In this homage by the choreographer Iztok Kovač to his birth town, the international dance company EnKnapGroup confronts the mining facilities of the Slovenian town Trbovlje for the last time, before they disappear from the collective consciousness. For the last time the members of the group fill these places with vitality and life as they experience it themselves.
"Vašhava" was developed through Kovač’s collaboration with director and editor Sašo Podgoršek. The film is divided in three sequences – ‘The Church’, ‘The Stage’, and ‘The Tomb’ each carrying its own unique ambience.
"Vašhava" was developed through Kovač’s collaboration with director and editor Sašo Podgoršek. The film is divided in three sequences – ‘The Church’, ‘The Stage’, and ‘The Tomb’ each carrying its own unique ambience.
Writen by: Iztok Kovač & Sašo Podgoršek
Directing: Sašo Podgoršek
Choreography: Iztok Kovač
Performers: EnKnapGroup
Cinematography: Sven Pepeonik
Editing: Sašo Podgoršek
Sound design: Charo Calvo (with music by Miquel Casaponsa)
Release date: 2014
Directing: Sašo Podgoršek
Choreography: Iztok Kovač
Performers: EnKnapGroup
Cinematography: Sven Pepeonik
Editing: Sašo Podgoršek
Sound design: Charo Calvo (with music by Miquel Casaponsa)
Release date: 2014
Artist Interview: SAŠO PODGORŠEK
ARTISTS' details
IntervieW Transcript: Sašo Podgoršek
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What is the meaning of the word ‘vašhava’?
Sašo Podgoršek: It means washing hall. It comes from German word ‘waschhalle’. It is a place within the coal-mining facilities where the workers go to wash themselves and change their clothes. The film was shot in Slovenia's old industrial town Trbovlje, a hometown of Vašhava’s choreographer Iztok Kovač… Sašo Podgoršek: Yes, Trbovlje is a town in Slovenia that has always been regarded, in collective consciousness, as a synonym for heavy industry: coal mines, power plants, cement factories, and so on. At the same time, it was also a heavy proletarian city. Iztok was born there, his father was a coal miner too, so it was organic for him to make a film there, as a dedication. At the time the film was shot, the coal mine was closing so Vašhava is a sort of a farewell to this place and the era it represents.... Sašo Podgoršek: Yes, Vašhava is a dedication to all the men, and the women, and the kids who were part of the 200 years of coal mining in this area. Vašhava was originally developed as a stage performance. From there, it was turned into a dance film, developed through yours and Iztok's a collaboration. The two of you have worked together on other films in the past and all of your films start as stage productions so they are in a way a study on how to turn stage dance into the screen dance… Can you tell me a bit about your and Iztok’s collaborative process? Sašo Podgoršek: First, I should say that we never plan to do the films… I never know whether we will do them or not, but I'm pretty sure we will because Iztok is constantly in the theatre production with EnKnapGroup and every so often he feels we have enough material to adapt these stage performances for the screen. Or he tells me: “I think we are close, but let's wait on another performance; I feel something will emerge from there.” So we are just waiting for the material to ripen and then we start to dream how to put it in front of the camera. In terms of collaboration, we are really like ‘one body’ - I am as much a director, as I am a choreographer and vice versa; Iztok assists me in directing as I am assisting him in choreography. It is never a solo; it’s always a collective dance, a duo. Given that the film started as stage dance production, I am curious to know how did the dancers address this shift between performing on stage and performing for camera where their movements will eventually be reshaped and re-sculpted in the editing room? Sašo Podgoršek: Film still has this magic about it. When you say: “OK, now we will do a movie,” everybody is: “Wow. Yeah. Yes, let’s do it!” Everyone is excited about it. In terms of transition, they have good guides in me and Iztok so we make it easy for them. I explain to them where is their ground, where are the limitations of the space, of the camera lenses, and more-less that's it. Also, all these dancers are like machines and capable to go on and on. I remember doing the sequence called “The Stage” (the second sequence in the film) which is really intense in terms of physical delivery, the strength, but these dancers did it without a problem, as many times as I wanted and I really wanted to repeat it many times, changing the lenses and angles so I can have a lot of material to play with in the editing room. Vašhava is divided in sequences, a decision that was guided by the production conditions and limitations... Sašo Podgoršek: Vašhava was meant to be a small movie in terms of production. We knew that we don't have any budget. It was kind of a friendly collaboration of the people doing it for free. I rented the equipment from the people I worked with on some commercial jobs and they gave me superior equipment. We had only four days to shoot so we said, let's do one scene per day. We named the scenes. One scene we called ‘The Church’. The second one was called ‘The Butchery’ - this one was cut out in the end. Then there was a scene called ‘The Stage’ - this is the scene where the dance comes to the full force; this is also the sequence that is very rapidly edited. And the last scene was called ‘The Tomb’. Those names brought us the task to create the atmosphere for each scene, so each scene has some particular ambience. For instance, for ‘The Church’ we looked at particular kind of lighting and steady-cam