Twan van Diest
Our March Maker…
Twan van Diest is a choreographer and performer who strives to create cinematic depictions of human struggle on stage. He also co-runs Dance X Circus, a platform that hosts multidisciplinary events that bridge the gap between dance and circus.
We met in our first year at Fontys University in Tilburg, the Netherlands in the contemporary department. We both joined the choreography department in third year where our friendship and love for each other’s work truly blossomed.
I’ve always been so struck by the story of how Twan became engrossed in the world of dance as it seems to echo the attributes of a religious calling in many ways.
The idea of dance had rarely crossed his mind but at 16 he met a professional dancer and they ended up talking for hours.
‘‘It was at a time where you’re 16 and you don’t really know what you want with your life. And I remember it so clearly, I was at home stood in my kitchen and somehow after that conversation, I suddenly knew that that was the thing I had to do. I wanted to dance.’’
Prior to this his only connection to dancing was in school as a child. Which seems to now be the route he is unconsciously reverting back to.
‘‘There is a certain freedom you have in moving as a child. If I could explain the certainty that I got, it is perhaps to do with the fact that I wanted to go back to that childlike state of moving. But that is also just a hypothesis. I think the main thing to take away is that I just really wanted it more than anything else.’’
As he was already taking piano, guitar and theatre classes as well as being part of a theatre group it wasn’t until two or three years later that he actually began to dance. His school study counselor played a pivotal role in making this possible.
‘‘One of the first things she said was what do you really want to do? Then I quit all the activities I did outside of school and I said to her I wanna dance. She said okay then, we’ll try to make it happen. She inscribed me into this local ballet school in my hometown.’’
His teacher there was quite tough and stern which led to all the panicked doubts creeping in.
‘‘With her at the beginning I was like - I don’t know if I want to do this, can I be a professional dancer? Because I was 19 you know and I thought if I don’t jump now it’s never going to happen probably. But also if I jump now and I invest so much time in it, I am 19 like I’m late. I was one of the oldest people in the ballet school so I would be in class with 14 and 15 year olds, so you’re standing there everyday in class just to get ballet going. I don’t think anyone thought I was good at dancing, they would always say how strange I was.
But he had his relentless ‘why’ which kept him going. There was a continuous sense of something nagging him incessantly saying ‘you gotta do this,’ even stopping him from sleeping. It only calmed once he started dancing.
His venture into the world of choreograohy was with a piece that he created for his ballet school which was so well recieved and felt so good for him to do.
‘‘ I sat down when it was over and I realised in that moment I have said exactly what I wanted to say. At that moment I thought like I’m done, I’ve said everything I want to say. Then I thought okay I stop but I’ve somehow kept on going and I can’t explain the rational of that.’’
But it was during one of the Graham classes in Fontys that he was struck with what he wanted to create.
‘‘I was thinking this is not how I wanna move, I want to invent my own movement language. I want to move like how I want to. Then almost every teacher came to me in second year saying I should do something with choreography - I was like okay. But I was quite scared because I didn’t know anything as before that I wanted to be a writer and before that I wanted to be a video game director. I think that the process of entering the choreography department it made me think like okay ye, I get this.’’
In terms of the worlds he wants to create the answers can sometimes get lost on the journey to articulation as they are so intertwined with what ‘feels good.’ This is not to say that his work is solely fueled by intuition which he believes has been somewhat tainted as a ‘dirty word,’ in the art world, but instead is a culmination of all his varied sources of interest.
‘‘I’m basically like a dance theatre choreographer. It’s more cinematic theatre, it almost has more the structure or the ambiance and definitely the influence of film, of a cinematic production.’’
‘‘The essence of my work - I’ve always said that it’s human struggle, located in particular individuals and how they try to overcome that. I think even more my work is about redemption. I really want to express an individual going through something instead of just being in a state, struggling with inner darkness and trying to overcome that. Insanity is also quite a thing in my work - reaching a boiling point and then coming into a state of surrenity.’’
No matter what the intention is there is always the equally terrifying and thrilling moment when the work is finally released into the world. He can be charged with nerves watching a performer do his work but a strange sense of awareness when he himself is doing it.
‘‘You prepare for everything but you can’t really prepare for what it’s actually like with an audience. It’s so much stress you got to shut off. I find it hard because when I’m making something for myself there’s a certain feeling that I derive my movement from basically and then when I’m just performing it I’m always struggling to get that back. But I just have to trust that you know it works.’’
‘‘Afterwards with most performances, it’s like quite a big relief, like you have worked through something. It sounds like a therapy session but it is like putting things into order. When you’re getting inspiration you’re like eating stuff and then at a certain point you get full and you just take a huge shit and that’s how it feels. It’s just like a giant relief.
As a young maker you’re always marching towards the ‘I’ve made it,’ moments as a way to map out a possible career path.
‘‘When you think it happened then there’s always something new. For me it’s much more important that the work I make is good and then whatever satifaction or feeling of having made it comes after.’’
But the more he enters the dance and art world as a whole, the veil of mystery it was once surrounded by begins to slip and he is becoming more confident in his views and position within the field.
‘‘I used to think if I get into dance then I can read what these modern dancers are doing. Now that I’m a couple years later - they’re not doing anything! I thought there was some grand secret. This sounds a bit old fashioned but how many people in the dance world are like loving art and watching paintings and reading books? Watching these things kind of sets the boundray of your technique almost.’’
And finally the Notes for a Future Memoir…
Truthful Hope Great
Twan can be found on instagram @twanvandiest and @dancexcircus
Photo credits in order:
Lio Jakob, Maren van Cauwenberge, Jona Harnisch Macher (3+5), Jostijn Ligtvoet (4+6)