I meet Danish juggler Villads Bugge Bang and French dancer Thalia Pigier at the terrace of a hipster café in the harbor of Copenhagen in August 2021. Thalia is too late and Villads has to leave early, so the interview can be roughly divided in three parts. ‘I was wondering during the process: are we doing it too easy for ourselves, where is the challenge? But I think at that moment we did what we could.’
Part I: Villads
Why did you apply?
(long pause) I applied because I already worked cross-disciplinary a lot. I like to put as many layers as possible in a performance, I like to surprise the audience. Many different art forms and ideas can only expand my work.
You don’t like to stay in one little box?
Exactly.
And what were your expectations for the first residency?
I didn’t have big expectations. When I heard I was matched with Thalia, who is a dancer and actress, I wondered if there was going to be enough conflict in our working methods. Our art forms are quite similar, it’s not like Natko and Bambou, where the conflict is obvious: one sits behind the computer, the other hangs on the trapeze – how will they manage to collaborate? For us it was more vague: is there a challenge or is it just nice to share our passion for our art forms?
You first met online. Did you find common ground easily?
It was all about finding meeting points, and that went quite easy. We quickly found out that we share the passion for site-specific work and for objects. The real challenge came later.
What was the real challenge?
I think for us it was a difference in sense of taste, in what you like – even though we like each other’s stuff. We had different opinions, different mindsets to go into things. But that realization came a bit late in the process: if our challenge lies not in working methods or art forms, maybe it’s to be found in our view on aesthetics, our taste, our different approaches to what stage art is or can be. For example: I like hiding things on stage, while Thalia wants everything to be open and visible for the audience… But these differences only came up the last days, when we prepared our presentation and went filming. Thalia has a more contemporary view on art than I, I think.
Can you tell us something about what you did during the residency?
One thing was inviting each other in each other’s world. I taught her some acrobatics, how to work with the loop station, a bit of beatboxing and juggling, … She taught me some dance, exercises, methods, … So we made these small workshops for each other. We also learned about rigging, which was new for us both. Another thing we did was working with objects and costumes: finding them, exploring them. We also made a long list of things that inspire us, videos and references, on which we talked about, what could be interesting to do. At first we wanted to work site specific in the town, but Mechelen didn’t really facilitate outdoor creation – at least not for us: the city is too nice and too clean, there are not so many raw places.
So you stayed inside the theatre most of the time?
Yes… this brand new theatre, again almost too clean. But it had a nice patio where we could do some cool stuff too. For example, we did some sort of computer manipulation: one of us was outside being manipulated by the other one, who was inside – on the other side of the window – toggling on a computer keyboard and handling the mouse. Like a juggler who manipulates his objects. That was a nice moment… one of our meeting points actually. One body dancing and the other one controlling it from a juggling perspective.
Was there some sort of breakthrough during the residency; a moment that you felt ‘yes, now we’re doing something interesting, now we’re getting somewhere’?
For me the last day was the breakthrough, when we were filming with Jakob Rosseel (Belgian film maker, red.) on different locations in Mechelen. We just did a dance impro in the streets together, while all the days before we were maybe lost in all the objects we used. Getting physically together was like a new approach and I felt we could dive deeper into that path. Especially because it also opened up our different views on aesthetics and how we create the things we do.
Maybe working with objects, like you did the 10 first days, was the safer option?
Yeah, I don’t know. I was wondering during the process: are we doing it too easy for ourselves, where is the challenge? But I think at that moment we did what we could. And then we had to prepare the performance…
I saw the performance, it was all about objects. The scene with the plants was really interesting. Can you tell something about it?
Our performance started in the supermarket, with the plants just playing a b-role in this shopping scene. And then, after a while, they take the stage, move by themselves and enter the supermarket, they start talking about their feelings, how it feels being this b-role in the world, where they come from originally, … And then they go up in the sky, move in circles, do stuff plants normally can’t do. We kind of facilitated the plants’ life.