movements so it all looks esoteric. I am curious to know what particular scenes signify in narrative terms. For instance, in ‘The Church’ sequence, we hear calling of names. What are the names we are hearing and what is the significance of this scene? Sašo Podgoršek: Iztok invented his own signature in choreographing improvisational sequences. It’s called ‘three qualities or open parts’. It's based on throwing the dice, so at the beginning of every sequence, be it in theater or on the film, the dancers throw the dice and the dice tells them how to behave in the next phase of dancing. They have three crucial options to choose. One is shadowing; it means they copy the movement of the other. The other one instructs them to call the names and this serves as a special sign to the group on how to behave. Calling these names in the movie is based on these ‘three qualities or open parts’. In ‘The Church’ sequence, we also see the dancers sitting and reading quietly. Can you tell me a bit about this scene? Sašo Podgoršek: Some rough association was François Truffaut’ Fahrenheit 451, a movie made in France in the sixties where we have people escaping to the forest because the books were forbidden. It's kind of a dystopia movie where the government forbids reading of the books and there is a group of people who don’t obey and keep reading. This was a strong cinematic moment for me and is a kind of a motif for this sequence - a group of people being together with the common sense, the same idea, and books are kind of a connection here. Books are connecting people, let's say. More important than choreography in this sequence was just being there and being a member of the group, not an individual. What about the four to five minutes long tracking shot on a dancer, filmed en-face, changing emotions on his face? This micro-choreography focuses on the expressive potential of a face and comes as a stark contrast to the scene we saw just before, where the dance came to its full force as you said. Sašo Podgoršek: This shot is a citation of one choreography from the stage. It came out of Marcel Marcou pantomime where you do nothing, just move your face, every single muscle, mouth, eyes, nose. He changed something like ten different emotional states in this long shot. From extremely happy to extremely sad, scared. It's a big achievement; how to preserve the concentration during five minutes and deliver different emotional states. In the scene towards the end of the film, called “The Tomb”, we see a dancer attempting to break the chains. How does this scene fits the narrative structure of the film, and how did you go about directing and filming this physically delicate sequence? Sašo Podgoršek: “The Tomb” is a sequence where dancers express their feelings about the space - their sentiment, the sorrow, the pain… Everybody had to find their own expression, and this dancer was all in chains and suddenly he just broke and started shouting. And it was centimetres from the camera; the camera was very close when he jumped towards it. He was really only few centimetres from crashing the camera with his energy. You mentioned that you and Iztok often listen to music when you meet up to work which makes me wonder if the music we are hearing in the film was already known to you as you were developing the film? Sašo Podgoršek: Music was inserted in post-production. We invited Charo Calvo who is an old collaborator and an excellent sound designer living in Brussles and she proposed Miquel Casaponsa, a guitar player from Barcelona who did an acoustic theme for the end titles. All the other things were done by Charo who was also sampling some older stuff from Thierre De Mey we had the permission to use. I was editing to silence to start with but as I was editing, Charo was sending me music proposals. So it all came together nicely. By vocation, you are a film director who sometimes does camerawork, but when it comes to screen dance, you are most passionate about editing. Why is that? Sašo Podgoršek: Dance cinema is a creative genre that still doesn't have its clear path. I think that every dance movie in the world is discovering by itself how to do it – what to tell; how to talk; how to dance. It doesn't have a rigid narrative form. It doesn't have a scenario per se. Doesn’t have all the nuance that classical narration form has. When I do a classical narration movie or a music video, I'm very well prepared and everything is meant to be as sketched in the storyboard. But in contemporary dance movie, you are always discovering things, especially in editing process. You're not sure if things that you planned and filmed will work as you have planned them. Every film we did ended up quit differently than we initially imagined. So we had a kind of a second journey with the material we shoot. So, if I would to pick up the most important production phase for a good dance movie, I would say that editing has this privilege because it’s discovering the meanings. You shoot the sequences and then there is a skill of combining, of trying, of giving a new breath of life to it. Editing is important in these terms. But of course, it's not the only one. Everything should come together, like in every work of art or any kind of narrative movie. So there are people who do the costumes, who do the photography, who do the music. It's equal. But the last chef touch is done by editing which here, in the dance films, is more important than in other genres, I think. |
"Dance cinema is a creative genre that doesn't have a rigid narrative form and I think that every dance movie in the world is discovering for itself how to do it – what to tell, how to talk, how to dance." |
