Oct. 6, 2024

Pioneering Dance as Technique | Anouk van Dijk

A great joy to have spoken to one of the most innovative and transformative minds in contemporary dance today!

A personal story told many times over on this podcast is my journey into dance which commenced gradually through the popular reality TV series, So You Think You Can Dance. While the show's drama took center stage for many, what captivated me was the dancers' adaptability across various styles and techniques. It revealed that each dance style was rooted in fundamental technique, a pivotal aspect for any dancer unlocking their physicality.

One recent development in the vast history of dance techniques is Countertechnique, a mischievously named yet transformative approach developed by Anouk van Dijk. With over 25 years of experience as a dancer, choreographer, and teacher, she gradually transformed her insights and dancer dialogues into a comprehensive teaching method. Countertechnique challenges the traditional notion of technique as rigid and prescriptive. It's a dynamic system that encompasses diverse skills to deepen self-awareness, expand physical possibilities, and inform creative choices.

Kickstarting a brand new season and month of Dance Education, this episode explores the intricate process of developing a dance technique, the mindset required, and what the future holds for techniques shaped across time. Ready to discover the pedagogue within you? Join us as we foreground dance in the background!

Soundtracks:

Birds - Tyler Twombly
Poison Ivy Yard Work - Uncle Milk
Background Fashionable Deep House - Ivymusic
Chill Fashion House - Stock_music

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Chapters

02:13 - Introduction

08:51 - Let’s start by doing nothing

22:25 - Energy is innate, it is our job to find out how to access this.

37:26 - The sky continues underneath our feet (Carlo Rovelli in ‘The Order of Time’)

Anouk van Dijk

Educator / Choreographer / Artistic Director

Anouk van Dijk is a choreographer, dancer, artistic director and the creator of the movement system, Countertechnique. She ran her own Amsterdam-based dance company from 1998-2012, and was Artistic Director of dance company Chunky Move in Melbourne, Australia, for seven years from 2012-2018. She's currently a freelance choreographer and the Founding Artistic Director of Countertechnique.

Having graduated from the Rotterdam Dance Academy in 1985, Van Dijk spent the first ten years of her career as a lead soloist for Rotterdam Dance Company and Amanda Miller’s Pretty Ugly Dance Company. From early on, she was attracted to the creation of performance and from 1996 committed herself exclusively to the conception, construction and performance of her own work. In 1998, Van Dijk formed anoukvandijk dc, her own company dedicated to creating work that sought to provide an insight into the many facets of the human experience through the lens of contemporary dance. In 2012, she was appointed artistic director of dance company Chunky Move in Melbourne, Australia.

Anouk van Dijk stages her works in a wide range of settings, varying from black box theatre to large proscenium stages and site-specific works, and has in her career created so far thirty-five full-length works that toured the globe, at the worlds leading festivals and venues including Festival d’Avignon, Adelaide Festival, Sydney Opera House, Dance Triennale Tokyo, American Dance Festival and Festival TransAmériques.

Anouk van Dijk has collaborated across disciplines internationally, with reno… Read More