As much as Post: Ballet’s performances ebb and flow according to the size of the performance space and its audience, Dekkers choreography is further defined by the dancers the works are set on. Originally Robert Dekkers’ Flutter had been staged with a range of dancers, first all-female, then all-male, and finally mixed-gender. The ultimate transformation occurred when the work was set on individual AXIS dancers. AXIS is known for its collaboration of dancers with and without physical disabilities. Under Dekkers’ direction, Flutter focused on the abilities and range of each AXIS dancer as much all of the dancers coming together as a whole company. According to Dekkers, “Flutter is a meditation on the relationship between the individual and the collective. It explores the space between masculinity and femininity, form and freedom, effort and pleasure.”
There is an interesting dichotomy between the classical ballet that lives at BBT and the transformative work happening at Post:Ballet. Now that Post:Ballet is the official dance company for BBT, it is firmly rooted in BBT’s expanding community of dancers—where talented dancers have an opportunity to grow as artists. To be good at anything, an artist must master essential technique—the rules have to be rigorously adhered to before they can be tossed aside or stretched beyond the breaking point to make way for groundbreaking new art. One fuels the other—this is the dynamic tension that must always exist to create exceptional work. As Dekkers says, “If I have an idea for a work that no one else would go out on a limb to do, then that is the one I want to do.” For Robert Dekkers, being the Artistic Director of both BBT and Post:Ballet also makes him his own collaboration, his own work in progress.
FLUTTER
BY ROBERT DEKKERS
BEHIND THE SCENES: