Anouk van Dijk

"Dancers are always balancing on the edge of success and failure. This vulnerability is also a strength and, as a creator, I want to show that area of tension. In dance you are constantly battling with glamour. What you see is not usually what it feels like, and there is tension between the artificial and the natural, and the cerebral and the animal. It is all about someone who is at odds, yet in harmony, with themselves. Someone who is trying to stand their ground, both literally and figuratively. This is what makes dance, in my view, more theatrical and exciting than any other art form.?" - Anouk van Dijk 

Anouk van Dijk (1965, Velp) is a choreographer, artistic director and dancer. She also developed during her career the movement system Countertechnique. After graduating from the Rotterdam Dance Academy in 1985, she performed with several groups in the Netherlands and abroad such as Werkcentrum Dans, the Nieuwe Dansgroep, the Rotterdamse Dansgroep and Amanda Miller's Pretty Ugly Dance Company. In 1998 she founded her own company anoukvandijk dc. Over the years, she choreographed more than 25 works. In 2000 she was awarded the Lucas Hoving Prize during the festival Dutch Dance Days.  

International Creative Residency | January 21 – February 5, 2006

Countertechnique Documentation & STAU

The residency provided a unique opportunity for Anouk van Dijk and her company to begin its formal recording of van Dijk’s movement system, Countertechnique. Countertechnique is a movement system that is in direct opposition to the existing opinion that the pelvis, being the heaviest bone in the body, is the center of all movement. In the Countertechnique the dancers never hold a position from the pelvis by muscle power, but keep their balance by continually giving counter-direction to each movement. The residency was the first step in the formal documentation and publication of the system. While in residence the company also performed the Southeastern premiere of STAU, which blurs the line between audience and performer.

STAU was made possible with support from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and the National Dance Project, a program of the New England Foundation for the Arts.

In 2011, the first formal documentation of Countertechnique was released through DANCE TECHNIQUES 2010 TANZPLAN GERMANY (Diehl and Lampert 2011).

Collaborators in Residence: Ken Hypes [sound technician], Koen van Oosterhout [tech coordinator + light technician], Jerry Remkes [dramturge + managing director], Philipp Fricke, Angela Mueller, Nina Wollny [dancers]

Featured Artist

Faye Driscoll

Weathering
February 22 - 24
Carolina Performing
Arts, UNC Chapel Hill

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