Episode 3. Out of Context - for Pina. What if we danced this work forever?

When we think of dance repertoire, we think of pieces that are passed on from generation to generation. But Alain Platel’s Out of Context – For Pina is different. After premiering in 2010 and touring the world extensively, its time on stage was due to end. Until the cast of Out of Context had another idea… 15 years later, the same dancers who created the piece are still performing it at least once a year. 

In this episode, we meet three of the performers—Mélanie Lomoff, Ross McCormack and Rosalba Torres Guerrero—to hear what it takes to perform this piece again and again. What impact does the annual ‘check-in’ with each other and with the audience have on the individuals and the group? What is it like to be confronted with aging as a dancer? How does the choreography change over time, or how do the dancers change within it? 

Sound featured in the episode: — Live sound from Out of Context – For Pina, by Alain Platel. Music: Sam Serruys, featuring the voices of the cast. Recorded by Beeldstorm, March 2023 — Theme music composed by Inne Eysermans.
Voices of: Mélanie Lomoff, Ross McCormack, Rosalba Torres Guerrero

Interviews and narration: Tessa Hall

Transcript

You could say that dance is ephemeral, that it’s performed in the present and then gone. That the only way to know it, it’s to experience it live. So how can a live artform like dance survive across time? How can we experience choreographies from the past, the same way we can experience paintings in a museum? How would that happen? Especially if the object is movement, not something tangible like stone or canvas? 

To keep dance alive, it needs to be transmitted from body to body, audience to audience. 

Choreographies from the past, revived, and performed in the present — this is ‘repertory’, a way of keeping dance alive and connecting us to dance heritage. But the practice of doing repertoire isn’t always obvious. There are many ways to pass on a work through time, and many questions to face. 

Welcome to Body of Work — a podcast that explores the question of ‘doing’ dance heritage. This is a podcast by STUK, House for Dance, Image and Sound in the city of Leuven. My name is Tessa Hall, I’m a dancer myself and also a dance heritage researcher.  

At STUK we’ve been researching the heritage of the contemporary dance scene in Flanders, and with this series we’ll share that with you. To do that, we’ll meet all kinds of dance practitioners who have been working in the field of repertory. 

VO: Normally, when a dance piece goes on being staged for years and years, at a certain point it’s passed on to a younger generation of dancers. And that transmission is what makes us call it repertory. Well, that’s how we traditionally think about it. 

Out of Context — For Pina, is different. It was made by Alain Platel and premiered back in 2010. After two years of extensive touring all over the world, it was due to stop. But the dancers… they had another idea… 15 years later, the same dancers who created the piece with Alain Platel are still performing it. 

In Spring 2025, Out of Context came to Paris once more, and that was when I had the opportunity to meet the dancers. In those conversations we spoke about what it’s like to spend 15 years (and counting) with the same piece. So, now you have the opportunity to listen in on the conversation.

To set the scene, at the beginning of the piece it all seems very simple…

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: Light, music and space and actions. And some bits of choreographies. That's the essence of the piece.

Tessa Hall: And what makes it repertoire to you?

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: Because it's a very, very specific language. And that it is decided to be shown through time.     

VO: In this episode we meet 3 out of the 9 dancers who make up the cast. So how did it all begin?

Mélanie Lomoff: When I was 18 — I was at the beginning of my career… but I saw a piece from Alain in the Theatre de la Ville. The funny thing was that I was really in a Ballet, and I was not at all in the kind of work that Alain was doing, like theatrical work with more movements from life. The first time I saw a performance from Alain, I was really shocked and I felt, "wow, it's for that that I've been dancing, actually. It's for something like that."

So my name is Mélanie Lomoff. I come from France. I'm 46.5 years old.

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: Rosalba Torres Guerrero. That's my name in Spanish. I'm French, Spanish and Belgian and born in Switzerland. And one of the first memories I have is a very wide white dress with ananas prints, and that turns, turns, turns with the music. That's, I think, one of my first memory of dance. And then I asked [for] quite a long time to my parents to be able to start learning. And very quickly I was in touch with, of course, ballet, with the modern dance, with jazz, with tap. I did a lot. 

Ross McCormack: Yes. My name is Ross McCormack. I was born in New Zealand, Blenheim in the South Island. My dance education was at various clubs in Christchurch which segwayed into some…training… more fundamental training at the National School, Te Whaea, in Wellington. And that's where I learnt classical ballet and modern dance.

