On being an artist

 

Since my childhood, my physical body, the joy of moving and sensing especially through kinanesthesia and touch were the main channels that rooted me in myself and allowed me to discover the world I was part of. I became a dance artist because I love making things and I love making things with my body. 

 

Making something and making it ‘now’ is a process that involves my whole being. Moving as a way of making turns my imagination into action and leads to bodily material in which I can participate. 

The act of making takes me beyond myself to something ‘other’ and larger, the dancing, the composition, the piece. 

The material stimulates my curiosity and engagement. It commands, often with urge and becomes a leading thread in the process of creating. It calls for listening to what wants to materialize, be said, come into being.

 

The physical body is in itself a living composition that constantly moves through new configurations. It is the gate into actuality, into what is and what is in the process of becoming and dissolving. The body houses history, images, dreams, memories, stories… material that expresses, emanates and tells in each posture and gesture. 

Moving and dancing is a way of thinking with and through the body in motion and evolving further, a universal language in which the body communicates beyond the rational. 

 

Making dances is an entry into the stream of action, engagement and participation instead of being an observer at a distance. It offers to go to places, layers of time and states of being that I can’t access when I’m not moving.

Making dance work asks for engaging with my imagination, creativity, musicality. It is a way to give form to the formless and to give it a place to live within a larger context and be shared.  

 

Bettina Neuhaus, 2022