When the Choreographer Won’t Fly, the Dancers Rehearse by Skype

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/23/arts/dance/jerome-bel-isadora-no-flying.html

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PARIS — “Can you see me? Can you hear me?”

It was 6 p.m. in Paris and midday in New York, and Jérôme Bel was peering intently at the computer screen on his kitchen table.

The dancer Catherine Gallant suddenly appeared in the Skype window. “We’re on Governors Island. Shall I show you the view?” she said. Mr. Bel, who is often described as an experimental choreographer, groaned theatrically and said, “I wish I could be there.”

But it was Mr. Bel’s decision not to be in the rehearsal room in New York, where Ms. Gallant was about to run through “Isadora,” his new solo about the modern-dance pioneer Isadora Duncan. He will not be at Ms. Gallant’s performance on Wednesday at the Crossing the Line festival, nor at any other performance of the work in North America. That’s because Mr. Bel decided this year, for ecological reasons, that he would not work in any way that involves flying.

It was a tough decision. Like most successful performing artists, Mr. Bel depends on an international touring circuit. But at a moment of growing youth protests about climate change and increasing consciousness about greenhouse gas emissions from air travel, he feels no other choice is possible, he said.

“My career is really international, not national,” Mr. Bel said after the rehearsal, speaking in rapid French that was punctuated by eyebrow-lifting and gesticulations: “I don’t know whether I’ll be able to hang in there.” (Expressive shrug.) “If not, too bad.” (Flourish of hands.) “I’ll go and live in the country and teach dance to children.”

Meanwhile, he is reinventing his professional life, one project at a time. The decision to quit flying came in February, he said, after it dawned on him that, while he was in Paris, assistants had flown to both Hong Kong and Peru to stage his works. “I realized that I was lying to myself, trying not to use too much heating, eating organic food, but being a hypocrite, because my work contributes to the ecological crisis,” he said. “I made the decision that I would no longer be part of this artistic jet set.”

Initially, Mr. Bel thought this would mean the end of his career. His two full-time assistants, whose job is to coordinate and plan his tours, were horrified. But several projects were already in the works, including the Duncan solo, which Mr. Bel had begun creating with the French dancer, Elizabeth Schwartz, with the intention of touring the United States.

So she could avoid flying there, Ms. Schwartz suggested he contact Ms. Gallant, a fellow Duncan specialist based in New York. Mr. Bel and Ms. Gallant decided to try working via Skype. Over several sessions, they worked on changing and adapting the existing text that frames and contextualizes the Duncan dances Ms. Gallant performs in the show.

Before the run-through of the solo in the Governors Island studio, Ms. Gallant tested how far left and right she could move before being cut out of Mr. Bel’s view. As she danced, the screen froze several times, and Amelia Dawe Sanders, Ms. Gallant’s assistant, had to repeatedly log onto the Wi-Fi, which kept disconnecting, and adjust the microphone.

Mr. Bel remained calm throughout, making notes while waiting for the Skype session to reconnect. “Of course it is difficult and unsatisfactory,” he said later. “It’s like being visually impaired and hard of hearing. But this is a price I am willing to pay.”

On the other end, Ms. Gallant was more anxious. The interruptions were disappointing, she said, because it was important for her to be able to perform the solo right through. “You’re really just crossing your fingers,” she added.

“It’s not the same as being in a room together, especially generationally, for someone like me,” said Ms. Gallant, 63. “But I realize that this opportunity exists for me because of what Jérôme decided.”

Mr. Bel is not the only internationally successful artist with an anti-flying stance. The Berlin-based performance artist Tino Sehgal refuses to travel by plane, as does the British theater director Katie Mitchell. (There are even fewer cultural institutions with this policy; the Helsingborg Concert Hall in Sweden is a rare example.)

“It reduces the scope of where I can work,” Ms. Mitchell said in a telephone interview.

“I have been reflecting on, and wondering, whether Skype will evolve, whether our understanding of how we make things will evolve,” she said. If more artists used the video platform this way, she added, “it would open up a whole range of possibilities about how we make work and can use technology.”

For some, however, the difficulties are greater. In a telephone interview, the Belgian choreographer Anne-Teresa de Keersmaeker, who leads the dance company Rosas, called Mr. Bel’s decision “very courageous.” But, she added, “his practice is very different to what we do; when you work with highly skilled dancers performing the specific writing of a choreographer, you can’t transmit that by Skype.”

And, transmission isn’t the only issue. “Let’s not be naïve: Our performance practice is part of the mechanics of a capitalist market,” Ms. de Keersmaeker said. Even her recent decision to have Rosas travel only by train in Europe, increases travel costs and takes more time, she said. “We will ask the people who invite us to share the expense,” she said. “Will they be willing?”

Mr. Bel said he had persuaded theaters for upcoming tours to allow train trips; in the fall of 2020, he is to go to by train to Moscow and his assistants to four cities in China. He said these questions had forced him to interact with theater directors and presenters in a new way. “You have to explain that for 40 hours of train, you need to tour the country, go to more than one city.”

It’s not just his own travel, but the carbon footprint of the arts internationally, which preoccupies Mr. Bel. “If you won’t buy tomatoes that don’t come from France, or wherever you live, why do we watch culture that is flown in from other countries?” he said.

Courtney Geraghty, the artistic director of the Crossing the Line festival, said that it was important to awaken peoples’s consciences about environmental issues, but also important to show work from abroad. “In countries where there is nationalism and protectionism,” she said, audiences need “cross-cultural dialogue and international voices.”

Mr. Bel acknowledged that his decision was radical, and that his choice was not available to all. “Everyone intelligent and sensitive to this cause must invent their own solutions,” he said. “But our work in contemporary art is to change things.” (Huge swirl of arms.) “We must change this.”

Julia Jacobs contributed reporting from New York.