VO: I’m also from New Zealand, so it was great to be able to meet Ross in Paris, on the other side of the world. But how did Ross get from there to here?

Ross McCormack: Out of Context has a long story that's probably different for everyone, as you will find. But for me, my involvement with Les Ballets and meeting Alain came in 2005 when I joined the company for the production vsprs, and for the first time I believe, they held actual auditions, and it kind of made its way out into the ethos of the dance world like "there's an audition for Les Ballets C de la B" [whispered]. So they were really on everyone's radar. Plus, I had a long history with seeing them in New Zealand.

So joining them there, forming a very strong group, which we still have today. There was something that linked us all, and you could feel it right from the first rehearsals. We just felt like a family. It was really, really bizarre. I don't know what it is, but we've all remained really tight.

VO: Les Ballets C de la B, was the company of Alain Platel which has now merged into laGeste. It began back in 1984 and since then had a worldwide impact on the contemporary dance and performance scene. 

Ross McCormack: It had a profound effect on a great many of us. Obviously you could be sitting in your seat and the person next to you detested the work, but it felt like a real early calling. There was something happening on stage that imprinted in me, very deeply, in my heart.. 

VO: Like Ross, most of the cast of Out Of Context had already worked with Alain Platel on at least one previous piece. So when creation for OOC began, they were a tight group, with lots of experience working together, and they were excited to get going on this next piece. Normally, back then, Alain Platel could take up to 6 months to create a piece, but this time was different. They had just 10 weeks to make the show, - to be honest nowadays that’s closer to what’s a normal amount of time, but back then it was a lot less than they were used to- . This time the conditions were different, the resources were different. They had the bare minimum. It’s interesting to me that something that was made so quickly and so simply has had such a long life span.

Ross McCormack: The other important thing here is that in 2006, seven and eight, there was quite a large financial crisis, and this idea of, "well, let's just respond to that." And there were quite some big changes and some big rattles happening inside the structures to do with funding or whatever, and it was like, "oh, well, let's strip it all back." And if there was nothing available, then what would we do? And what if we made a work that was like… the set was the only, you could only fit whatever we had on stage into the overhead locker of a plane. And so very quickly that became not a scary thing, but a very exciting thing.

Can we make a work, obviously with no set, nothing, just bodies? Let's just celebrate the bodies and dance and the space. Alain normally has a very big composer, perhaps a dramaturg and historian there that he's delving into which aligns with the cast and the work, and it's a big process like that. Whereas this was a completely different thing. We had like ten weeks, no set, no anything, no information. Just arrive and let's start moving and see what happens. 

VO: Starting from bare bones, the rehearsals began, but luckily there was already a lot that the team shared. There was a collective trust, a playful group energy, shared practices…

Ross McCormack: Improvisation and tasking and process, you know? There was a lot of knowledge there about how everyone works, and it was all growing. Those processes are incredibly inspiring. They're everything really. It's not that they're more important than the work, but they are…it's hard to explain, but I really enjoy the process. I could say almost equally, if not more, than an actual performance itself. And it's a very, very short, special time that you never get back. Whereas you get to perform the work for a great many times, as we still do. But the process you never get to do again, you know. 

VO: Speaking of the process, I asked Rosalba: how did they go about making this piece? 

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: The method of Alain is like: you have a purpose, a theme or an intuition, and you work with words that you launch to the people and that he receives an answer. From there he describes what he sees. He describes what he has seen from your proposal. And then comes a question: does it match to your intention?

Tessa Hall: So he gives you some words of inspiration or something like that, you respond, he replies what he observed...

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: Yes.

Tessa Hall: And then you decide together "is that what I meant to do, or..."

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: Then it becomes a discussion. And from that discussion you go to work. Alain never shows anything. Ja, "Choreographer" — is that a good name? I don't know, but he's the leader. He's the director. Whatever this direction means he's the director. He just has this way of leading, but at the same time, giving you the time to go through all the steps of maturation…so you work on a thing, then you leave it, then you come back, maybe you put it with something else, maybe you come with a new idea, maybe you come with a music, maybe... It's an open field.  

VO: It’s like Melanie told me: the creation process was an immersive experience.

