SNDO – Jeroen Fabius
17/03/05
talking to Eva-Maria Hoerster / Scott deLahunta (did initial notes)
1975 SNDO was founded then called the Moderne Dansopleiding, and was a fusion of two private dance studios, of Pauline de Groot and Kurt Stuyf who both had studied and danced in the United States.
1980 Jaap Flier, ex-soloist and ex-artistic director of the Nederlands Danstheater, becomes the artistic director. The direction of the school is defined, leading many teachers to leave, and many guest teachers coming over from the United States, among whom Steve Paxton, Lisa Nelson, Simone Forti. Main aim of the school was to offer an education in dance that would allow students to become creative dancers. Aat Hougée was working for the school as administrator since 1977(?). Aat tried to get the school the status of research institute, but that never materialized. He saw the school as a free haven for artists who could continue their innovative work in the school. The school worked as an excuse for creating free space.
1985 when Jeroen comes in the selection procedure was a 3 month orientation course / 6 classes a week and also a 3 month selection course in spring. These long periods would introduce candidates and give the time to make a shift to do release technique and improvisation. Average student numbers 15-18. This was the creative dancer program; less for makers, if you wanted to make you could but you didn’t have to. There was no reading no history in the courses, but there were lectures, public interviews, summer courses dedicated to certain themes.
1986 The school calls itself School for New Dance Development.
1989 The schedule would consist of two morning classes of 1 hour 45 minutes, and one afternoon class of 3 hours. It is undergraduate of 4 years.
1989 Trude Cone and Ria Higler took over the school from Aat Hougee and Jaap Flier and Mary Fulkerson. They formalized existing structures, partly as a response to visitation / quality assessment of dance education in the Netherlands that happened right away when they took over. Gradually more and more students who had come to the school wanted to make work; weekly Friday lunch showings outgrew themselves / some sort of structure needed to come. From a desire it turned into an obligation to make work – early 1990s, i.e. all students now were obliged to make a piece every year. Ric Allsopp was asked to help design a modular system. Trude had a hologram idea / learning could begin in a different spot for everyone, and could develop in a non linear fashion. Ric designed a credit system that had basic requirements / but allowed for a lot of freedom towards the end. It wasn’t organised strictly in years but in levels. Years were mixed in curriculum. Trude is a system builder who gives stability and Ria always exploring open horizons. That mix was good for a while but eventually the tension built to a rupture. Theory had an equal position to improvisation / to movement exploration, Ric designed on basis of semiotics/ meaning is context dependent / and there was some history.
1999 Performance Proposal sustaining this trajectory of production management. Early students doing production for older students.
There were some battling ideologies about somatics in the 1990s about what best body awareness techniques to use. Trude was opposed to alignment/ release techniques (John Rolland) / when she took over BMC became prominent. Katie Duck raised a debate about this. When Trude and Ria first took over they had a lot of multicultural interests so African, Flamenco, Indonesia came in – but issues with gender relations and other things and the idea eroded. A lot of the connections with artists who used to come from New York went with Aat and Mary to Arnhem; and the model of the workshop artist too – it became more pedagogical, the focus lay more on facilitating the student to do their own work. So, there was much less connection with a particular artistic scene in the 1990s, it also coincided with things going down in America and with rise of dancing in Europe of which graduates were part – but that wasn’t picked up so much. Important teachers in 90s were Ruth Zaporah, Susan Rethorst (very influential middle of 90s), Donald Fleming, David Zambrano, Ida Kelarova (voice and acting work has disappeared now from the program all together so the width diminished). Katie Duck has influenced and had a lot of impact.
Students leaving school – what was their experience? There came discussions about non-dance; that became an undesired product – the students were developing within the school. The selection procedure is still for people who are “investigative dancers†with different background like visual arts. Cathie Caraker “the body work the school has done has made the body a subject for research, the medium has become the message†– now the body has become the object we are looking at in performance. The school was not a disciplinary culture / the culture is rooted in the 80s. Formally it is now a ‘makers’ school; a ‘choreography’ diploma is what they get. There is a continuous debate about what sort of background they should have / the diversity, culturally (dance culture) and movement/ technique level.
Now there are nearly 40 part time teachers / about 10 students per year. Very dispersed hard to make change. No continuity all teaching a little block.
1997 – the building move. Jeroen felt that the structures / curriculum was really working at the point – students feedback was helping to redesign the program. The shifting of the building meant a dispersion of organizational format / no more core to the SNDO. Logic of confrontation with difference was good – but no strategy and no one really interested in each other. The caliber of students very good / Jeroen calls it the “culture†– the reputation of the SNDO brings really good people around / very international. But normally they haven’t had a situation in Amsterdam to perform in / now it’s turning around – Moos.
Jazz Department:
There are no jazz companies to work in; and students seemed to be very passive. So, they started to look around for different models around 2003. The artistic director changed / and that was decisive. Staff remained the same. Eddie was able to get the team working well together; then they were able to rewrite the programme in summer of 2004. They asked educational consultants to come in to help advise. Now the program is organised around tasks / project based Jeroen says it could be called. The models came from within Holland. 20 students per year / 4 year. 30 part time / central core team is 4 people and around that are 4-6 people. It has just started. That team feels excited and charged (they are learning from excitement about designing the education); but there is apprehension. Some criticism from other departments/ Trude sort of supporting. (dieter found support gradually) – see material Jeroen has brought.
From Jeroen’s Blog:
The Jazz and Musical Program of the Theaterschool in Amsterdam has started a new model of learning in dance this year.
The students organise their afternoon program around three major tasks (Prestaties) for which they have 12 weeks each.
Every trimester they work towards the presentation in collaboration with fellow students. On a 'market' at the beginning of the trimester students find colleagues to be leader or follower in some projects. The projects are defined according to learning goals the students choose from the curriculum /study guide in dialogue with a teacher. The tasks then will be evaluated according to the particular goals the student has set out / might have changed on the way. The change has major repercussions for the student-teacher relationship, teachers will be much more involved guiding than instructing. The model isnt necessarily more time extensive for the program than the previous model, a lot of time is spent on all new kinds of communication that have to take place, and facilitate and support the prevalent flexibility.
The general philosophy of this model is borrowed from educational advisors who have developed this teaching environment for 12-18 year olds, departing from the idea of intrinsic learning as a much more efficient way of learning.
At the jazz school everything is in full swing, it certainly invigorates all involved in teaching, and it has changed radically the traditional attitude of a jazz dance student, who used to put all effort in trying to fulfill the expectations of musical dance context, now actively organising their own projects all over the building.
