Workshop with Jan Martens

In cooperation with GRIP, Cankarjev dom is hosting a free workshop for professional dancers, choreographers and performers to be held on the day of the performance, 6 May, between 10.00 and 13.00 in Duša Počkaj Hall. The workshop will be conducted by Jan Martens, the founder of the touring dance company. 

The workshop is full. No more places available.
 

In this workshop, the participants will revisit together with the workshop leader a part of the creative process of Martens' latest production, any attempt will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones, working with the complex score of Gorecki's Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings Op.40, which acts as a unifying pillar for the 17 movement solos in any attempt. Each participant will be invited to create their own short solo movement phrases by translating the music (its rhythm, energy, and general feeling) into their own body. The workshop will focus on precision, coordination, rhythm, musicality, and the feeling of moving together with a group in the most individual way possible.

The work of Jan Martens (1984, Belgium) is nurtured by the belief that each body can communicate, that each body has something to say. That direct communication expresses itself in transparent forms. His work is a sanctuary in which the notion of time becomes tangible again and in which there is room for observation and emotion as well as reflection. To achieve this result he creates not so much a movement language of his own, but shapes and reuses existing idioms in a different context to enable emergence of new ideas. In each new work he tries to redraw the relation between the public and a performer.
Martens studied at the Fontys Dance Academy in Tilburg and graduated in 2006 from the Dance Department of the Artesis Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp. Since 2010 he has been making his own choreographic work which, over the years, has been performed with increasing regularity before the domestic and international audiences. 

Since 2011, Jan Martens has been making work that talks about how people relate to each other and to the here and now. This resulted in a wide array of pieces: a duet (Sweat Baby Sweat - 2011), solos (Ode To The Attempt & lostmovements – 2014 & 2018), meetings between people who never saw each other before (The Common People - 2016), group pieces that are buzzing with surrender and ecstasy (The Dog Days Are Over with 8 dancers & Rule Of Three - 2014 & 2017), a work for young people that tackles issues such as gender diversity and gender equality (Passing The Bechdel Test – 2018).