Mélanie Lomoff: We had a lot of fun most of the time, also during the process, but a lot of questions and doubts and da da da - but I liked the unicity of the way this piece has been created. And the people I found they were all really inspiring. And Alain was giving tasks which inspired me also, with documents, with readings, with videos, with… What helped me the most is the fact that Alain never judged. But never. His look was always so well intentioned and so "reassurance"? And I thought, "okay, you're here, take it. So be zero, be neutral. Total." I was not judging myself. It is really subtle, but how Alain is, it makes everybody in the piece and in the studio in this energy or state of mind. It feels that everything is quite fluid, you know and you have space. And we were all really different (the dancers), so each one was bringing one material and every morning we were trying to learn and to make it a… like a "togetherness".

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: One of the things that he spoke about before we entered the studio was to take some things that he had already made and put them out of context. From existing material of previous pieces as a source, as a seed, and then to put them out of context. And so there was this moment, we had already done quite some things and we're on the bench watching the empty space.. And he says, "I would like that we do an improvisation, first solo, on The Birth of the Giraffe." He said, "I would like to work on The Birth of the Giraffe", and then you've got this sort of question mark floating in space. But at this point of the creation, people are ready for anything. It's just like, "okay, let's go." It's very mysterious, this thing, because every time we did an improvisation with this task, something very peculiar happened and it didn't mean anything, “The Birth of the Giraffe”. This word, this phrase, every time puts us collectively into a special kind of freedom. It's really weird. Why is it mysterious? I cannot answer this question, but what I recall is that a lot of the things that mattered happened in those kinds of improvisation, with this task.

We had those blankets for yoga or whatever, for warm up, and I think that Ross started to fool around with those blankets, like making haircuts or disguising himself with this blanket, and so the blankets slowly found their way into the studio.

VO: This way of working is all about collaboration. In OOC, all the different things we see happening on stage - the movement, the voice, the silly moments, the serious moments - these materials all exist because of individual contributions from the dancers. And all this is a back and forth between the dancers and the choreographer.  

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: Alain Platel doesn't exist without his interpreters. That's why he chooses very specifically his dancers, because he knows that he's going to have very specific material and that the dancers agree to give that material. The same [in the sense] that the dancers cannot do anything without his direction, he cannot do anything without us.

VO: This piece was made so specifically on the bodies of the dancers — not to mention their personalities — that it almost seems impossible to pass it on to other dancers.

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: It's interesting because like, it happened that we had to dance sometimes without a dancer, one of the people, because they couldn't be there. Whatever. So we had to replace inside. Already to replace inside is very difficult. I would say it's impossible, taking the role of someone. I mean, I cannot do Romeu's [movement], I cannot do Mélanie, I cannot do Hyo Seung… I cannot do…We can do something around it, but the rest, it's so specific. I think there could be many "Out of Contexts". But that one, it exists only with us because the material is really made on our bodies, our personalities.

Mélanie Lomoff: Because it's really us. It's more about the way of being, which is a lot linked to how [and] who we are. Specifically each of us.

VO: Ross for one, is convinced that Alain Platel would never restage this piece with the classic approach to transmission. 

Ross McCormack: Nine voices come in and have to do someone else's stuff? That's not possible. I honestly, I don't know how you could do it. I think it would be absolutely brilliant and hilarious if he did, but because he's so interested in everybody's voice, that even if he set out to do that, he would be so pained by making people learn other people's stuff that he would eventually give in and make a new work. I would pay money, I would bet that he wouldn't even get two weeks in before he'd start saying things like, "oh, well, you just be inspired by it. Be inspired by it to do your thing from it," and then the whole thing would be a completely different work, because he'd be so much more fascinated and interested in what people wanted to say or do that represented them. 

VO: So where are we in the story now? Well, the idea of passing this piece on just didn’t fit. Normally that’s what happens to keep a choreography going. But here we are 15 years later, listening to Ross, Rosalba and Melanie who are still performing it. How did we get here?