Part II: Villads & Thalia
Thalia arrives. We give her a short summary of the interview so far: being lost in objects for many days and having the feeling that the real breakthrough was on the last day of the residency, when it was just about two bodies improvising.
Thalia: Mmm… I have to say that the first two days, when we got to know each other, we also started from nothing. After that we started buying crap.
Villads: Sometimes I forget that I’m a physical performer. It would have been nice to start the residency lying on top of each other for some time, just to get to know each other and get connected.
Thalia: (laughs) Maybe that would have been weird. But I think we got carried away by all the things we really wanted to try… And I believe that the well-equipped space also influenced a lot. We felt we had so many options and possibilities that we wanted to try everything we could. And every day Villads came up with more and more objects. After a while I felt I had not enough space on stage, I wanted to get rid of everything. But that was the day before the performance, so we decided to stick with it. It was also our common interest, the objects, something we had decided to dive into.
Maybe the performance was not a good idea. Or was it?
Thalia: I’m happy with the performance. It influenced the process in a specific way. Indeed, at some point it stressed us, but it was nice that we got to share something in our own way, on stage. We’re performing artists; we like to perform.
Villads: It’s interesting, the idea of facilitating a space just to explore and research, without any pressure to show something. But it’s tricky; how far do you go in this exploration and lose yourself? Also, circus has a lot to do with tricks, so it would be easy to just practice tricks the whole time…
Thalia: The pressure of a public showing helps to set things in a way that it’s not: ‘today we do this, tomorrow we try that and then we go home’. It made a bit clearer what we were working on. And for me, at the end, it made also clearer what I want to do in my own work.
Please explain.
Thalia: Because we explored things together, sometimes we wouldn’t agree of course on how to use some things – ‘we can play with that, what could be the game?’ – and I think it’s just like: working with someone else makes it clearer for yourself what you like, and how you would do certain things. For instance, with the plants: we did a lot of things with them, experimented on how to manipulate them, some things didn’t really work with the two of us, but maybe I can take it with me for my personal work in the future. I actually work with the plants in my new piece.
Villads: Me too. (laughs)
Thalia: There would have been plants if we hadn’t worked together, but I believe that those two weeks research, everything we did, the talks we had, … did influence the way I went back to my own work afterwards. Which I find is a really nice outcome. I don’t know if this was the purpose of the project…
That brings me to the question I already asked Villads: why did you apply for the project?
Thalia: Because it looked nice. (laughs) Maybe it’s a cliché but I had the feeling that there are a lot of possibilities in circus. I had met a lot of circus artists who kind of accidentally ended up in the circus world, and I could identify with that: I started doing theatre, then I did dance, but I felt that I had missed it because I didn’t start when I was 3 years old. So when I discovered this circus thing, where apparently you can do a bit of everything, I was like: ooh! It has a much wider range. And there are interesting things happening in the contemporary circus scene. So I wanted to learn more about it. And of course I wanted to work with people from different countries. I enjoy going in different places. I guess I was also curious about the matchmaking: let’s just spend two weeks with someone you never met before and do things of which we don’t know what the outcome is going to be… So for all those reasons. I wonder, Villads, why did you apply?
Villads: For the money. (laughs)
Thalia: Well, it is nice that we are properly paid, I must say.
Do you have the feeling that you touched magic during the residency?
Thalia: Mmm… There were definitely nice moments. Building the little acrobatic routine together was really cool; suddenly I was doing a salto. And the first days, when we didn’t have all the objects yet, we worked a lot with the loop station. We had this thing that one of us went on stage and the other one started improvising – Villads mostly beatboxing and I singing – and that really made sense for me. I enjoy working with voice; I felt we were building something. The plants, for instance, came out of these improvisations. We did great things with it. And then the last day, we were cleaning all the mess, we said let’s improvise together. We spent one hour doing things, with random music playing, we just had newspapers. That was also a really nice moment. Just be together and dance.
Villads receives a phone call and has to leave.
Before you go, Villads, what have you learned from Thalia?
