January 22nd, 2023

On the occasion of our new BACH programme, we spoke with choreographer Andonis Foniadakis about his piece Selon désir. Almost twenty years ago – in 2004 – he created the piece in Geneva. For Introdans it was rehearsed for BACH.

Andonis: “Literally, Selon désir means to me ‘according to desire’ and that arose because I had a desire to do something with this music by Bach. So for me, first of all, it’s a perfect combination of two words. In addition, it is a title that leaves enough room for your own interpretation.”
 
“Choreographically, it is a very ambitious piece. Firstly, because it is made on the openings of two world-famous pieces by Bach, the St. Matthew and the St. John passion. These are so monumental, so maximal and powerful, but each in their own way, that it was a challenge to make a combination of the two.” Andonis then delved into the construction of music and studied many paintings from the Baroque period. The sky is portrayed as colorful and light and these paintings have a clear design in the sense of the space that is used. However, the depiction of hell is dark, a bit anarchic. Selon désir became his translation into dance of these two extremes. Andonis: “I combined the music with my observations of the paintings and I delved into the religious aspects of heaven and the earth. It has therefore become a very symmetrical, almost mathematical and highly technical piece about glorification, but also about suffering. In one 22-minute piece, spirituality and divinity are combined with the flesh, the body, the desire and the destruction.”
 
Signature 
Andonis explains that with Selon désir twenty years ago he actually defined his choreographic signature in terms of the quality and creation of his movements. “These are of course always in development, but basically they are characteristics such as: seriousness, continuity, dynamics, flow, definition, the combination of classical dance with modern dance and energy. I therefore think that it is a piece of a high technical level. It requires a lot of musicality and coordination from the dancers to be able to be completely ‘free’ afterwards.” Selon désir contains a lot of body contact, individual solos, turns, jumps, flows. “For me it is a complete palette of what a dancer should be able to physically perform. A dancer has studied for years at a dance academy,” says Andonis, “to finally be able to control and define this physical and high level.”
 
Emotion 
Andonis was introverted and shy as a child. When asked whether this might have to do with the fact that he pushes the boundaries and challenges in his work, he says: “It could very well be that my choreographies are so moving, so vital and outgoing and maximum for that reason. As a child I was not very social, very shy and introverted. Through the choreographer in me, my desires and energies are indirectly expressed, which I may not have been able to grasp and express in an organic way in my youth.”
 
There is a lot of emotion in his choreographies. A dance can be very technical and according to Andonis, because of that challenge, there is always an emotion that comes out. He explains: “The challenge in dance makes you alert and opens your senses, as it were, and this creates emotion. We tend to link emotions mainly with feeling or with interaction with others, but the deepest emotion you reach with dance is the inner connection with yourself. That’s why dance is a very good way to float things to the surface. And this is because the performance often demands a lot from you and not just in a theatrical way. Because with a theatrical way, emotions are often shown to the audience in a very direct way, but modern and abstract dance contains emotions that, as it were, ask the audience to connect with the dancers.”
 
Highlight
When asked what his own highlight is so far, Andonis indicates that in fact he sees everything in his career as a highlight. “In everything I do, it is my personal translation of something every time at that moment. The past twenty years have been a highlight for me as a whole. I feel happy and blessed that I can and can continue to work as a choreographer. It takes a lot of energy and discipline of course and you need a bit of luck, but also inspiration. The fact that I became a choreographer and that I have been able to work with so many dancers all over the world for so many years is something I never dared to dream of and that is already the highlight for me.”