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: Yeah, that came from a proposal. We were in Japan for the last tour, we were desperate, I think… to be apart, to know that this will be the end.   
So we were supposed to finish. And then it came from the proposal of Romeu. He said, "why don't we meet every year to perform "Out of Context" once till we die?" And everybody sort of looked at each other, the technicians, the direction, and somehow everybody said yes to the idea. Maybe people who are not in the profession, they don't know... Let's say you work in a company, you make wonderful work with a wonderful team, and you have the last performance. This last performance is already planned a year, two years in advance. So when you have this wonderful experience with people that come from all over the world -  which is the case from "Out of Context". You've got Portugal, you've got New Zealand, you've got like France, Korea, and so on - you know when you will die. It's written in the planning. Depending on who you are and how you live things, most of the people in the audience don't know how painful this can be. So when Romeu said, "yeah, why don't we meet once a year?" It was very smart because it's also a way to say, well, everybody will live his life and we meet from time to time. 

Ross McCormack: "Oh man, what if we just did this work forever? What if we did this work until we couldn't move?" It was about our bodies to begin with, but it was about our bodies whilst they were in a very dynamic virtuosic kind of… peak state, what if we just kept doing this with our bodies as they slowly became affected by just our age and…? Logistically it's possible, right?  There's no massive set to lug around. There’s two microphones and we all take our blankets with us. So you take your costume with you, and that's it.

Mélanie Lomoff: But I remember also, I couldn't really project myself. I think I was not able to imagine myself at 46 years old, you know. I couldn't really. So it was a bit abstract in a way, but I followed and I felt "okay, that's true, there's something which is really special with this adventure." And I think it was really worth it. And when we started, I felt: “yeah, it's precious to me actually”. Each time, once a year, we were meeting each other (I mean, until Covid) but each time, each year, I was feeling, "wow, that's great, my God, that's so nice. Wow." It's so good to be able to see the people again, to be on stage, to do that adventure again and again.

VO: The decision to continue the piece was not just a good one on a personal level, it also made sense artistically. It felt like this was the kind of piece that could keep on going. The kind of piece the performers could keep exploring. The kind of piece that was open to transformation. 

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: We didn't finish exploring that piece. So that's one thing. Even if we had performed a 100… I don't know how many times.

Tessa Hall: Why do you think that is?

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: Well, because the structure is very strong, so you have space to develop. Also because there's such a deep listening within the group... and because of it's abstraction and full content. Even crossing the space in "Out of Context" is super interesting. Like just walking. It's just like how you deal with that, how you deal with the transformation of the actions around you. I mean, you have to be extra careful of what you do, and you have to support the main action. You have to be a wonderful counterpoint, and you cannot disappear: disappear in terms of, "yeah, okay, I'm not doing the... You know, I'm in the corner, in the dark. Well, I can relax a little bit." No! You know, you have the structure, but there are many things where you are free to do what you do. There's a lot of improvisation also.

VO: It seems to me that a dance piece is never the same. It’s a living thing. At the end of the day, that’s the nature of performing arts. And I think that Out of Context personifies that. The performers too in the sense that many years later they still have more to explore. 

Mélanie Lomoff: The feeling I have, it's like I'm going back to a known country. When I performed the piece at the end of 2023, it's a bit late, but I felt, "wow, I have the feeling that it's now that I'm really ready to perform this piece”. I felt myself at home. I can't explain. And then I felt, "okay, I could do it until the end of my life." I mean, you know, even if I just move my little finger! But I really felt, "wow, that's crazy. But it's just now that I start to feel ready to do it, like fully." That's part of the magic. There's still space for us to be who we are now with our bodies, with our lives. And it's also these kinds of feelings which make me realise that, "wow, that’s really a privilege in life to be able to live that”.

VO: And it’s important to point out that making this happen is not easy. There are quite some logistics and commitments involved in making all this happen.

Ross McCormack: Obviously, logistically, it is quite tricky. Especially now as we all start to become really involved with other things like families and work, and we're all really spread out. But what we do is, we’ve got… again that long history of knowing each other… the patience to be able to work through the time-tabling and for sure takes a lot. But we get a date, a date arrives for potentially doing it, and we had all agreed upon a situation where if there are two or more people that can't do it, we don't do it. And then we also made another thing called 'birth and death'. If you've got the birth of a child or the death of someone, then that means even if you have agreed to doing it, they are your only outs. We logistically plan it a long way out so that whatever work we do have, we can fit in around it. 

It's really this thing we're doing once a year, and sometimes it can be once every two years, you know? And the desire to share your family and what's changed in your life with the group is almost bigger than the performance itself. When we sit down and meet each other again, and the work is back in the body, we talk about all the different changes we've taken on like different jobs, where we're at, different positions, different perspectives, different growths inside our own art and our own career paths, how they've changed... And we share all of that. We share so much of that. 