Villads: Well, one thing is the fact that I like to hide things.
Thalia: You learned that from me? (laughs)
Villads: I wasn’t…
Thalia: You weren’t aware of it.
Villads: Indeed. It’s nice to have someone else who explains what you do.
If you could do the residency again, what would you do different?
Villads: I would start with lying on top of Thalia for some hours. (laughs) Maybe have like a really nice workshop where you really need to work together and really get to know each other.
Thalia: You mean a non-artistic workshop, like running around the city and digging a hole?
Villads: Yeah, digging a hole. Or sailing. Some challenge. Having a fight with each other. Yeah, that would have been great. Starting with a fight.
Part III: Thalia
Thalia: I think it would have been better if the residency wasn’t two weeks in a row, but one week and then a month later the other week, so we have time to process things. It was really intense. For two weeks we were living and working together, we didn’t see other people. At some point we got less productive, I guess. The first days were really open, everything was possible, we learned and shared a lot. I also felt connected with Villads and his kind of work – it felt all very similar with what I do; we’re both physical people doing stuff on stage. But then we had to organize things in order to be ready for the showing, and that’s where I came to realize that we don’t see things the same way. Our aesthetics are quite different. We make other decisions. So in the end our performance was all about making compromises: this we’re going to do your way, this my way.
Do you agree with Villads that some sort of starting workshop to really get to know each other would have been a good thing for your collaboration?
Yeah. I think what he’s trying to say with the fight thing, is that we were really trying to be nice for each other – we’re both trained to give space to the other, every day we asked each other ‘how do you feel, what do you want to do, do you think we should start with that or with that, …’ We both acted like that, but at some point you need decisions to be taken. Things to be done.
You were too friendly for each other?
I don’t think it’s about being friendly. It’s about making decisions, being clear. One has to say: ‘today, we’re going to do this.’ Afterwards the other one can say: ‘that was shit, we’ll never to that again. Let’s move on.’ We were not clear enough. But of course that takes time.
Will you do it differently in your second residency?
Yes and no. Of course it has a lot to do with the person you work with. You’re constantly adjusting. So it’s going to be different, yes, because it will be with another partner. But also me, I will be in a different place. Right before this residency I was in a 3 week residency with my own company, working day and night, handling everything… so when I arrived in Mechelen I was exhausted and it was clear for me that I didn’t want to handle anything – it was not my piece, not my project, we would do it together, I didn’t want to take responsibility. But then at some point – because I do enjoy leading things – I was like: this is not working, someone needs to take the lead. So in the next residency the context will be different; I won’t start it totally exhausted. Also important is to be clearer in the communication.
The communication between?
Between the two artists. I had a good relationship with Villads, we talked about a lot of things, we shared a lot, which was really nice. But there has to be a balance, you should also be able to say: this is not working for me, I need this or that.
You need to stay more with yourself?
Yes, kind of. Be more aware of those things. Not te be afraid to really speak your mind.
Now you know circus a bit more, what is your opinion about it?
I feel like meeting Villads confirmed what I thought about circus: an open art form with a wide range. When I asked Villads what he did, he was like ‘I do some juggling, I guess, but not so much anymore…’ For me it was great to discover all the things he’s experimenting with, like the loop station and beatboxing, his movements in Michael Jackson/Jacques Tati/Charlie Chaplin style, the physical comedy. But I still have this curiosity in the virtuoso side of circus too, the amazing triple salto, the stuff Villads and I didn’t touch at all. The contemporary circus is struggling with this, no? What to do with the amazing athlete who has this amazing trick, unique in the world, but it only lasts three minutes and then it’s over? And on the other side there’s this dramaturgy – or lack of dramaturgy – in the modern circus. To be in a frame that you feel that nothing specific is expected from you – specific to the genre that you’re practicing. Like: we can talk, we can not talk, we can use objects or not, … When it came to the performance of Villads and me I really felt like we could perform anything, do anything, and somehow it would be circus. (laughs)
Interview by Maarten Verhelst (August 2021)