socially, frustrations with a relationship. How to express these feelings. How to talk in a dance about this frustration. You dance for twenty years but you still don’t feel you’re danced out for example.

Gregor: Lately, I was thinking about the rhythm of how we’re living. We have too many distractions in the real world. Like the commercials, the phone, everything that breaks your rhythm. If you search on the internet for the word Outbreak it’s always about outbreak of a volcano. With people, Outbreak is always about aggression. What if Outbreak is total nothing, total peace, total silence, total beauty? You make a contrast with the actual meaning of Outbreak.

Rosana: We’re not looking for this aggression or hysteria. It should come through some other layers.

Gregor: Maybe Outbreak is there, but it never comes. It’s a wish. You know that exists, you know it’s a possibility, but it never comes.

Rosana: It’s a need, but it never happens.

-You choose Tango music to the show.

Rosana: Tango is a cliché of passion. Of emotions. We wanted a cliché. Also the material is orientated to Tango. Searching for that passion in dance, that you want to dance until you die. That’s why we choose Tango music. We’re not sure if we are going to keep the other music, but the Tango we will.

Gregor: Tango is concentrated to the relation. Usually it’s about a couple. When the relation is concentrated, it’s functions. We are searching for connections all the time. Tango is all about the connection.

Rosana: It’s tension, It’s 100% presence all the time. They don’t let it go.

Gregor: But some kind of safe territory also. Tango is very safe. You dance with somebody, you are there. This passion, this dance is concentrated on the two person. There is no environment. There is no distraction. Your concentration is only on the person you are dancing, being, communicating with.
There is no third or fourth person outside, you are always connected. That’s why it’s safe.

-This is not your first work in Hungary. Is it different to work here then in Slovenia?

Rosana: Yes, we did a trio with Eva last year. (Does it start with a kiss?)

Gregor: We really like this company, because they use media as a body, they are very physical. We like to work with them.

Rosana: I know a few Hungarian dancers, I saw a few Hungarian performances, and I noticed that mostly they are concentrated to the dance, not so much conceptional. But the dancers are really strong and very good.

Made by Aliz Győri