VO: And of course, there’s the aging side of things…

Ross McCormack: Yeah, there's definitely a new challenge going on and no one's going to say it, no one’s gonna go…but your body not being able to achieve what your body once made is a love-hate thing. You love it because it's kind of beautiful, but you also go, "damn." There's looking down at your body as well and going, "oh, okay, that's not hitting the lights as well as it used to”. And then going, "oh, Carlo come on! Can you dim those lights a bit? My hair is thinning out and grey. Take it down a bit. Can we make something a bit more flattering?"  

And of course we're all coming back now and once we all get into our undies were all like "ah, you're looking good!" or "oh well, I'm really busy," or "yeah, well, I've got my dad bod on because I'm a dad now and I haven't been as busy," and then "you're standing on me, remember." So there's a little bit of this that goes on, but of course, it's only always in good spirit, and somehow, you know…but maybe it's not confronting yet. I say "yet". I think in the next ten years or so, if this dream of doing it once a year was to still continue (which I really hope it does), then 100% we will start to turn a corner soon. All of us. Because I think we're all between 45 and 52, and I think when that becomes 55 and 62, there's a corner we've turned there and 100% we will look very different on stage, collectively as a group. It will be a different statement altogether. 
And I haven't had to alter anything yet. I haven't had to pull anything back or tailor it down. I know exactly the material [that will need to be altered]. I almost have it exactly in my head. I could write it out: “this will be a challenge soon, and so will this one. This will need to be changed, and so will this”. I know that's coming, but it's not here just yet. Like, I stand on someone and balance on top of them whilst they do something else. I’m like how long can this last before we have to really start adapting? I don't know. It's quite funny in that sense. But there's another movement section, that's on my head and it's incredibly painful. And I’m just like…what was I thinking? Why? What was the deal there? And I guess it’s just like, well I never thought I'd be doing that when I was nearly 50, so, you know.  I know the upside down thing on the head is not going to have a long life.

Mélanie Lomoff: You know, for example, in the last performances, my body was really in pain. And you feel "phhh" [sound of pain]. But what, for me, is also a present and really important, is how to feel, how to find a way to keep dancing, to keep being on stage. Physically I cannot feel as light as I was 16 years ago, in the shape of putting my legs like this, like that, jumping like this, like that. But strangely, I prefer myself now. So I prefer to give to an audience what I have to give now than what I had to give before. And I really hope it's going to keep going like that. So the way I live this experience in the performance, for me, each time I'm doing it is a stronger one, I feel. I evolve with it. I have to bring each year my new self in it. 

Ross McCormack: We are letting the work and our bodies and in our minds, for sure. Let's evolve and constantly.

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: And it doesn't mean that it wasn't interesting when we were younger. It's just that it's richer. And especially now in this period where we still have the full power of the body and on top of it, we have that maturity. I guess after that it will shift a little bit, but for now it's still…

VO : Hearing them talk about their bodies changing, I wondered if the choreography was changing too…

Mélanie Lomoff: Alain told us "you can adjust, you know, with time, with the body, it's going to transform”... so I like to have this phrase in my head all the time because it reassures me so much. Yeah. Alain said we could evolve with a piece!

Tessa Hall: Yeah, you don’t need to be thirty years old forever!

Ross McCormack: I think the nature of the work in terms of how we enter the space, how we look in terms of our blankets and the soundscape, there are some big design structures there that are guiding a particular narrative. So that's untouched. 
Lots of things have been added in. And also the fine tuning of something. I think a lot of people could relate to this in terms of dance because it's like, "oh look at this duet, it's not working. Let's keep working on it and working on it and working on it." It's a duo or a trio or something that we understand very easily that it changes. But psychologically things seem to change in Alain's works. You want to alter what you're doing to say something else, or it feels like you want to go a bit deeper inside to reveal something a bit more. He's [Alain] just very good at talking that through, and then he's very brave in saying, "well, I think we need to see it." In fact, I would say that if I had a t-shirt of Alain's, it would be an Alain Platel’ quote, "I think we need to see it." Full stop. Because… and then when it's on and he has the guts for it to be seen live in the show, the next night the notes might be like, "I don't know, how did you feel?" and you go, "yeah, I don't think so," and he goes, "yeah, I know, I don't think so either, but it was important to see it”. And so that is something that not a lot  of people, not a lot of directors that I've experienced, do. It's much easier said than done. 

