‘In my choreographic work, I often turn to the free transposition of musical compositions and structures into movement sequences. Compositional structures such as the canon, counterpoint, accumulation, etc., turn up both in music history and in choreographic practices; the compositional structures and methods of music cannot always be distinguished from those of choreography. And – I prefer working with musicians who co-compose and interpret the choreography rather than with dancers. The ability ‘to play’ the face or else the entire body as if it were the musician/composer’s musical instrument brings precision and friction into play. A tension, an interstice becomes visible between score (task) and its execution in performance. Hence, to my mind, musicians are quite simply the best dancers I could imagine. Exchange about composition with composer-performers is also very important to me, as it gives (I find) a much more profound and intricate engagement with interplay (polyphony) and composition than in contemporary dance – perhaps due to the long history of the notation of musical compositions as opposed to the same relatively fledgling practice in dance’. Antonia Baehr
