premiere of TRIP - Christoph, performer at White Horse, about the show
For the Blind Date Tour Greek dancer/choreographer Maria Mavridou joined the Trip cast. Lea , Xavier, Maria and myself take turns performing Trip each night in a different constellation. Original cast (and founding member of White Horse) Julia Jadkowski doesn't perform Trip anymore because of a knee injury.
Due to the high physical demands of the show, we decided to teach Trip to one extra performer so that we can take turns during the Blind Date tour. We never performed so many Trips after each other. Originally there were 17 shows planned with sometimes three nights in a row. In the end some theatres withdrew and we ended up with 11 gigs. Still it's good to be clever and take precautions. First we thought about taking a massage therapist with us on tour, but the budget didn't allow it. Now we always give each other an extensive laughing massage as part of the warming up. And we made it a rule to stretch properly after the performances, although that is still difficult to keep up with aftertalks and having to catch the last train back to Amsterdam.
Zoetermeer was the premiere of the tour. And it was Maria's premiere. Maria's first time ever to dance Trip in front of an audience. She was very quick in learning the material. We only needed around six rehearsals of 3 hours to teach her Trip. She said it's physically still very hard to do, but the audience in Zoetermeer gave her extra energy.
It was sold out in Zoetermeer. Mainly older people with a Blind Date abonnement as we learned in the aftertalk. They were all attentive and curious, only a few left during the performance. We are used to people leaving. Xavier usually says: better to have people walk out on Trip than people being indifferent to it. Walking out is a strong reaction. One lady said that the dying part was too long and why we made it so long. I actually don't remember why exactly we chose to make it long. It might have been especially long that evening. They wanted to know where they could see us next. Maria laughed and said in the Caribbean. I told them about our new piece Romance being performed at the Something Raw Festival in Amsterdam on February 3rd. They wanted to know about the open mouth. Xavier talked about the silent scream and orgasm. Munch's painting "the scream" was mentioned as well.
Another question was: Did you want to make a political piece? As far as I remember it was never our intention to make a political piece. We wanted to physically embody the feeling of fighting for something, having a strong opinion. We didn't have an opinion, yet wanted a revolution. That sentence to me describes the making process very appropriately. At least for me it was one of the main motivations to make the piece: the fact that I find it so difficult to find a cause to fight for. Each situation, conflict, subject seems so complex and multilayered. It's hard to form a clear opinion on most things. I don't read the newspaper, but even if I did I'm sure I wouldn't manage to be up to date and have a clear opinion. And still there is this longing to belong to something and to fight for something. Of course we realized and were aware from the beginning that performing this kind of revolutionary body onstage is very political and can be taken as an assault, as propaganda. A lot of audience members think of totalitarian structures, of Nazi Germany. After all Julia, Lea, and I are all three of us blond and German-speaking. So I guess it's to our advantage that Xavier and Maria make the cast slightly more multicultural.
The second show was in Arnhem with Xavier, Lea and myself performing. I had hurt my knee in Zoetermeer. It was swollen underneath the kneecap. Still I wanted to do the show in Arnhem. I only noticed the swollen knee in the morning and I knew Maria had other appointments for the day. So I decided that boys don't cry and took the train to Arnhem. Yet I was moody and sensitive and worried a lot about the knee. Lea suggested I take painkillers cause it's good against inflammation. So I took two paracetamols before the show. I had also bought Arnica cream at the pharmacy at Centraal Station.
Attila, our light technician, told us that Arnhem was also sold out. We had been warned that there would be about 50 17-year olds in the audience and that they wanted an aftertalk with us. They were very focused and at the end of the show didn't say a word but kept silent. A full house in total silence is very impressive. The public was actually more mixed age groups. There were some young students, but more early twenties than 17 and also people our age and older. Some of them stood up and gave us a standing ovation. We felt good about the show in Arnhem. There was no aftertalk. My knee had made it through the show all right. The painkillers had done their job and the inflammation was almost gone.
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