“Branding it as contemporary dance is bad for marketing. Contemporary dance is often seen as elitist, boring […] for snobs by a very large section of the public.”

“I didn’t have a great interest in having a dance company or directing a dance company, it came out of necessity. […] My interest has always been about making work.”

In this conversation we discussed Kylie Minogue, dance, leadership, inspiration and arts funding.

Deborah Jowitt is one of the most accessible dance critics, spending her life capturing the diversity of dance in her reviews, particularly in New York City. Jowitt’s work focuses equally on ballet and modern dance with a love for both styles.

“My hair would never go neatly into a bun … I didn’t know any of the ballet language… I think that it can actually be a positive, because you want individual voices in the arts.”

“sexuality is a choreography as much as anything else”

Dance often relies heavily on strong collaborations; a synergy between movement and music, choreography and the body, lighting and sound.

“With dance it sort of felt right, I felt I could be myself and express myself, when I was dancing.”

“I have committed to rest of my dancing life, to making dance as inclusive as possible because my experience was very welcoming.”
 

“The biggest role of being a curator is to be a storyteller, because ultimately you want to invite people in and share something that you think is wonderful with an audience.” 

“I really love to see dance as a place of exploration, where you actually try to capture something that is not really conscious.”

 “Where we stand in space defines the way we move” from We Love Arabs.

“As dancers and dance scholars we have the ability to articulate how embodied senses of self in the world and how specific embodied practices come to have social meaning, and how those presumed meanings circulate in public discourse, influencing public policy and political claims, with long term and complex results.”

“I try to make the ballet world a lot more colourful, diverse and a lot more inclusive.”

“The fact that the sexual undertone, or the desiring undertone that a lot of dance is operating through, for me it was very important to make it explicit. To actually say ‘okay part of what is happening here is a question of desire, it is a question of being stimulated physically. Then there are many different levels or layers of this happening of course. In my work it was about saying, we have to recognise that these underlying structures are there, and if we recognise it and even expose it explicitly then maybe we can actually look at for something else or question ourselves….”

"I am observing them, observing me." 

“Dance is an embodied space, it is a visual space, it’s a sensual space and I just have such a strong desire for the audience to be in their bodies as well as the performers and for them not to be sitting in a black box as if they are watching television, in their heads thinking about things, analysing.”

“I am a huge feminist, so there was something about the strength of the females going on pointe, that really interested me, I like that there was strength beyond the beauty.”

“New York was my mentor”

“In many respects I started doing performance as a reaction to having a very digital practice, working with images and I wanted to physically feel more alive in this reality.”

“There is something about sharing something with somebody, or about teaching somebody something that allows space for a conversation that you might not normally have.”

“my ambitions are taking me into other mediums where there is such a liberation, because I don't know the rules, because I don't understand the parameters because I don't understand techniques, because I don't understand tools, or how to do this, or what I should be doing. You know, and there's, there's such a liberation in that. And I think the most valuable thing that I have at the moment is this costume design situation.”

“Dance has the ability to take the moment and to expand that out, so you can almost, you can take one or a few things, and really pull them apart and really understand them. […] Dance allows the possibility for authentic human to human encounters; that I think are becoming  more and more precious in this digital world.”

“I am such an instinctual person as well, I really trust in the process, and allowing things to evolve and come up. So the work, in away makes its self along the way.”

“you actually can you have agency in designing your own career”

“every human has a body and bodies tell stories”

“Dance, it has a tribal background, everyone does dance, initially, as kids, and we will do it socially. So I think there's a very powerful message there that can be utilised by choreographers when they're creating their works.”

‘you have to make everyone go at their own pace’

"In term of my career, I've spent most of it - if not all of it - in youth dance."

“Dance can provide a space for people to have a kinesthetic response to something and to be given a place to meet their body in watching another body move.”

"I really loved the freedom of expression, and just realising that... I don't need to use my mouth if I wanna tell a story."