(Interview with Meg Stuart)

I usually work with musicians who compose a soundtrack during the creative process. For Built to Last I wanted to start with existing, overpowering, symphonic music. As a human being, how do you deal with the enormity of it? In collaboration with Alain Franco a series of pieces have emerged, resulting from various traditions of classical and modern music. I didn’t carry out a mathematical analysis and deconstruction of the works, I simply responded to them on an emotional level. What is it that music releases in us? Slavoj Zizek says something very interesting in The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema:  “The same music that served evil purposes can be redeemed to serve the Good. Or it can be read in a much more ambiguous way. With music we cannot ever be sure. In so far as it externalises our inner passion music is potentially always a threat.”

The soundtrack acts as a time machine. The dancers move this way and that in history. They unfold a new consciousness in every scene: for themselves, for the space, for the music, for each other. Many dance sequences have emerged from an exploration of changing laws and codes. Many of my other choreographies stem from a certain state of mind. But in Built to Last we let the music force us to adapt to new forms, time and time again. In each form we looked for complex, subtle manoeuvres. The slightest movement, a single glance, can make iconographic, monumental pictures into something ambiguous and human.

The expression ‘Built to Last’ betrays a belief in eternal values, heroism and universality. At the same time, we have the urge to continue reinventing ourselves. We have to move forward. Many things are designed to break after a short time. There is also the sense of an approaching end. Everyone is preparing for it. It is sad, but that’s the way it is. Maybe Built to Last is about how, in the light of eternity, we can practise taking our leave, practise dying. 

interview: Jeroen Versteele
translation: Gregory Ball