Orfee Schuijt is a performer who has gradually been developing her own practice of creation.
Duration, ambiguity and multiplicity are key interests. Her new piece, Who’s afraid of red yellow and blue?, is a collaboration with composer Kim Myhr.
Short interview with Orfee Schuijt:
You have described this piece as playing with perception. How so?
“Perception is identifying something through our senses. There is a certain concentration when I extract meaning from what I see-feel-hear-smell. I like how the term perception captures something intuitive and physical. I am working with drawing – on paper and digitally, writing, filming and dancing. These methods influence the way I perceive my body. I think of them as something organic, like a fabric. I am interested in the ambiguity that arises from shifting between media and the multitude it creates.”
What drives your collaboration with Kim Myhr?
“Kim and I have been discussing duration and how to listen vertically and discover layers of music as opposed to listening to a horizontal or linear progression, like when you read. Choreography can be also thought of in this way, as a layering of materials and sensations instead of a creating a horizontal relationship between elements.”
What is at stake in this piece?
“I am interested in small changes in perspective, tiny movements and how a material can keep a sensual quality and at the same time lose its identity. The sensuous meets the inorganic and creates a space where roles are suspended, exchanged or lost. Taking this fabric of media into the theater space excites me. I want to enter the intimate without having direct contact with the audience, like a hacker maybe? It’s more like stealing than sharing.”
