"The motivation is the interest in the other".
Dramaturge Tessa Theisen on the work of toaspern|moeller
Preliminary remarks
Dancer and choreographer Alma Toaspern and singer and composer Mathias Monrad Møller have been working together since 2020. By finding a settled form of collaboration as duo toaspern|moeller, their view changed from single performances to long-term processes. Working methods and jointly developed artistic practices spanning across projects came into focus. The following text accompanies a working process of toaspern|moeller and attempts to explore specific working methods of the two artists in an ongoing process. Based on rehearsal visits, conversations/interviews, rehearsal protocols kept by the artists, and audio and video recordings of performances and rehearsals, the interdisciplinary working method between dance and music of toaspern|moeller shall be captured and made vivid. The materials created as part of a Prozessförderung through Fonds Darstellende Künste are dedicated to documenting the process as well as to questioning and reflecting on their respective and the collective practice. Leading questions and topics of this reflection include: How can music and choreography be designed so that body and music are mutually dependent? How must rehearsals and processes be structured in order to work experimentally? How can the differences between the arts become catalysts rather than obstacles? In the course of the process, eight methods could be identified, which were developed and tested for further work and will be presented in the following.
"You need to work on your body"
Method: focused look at one's own discipline, the history of its disciplining and possibilities of complementing it.
The starting point of the collaboration of the duo toaspern|moeller lies in the different individual backgrounds of Alma Toaspern and Mathias Monrad Møller. Alma is trained in classical and contemporary stage dance and choreography. Mathias completed studies in composition, classical singing and opera. Both artists have experienced strong forms of discipline in their field. Both art forms - music and dance - cannot be thought of without a continuous practice of many years, they are not without preconditions. They thus look back on years of training and refinement of techniques of singing and dancing. A training that strongly influences the body and its knowledge, shapes it in a lasting way and ultimately will always help to determine its individual form of expression.
An important point of intersection for the collaboration of the two artists is that they can each rely on each other's skills and abilities. They build on subtleties in each other's skills and abilities.
Both artists are well versed in their field and the interest in further developing their skills remains in their collaboration. Only through this focused look at their own discipline and the history of its disciplining do the flaws in it appear and a sensitization to the possibilities of supplementation, expansion through the other is created - A specific, targeted interest in the abilities of the other emerges: What effect on singing can a shift in focus from the sound of the voice to the body in movement have? What possibilities for structuring material arise through musical principles in the choreographic process? And what happens when the dancer sings?
Method: role reversal
In the first two jointly realized projects, in order to stimulate this focused exchange between the arts, the method of role exchange was tested as a mode of collaboration: Alma staged the singer Mathias in "The Combat" (2020) and in "ERNST" (2022/23) Mathias staged the dancer Alma. During this phase, the two exchanged roles to explore their respective ways of working according to divisible methods. In the course of the process they experimented with a sharpening of the approach: What happens when both artists express themselves in both art forms? The dancer and the singer sing and dance, choreograph and compose. Both. Simultaneously. A role reversal while at the same time maintaining their own role.
"Maybe we need more moments like this"
Method: Showing each other something and then talking about it.
The artistic collaboration of toaspern|moeller is all about bringing two different perspectives together in an explorative way. The difference of the perspectives plays one of the most important roles. Learning from each other is in the foreground and just as the difference is made fruitful in artistic expression, so it is with the perspective from which the other looks at the material. Feedback from the specific perspective of the other discipline is sought and consolidated as a method by implementing the mutual showing of material and the subsequent talking about it as a practice.
However, the boundary between the two art forms is not linear, it is a game of proximity and distance to the discipline of the other. And both contain productive moments - artistic expression feeds on both difference and commonality. Through one's own limitations, for example, respect and interest for the expertise of the other arise.
Method: Improvisation
Improvisation serves toaspern|moeller as a means of exploring the expressive abilities of song and dance. In doing so, they understand improvisation as a broad field - both conceptually and methodologically - from which one must choose carefully: Is improvisation to be used as a tool for generating material, as an cognitive process based on action, or as a possibility for live-thinking on stage?
Improvisation can therefore be used both in the development process and on stage - depending on which result it is aimed at.
For toaspern|moeller, the use of improvisation within the working process and the development of the piece is clearly in the foreground. Improvisation is understood as a process dedicated to the development of new, individual tools and the modes of expression they enable. Similar to the development of a language, the experimentally find anwers to the question: How do we communicate? Here, too, the different perspectives on improvisation in music and dance, composition and choreography can be made productive.
An important attitude for the two artists is - despite taking the material seriously - not to take themselves too seriously, in order to first and foremost make it possible to step out of the comfort zone in the confrontation.
"If you don't want it to be a mistake - make a thing out of it".
Method: gaining material through mistakes
Thoroughness and care are important aspects of the artistic work of both artists and a demand they make on their individual as well as their joint work. This is expressed in a practice that allows intensive grinding on the material in rehearsals and gives room to a great interest in precision in virtuosic artistic expression. This deliberate turn to virtuosity and meticulous work makes it possible to push boundaries, which can then themselves become the object of reflection.
The high level of training and the virtuosity in dance or singing that has been achieved as a result provoke a comparison of abilities at the moment of confrontation. The search for refinement and "perfection", which both artists bring with them from their respective art forms, directs the focus almost involuntarily to their susceptibility to error. In their collaboration, toaspern|moeller now turn this, perhaps heightened, awareness of mistakes and error-making towards the productive, and start directly at this point in order to gain exciting material from an artistic point of view.