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: Transformations are very small. They're very technical.

Tessa Hall: So it's a bit too early yet to really experience this?

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: It's still early. Yes, it's too early. And it's one of the frustrations of Alain. He says, "it doesn't..."

Tessa Hall: You still look too good!

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: Yes, yes. He says that as a joke. He says, "it still doesn't happen." I think he's also like waiting for it — to see how it happens.

VO: Every year or two, from all corners of the world, the dancers come back together to perform, what happens each time they meet? 

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: I'm looking forward [to it] every time. So much, otherwise we wouldn't do it. We become hysterical when we see each other. It's a home. 
And also, we have a day and a half. It could seem short to retake a piece after a year and a half or two years sometimes. So you have two days: you have a day you meet, you start to work, you have a general, and then you go. And it's just like, it goes like this [gesture indicating speed]. You know, it swings. You enter the space, you remember everything, you know where everybody is… like it's pure joy and pure love. Alain is laughing all the time. We are at the same time extremely serious, and also very curious: so how is it going to be this time? 

Ross McCormack: Lots of hugs. Lots of laughter. Heaps of people going, "oh my god!" A lot of counting of more grey hair. And then there's, "okay, we've got to do something, we've got to do something." And then it's a lot of crowding around screens and then a lot of laughing at what we last did. We might have to go right back and look at an original one [show] and then that's just a waste of time because that kills about half an hour. Well it kills a good 15 minutes of us laughing and looking at ourselves and how amazing we used to look, or something like that. That sparks a whole heap of conversations that spiral down this way. Then Alain's got to wrangle everyone back. Huge amounts of joy…it's always hard and chaotic. And then, somehow, it sort of arrives.

Mélanie Lomoff: It's in the body, so it comes back. We watch the video before coming…we anticipate a little bit. We have the video, so we check. "Okay, this, this, this, this" [gesturing marking movements]. But you check the video a few times and it already comes back. And when you are in the studio with the others, with the sound, it's like [whooshing sound].

Ross McCormack:The learned material is learned material. It's really ingrained and also you think, "oh, I can just go over that again and again and again," and then you can even go to your room and go, "I'm just going to stand up and go over that again." Set material is set material, and everyone else can help you as well and say, "oh, your arm is up here on one and two. And then we went there on three, four. And then it was head five and six." And everyone goes, "yeah, yeah, head five and six, blah blah blah." But not everyone is there to help you when it's an improvisation and it's open because they're in another world. So that's the part where everyone is swimming a bit. And you know what it's like when there's a very beautiful synergy that's just right for that kind of group improvisation scene where everybody's moving and it's very hard to recapture that. It's really hard to recapture that kind of really nice balance of just the right energy from everyone and placement from everyone in terms of a group, of a section, being quite improvised and open. That's the hardest part for sure.

VO: What if you saw the piece 15 years ago and are seeing it again now? Do you perceive it differently? Or what about people seeing it for the first time? 

Ross McCormack: What will they think when they see a cast of 45 to 50 year olds? What are they going to make of this? So are they going to look at this and think, "wow, this is really old fashioned. What's going on here? What are they trying to say?" Because not everyone can know the context. You can't go, "P.S. By the way, don't worry, because they premiered this 15 years ago when they were kind of in your zone, and this was really kind of cutting edge. So you've got to look at it through that lens… Oh okay”. No!

Tessa Hall: Do you think it's old fashioned or do you think people think it's old fashioned?

Ross McCormack: I have no idea. I just wonder what that would be. I mean, surely there have to be elements of it that are. But that's beautiful. I mean, it's great to watch some things like that. That's why none of the music's changed. None of the movement's really changed in that sense, other than just holding on to it. Does that make it old fashioned? I don't even know what that word is. Sometimes I hate it, but then I also think it's brilliant. It's a real conflict. And what would it mean if some young creators went to it and went, "yeah, I don't know, I found it a bit old fashioned. It's a bit old school for me." You can't then go, "hey, but it's not! We're holding on to something! No, no, no, no, please don't think that was because this was made 15, 16 years ago, and that's why it looks like that. Because we've decided not to change it." So does that make it not old fashioned now? What does that make it? Because you can't give everybody the lens. I just find that's the part that I find is also really exciting.

