Radouan Mriziga about 8.3

Via deepl kan je dit interview naar het Nederlands vertalen.

After 8 and 8.2, what inspired you to make 8.3?

I wanted to work with young people around the concept of time, translated into music and rhythm. There is a huge difference in my and their relationship with time. We relate differently to the future and the past. If you think about it in terms of rhythm, they are still in the clap, and I am in one of the cycles of the resonance of that clap. There’s also the difference in how we look at the time we live in. I am partly responsible for the society we live in, and I think that most of them feel that they are just drawn into this time. They still have to discover their role or their responsibility.

In 8.3 I want to find out how I can create more space for the younger generation and search for simple tools for being together in music, in sound or in rhythm. 8.3 is about togetherness originating from a general concern that the world is collapsing. These last two years have been an ecological and economic catastrophe. We don’t live in a post-war era anymore where everyone is dreaming of a better future and our kids will grow up in a world full of peace and art. Tomorrow might not be better, it might be worse. At least I have the privilege, I think, to comment on these feelings through my work.

Yet a big inspiration for 8.3 was protest music, from artists who maybe felt they could change something.

It is important to at least announce something and hope that your work reaches the right people. The inspiration for this production is indeed protest songs, but it’s not only about protest. It’s about being together. I don’t think that we have to be together to solve things, sometimes you just have to hug and wait for the catastrophe to happen. The rituals of music and songs are tools for togetherness. If the future is a disaster, we will at least have experienced being together, having hope until the very last minute. Even if pragmatically you know for sure that everything is wrong. That’s also the beauty of art and the universe: there are powers that are bigger than the people in power.

What is your relation to the songs or the artists whose work you share in the performance?

Well, first of all I like their art. Their work is ambiguous, it’s always somewhere between being a political statement and entertainment. These are also songs I listened to while growing up. M.I.A. has always been inspiring to me: she was part of a political movement and created a new aesthetic at the same time. This is a challenge for my work as well: how to think outside of the eurocentric aesthetics or the traditional history of art and dance. Fela Kuti is a symbol of opposition too. His work is of high quality. If I listen to his music I want to dance, but after two phrases, you also realise he’s talking about a complex political situation. These artists found a way to serve their communities.

How does 8.3 relate to 8 and 8.2 (both performances with youngsters)?

In these three performances, I focus on rhythm as a craft in itself. Through the window of music, I also want to explore how to create music or make a song. In this line of 8, it’s almost as if I want to be a composer of music. But then translated to the body. The three pieces are different but still very similar. I always use the composition of the rhythm as the base of the choreography. 8 was about polyrhythm as a concept. 8.2 features the idea of sampling and deconstructing the rhythm and the texts and then composing something out of it. In 8.3 we attempt to create a space that creates sounds by itself and to compose a song out of choreography.

The 8-star as a geometric figure often returns in your work. What draws you to it?

It’s a religious symbol, but it’s also a translation of time in space. If you do 8 in rhythm (snips fingers), you mark the time. If you make a star, you mark a space. It’s as simple as that. It’s also a part of the composition of the work, in the way dancers walk during the choreography.

It’s your third time working with young performers. How was it?

It’s different because it’s a different group of people, and a different time with different questions. They have so many pertinent questions about the world we live in. When I made 8.2, issues such as anticolonialism and antiracism were very present in our discussions. The youngsters came very charged with those feelings. This time we talked more about ecological topics and war.

What do you hope to change?

I hope to change the perspective of how we see knowledge and how we can be open to different kinds of knowledge around us. Most societies share the same idea: humans develop in one linear direction, using or focusing on one type of knowledge. It’s also part of the catastrophe we are going through. If you think of all the knowledge we have and where we are heading: it means that we must be using it wrong.