At the same time, the result is a questioning of the concept of "error" and a rethinking of the categories of right and wrong in the sense of suspending both: what is an error in the first place? Can this specific collaboration be about not making mistakes, or does the interest lie elsewhere entirely? Is it perhaps more about identifying a moment of vulnerability (on stage)? A vulnerability that can emerge in the confrontation with an unfamiliar art form, with a physical practice that is precisely not one's own.
toaspern|moeller provoke moments of vulnerability in their work, or rather put them in the center of their practice, by deliberately trying to let one discipline influence or even affect the other. One discipline (e.g. dance) is applied to the other (e.g. singing) and impedes it, which then allows a very own, specific expression to unfold.
Method: Music as performer and musical principles as choreographic structure.
Common forms of collaboration between music and dance in contemporary performances are to be questioned and thought of differently. To this end, toaspern|moeller questions above all the hierarchies between the two art forms, in which music is often assigned an accompanying, supporting character. But how can music possibly play a different role? What happens when music is assigned the role of a performer who is on stage together with the dancer? So that the dancer acts with the music as an " authority " and not as an accompanying work.
But it is not only the different forms of expression that will be explored, but also different approaches to choreography/composition or piece development. For example, toaspern|moeller explored the use of musical principles as choreographic structure. Which questions and challenges common approaches to choreography, for example by establishing an interlocking of the individual scenic elements through musical principles as a dramaturgical thread.
Here the two complement each other and learn from the other, in order to then jointly develop a new, own way of working and with it a specific, own aesthetic.
"What are we doing? Aesthetics or working method ?"
Method: creating a common language, a common vocabulary.
In order to find their own approach toaspern|moeller combined their respective individual daily practices and a project-based shared practice that they developed over the course of the collaboration. They did this by carefully exploring the limits and possibilities of their own and the other's practice in order to navigate in the narrow zone "in-between" the arts. What terminologies need to be clarified or redefined in order for the composer to stage the dancer or the choreographer to stage the singer? For example, the word "locomotion" is self-explanatory for the dancer and can be understood as a concrete approach to movement, which the composer can only access if he knows the word. In the same way, the term "dynamics" has different connotations in music and dance: in music it refers to loudness; in dance - the "silent" art form - it is used to describe the speed or agility of movement.
Research is another important part of the common practice. toaspern|moeller's approach can be understood as theme-based work that keeps artistic expression in mind as a medium - in the sense of the word as a mediator, a means by which something else can be addressed. It does not persist in circling around itself, art does not serve as an end in itself: although the interest in exploring the discipline/form of expression of the other and the confrontation with it is a central aspect, it is not made the self-referential content of the works. In "ERNST", for example, they attempted through intensive movement research to approach the experience and behavior of a trained monkey and, on the basis of this, to negotiate concepts such as humor and humorlessness. The theme of a new project is love - in all its overload - and will be explored through singing and movement, starting from a text. In this way, the work not only develops a dialogue about the two art forms of music and dance, but there is always a third authority as an anchor, as a common point of reference for artistic expression.
Method: Division of responsibilities
Finding a common language, a common vocabulary, also requires mutual understanding on a structural level: There must be a balance between individual work and joint work. How can this be organized? A process of negotiation that is linked both to the requirements of a particular work, but also addresses the fundamental questions of collaboration. How can work be done separately in a collaboration that focuses on "togetherness"? Can this then still be understood as collaborative or is it then actually a division of labor? How can the specificity of one's own field not be lost in finding a common denominator?
In the course of the collaboration, this point repeatedly turned out to be crucial: the two artists naturally reached points where the joint work condensed into a kind of "knot" that could only be untied by falling back on the respective disciplines and continuing to work in parallel in their respective fields. Trust in each other's expertise played a major role in this process. The search for a working mode is also reflected on a macro level, as toaspern|moeller, in addition to the questions about a common artistic practice, are also in discussions about how to divide their work again (temporarily? project-related? long-term?), as both artists have a desire to delve deeper into their own field again.
Conclusion
After exploring methods for solidifying the collaboration of toaspern|moeller as a duo, practices and attitudes could be determined that have proven to be applicable for future artistic projects. It turned out to be a useful insight that everything can be recognized as potentially artistic material, especially such material that arises from supposed mistakes. Similarly, it can be stated that a common language is needed to talk about music and dance, and that an exchange at eye level about the material presented to each other is an important starting point of toaspern|moeller's conversations. However, crucial points have emerged that require further negotiation. For example, it has become apparent that the two disciplines cannot always be treated equally, but that they each bring with them different qualities and requirements, to the point that they can potentially even get in each other's way. In this context, the key point in the process can be understood as the concretization of the question: How can the collaboration alternate between individual and joint work so that individual strengths can continue to be used and even emphasized? How to deal with the fact that balancing the differences between the two artists and their art forms, a meeting "halfway" between the disciplines leads to levelling individual skills and therefore to losing some of the virtuosity?
The decision to perpetuate the collaboration of toaspern|moeller is also to be understood as politically relevant. Especially after the experiences of the pandemic it is becoming increasingly clear that there must be sufficient space and time in the context of artistic work to allow processes to unfold over a longer period of time without always necessarily being linked to performances. The point here is not to play the two aspects off against each other, but to see them as complements: A performance is important because it demands a concretization, formulates a "necessity" or a goal. A working process beyond the usual 6-8 week rehearsal periods allows for more detailed work and the exploration of viable modes of collaboration. Establishing a support structure creates permanence in the work and also in the working conditions, which promotes longer-term collaboration and joint, experimental further development that is not given in purely project-based contexts.
Text: Tessa Theisen
Videos: Tom Nicklaus
the work of Alma Toaspern and Mathias Monrad Møller is generously supported by