Tessa Hall: When the piece was first made, it certainly wasn't conceptually about 'aging' or 'longevity'. So it's almost as if the concept of the piece starts to transform into: these dancers who do it every year for so long and will age and will be 80 years old. How does that sit with you?

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: Perfect. I mean, it just feels right. It's just what happened. It's the life of this piece. It feels completely organic. And every time we wonder, "is it going to work? Is it going to touch people?" And I think it touches more and more.  

Tessa Hall: I really like what you said about the audience aging with you, as well

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: Yeah, yeah. Because there are some people, for example, who saw it at the beginning. And then we performed some years ago in Gent and people said, "oh, it's so much better now", and that they have this thing of like, "oh, I want to see it again, because now.. It was really very nice, but now it says something much deeper."

Mélanie Lomoff: People there told me, "wow, I saw the first one (it was not really the first one, but it was in the first period we started) in Théâtre de la Ville in 2010, and I came back now and it was, wow, I was so touched. It was so powerful”. And I feel like that we don't even remember or realise what it can produce. The people are really touched.

VO: As the dancers and public transform, Out of Context is also transforming. But amongst all the transformation, the choreography still seems to hold its strength. Why is that?

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: Because it has no context. And also because it's nude - it's an empty space. So you don't give a context. For other pieces, you would see how this is more the type of scenographies of the 80s, 90s of the 2000. That you can sort of space it in time.

Mélanie Lomoff: Yeah. I think in Alain's pieces... But I like to speak about Alain's world because for me, there's no time. It's how humans survive or live or how they deal with life. So for me, it's crossed the epochs; the periods.

VO: Out of Context carries a history for the dancers / and also for audiences. For Ross, it’s not about heritage, it’s about being part of a bigger story. 

Ross McCormack: Coming over here and becoming a part of Les Ballets and a part of that, I can't say heritage, but I can say, I think, a very unique style of dance theatre and dance worlds and productions. And then this particular work is becoming a type of heritage in itself you know, because it's garnishing a new type, its own type of torque generated history attached to it. People are really fascinated by it, fascinated by how far it will go: "how far are they going to go? Are these guys really going to go further than this? Are they going to go as far as they can go with this? Are they really going to be doing this when they're 65 and 70?” I feel so honoured and proud to be a part of that. I can't associate myself to the word “heritage”, but I can definitely associate myself with something that feels much, much bigger than me.

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: You know, it's just a miracle that we can still do that. You [can] do that also because you have people in the administration that do agree to search for... I mean, it's all logistic also, to put all those dancers together that come from all over the world. You have to find the budget, you have to find... It's everybody who works for that. So it's a little miracle to do. 

Mélanie Lomoff: And it's about having had the privilege to live this experience, to meet Alain, to meet his work, all of that, to meet this possibility of dancing, of being on stage, of being offered (even if you are not young and in shape) to still be able to make sense on stage. Yeah, it's not only about "dance history", but having been able to live that... It's not about dance. It's more than that, for me. 

VO: And so, I guess what we’re all thinking: is What might be the end for Out Of Context? 

Rosalba Torres Guerrero: I don't think this piece is going to finish. No. I don't think so. It will finish when we die or when we decide together that it's finished. So we have to see. I think nobody wants this piece to end for now. And everybody is extremely curious for the future.

You are listening to Body of Work. A podcast created by STUK, House for Dance, Image and Sound, in the city of Leuven. This series is developed in the frame of DanceMap, a European research project and network, funded by the European Union (Horizon Europe). 

The podcast was conceived by Delphine Hesters.

Katharina Smets worked on the edit and the scenario.

Tessa Hall, that's me, I did research and narration.

The interviews were done by myself, Katharina Smets and Delphine Hesters. 

Teressa Van Eycken assisted the audio production.

The theme music for the podcast was composed by Inne Eysermans, and the mix was done by Inne Eysermans & Yves De Mey.

You heard the voices of: Mélanie Lomoff, Ross McCormack and Rosalba Torres Guerrero.

Special thanks to laGeste and Alain Platel, and to Klankerverbond, for using their studio at Passa Porta.