Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
-Robert Frost-
Rotterdams Danscentrum, Im Wind Der Zeit, chor. Pina Bausch, with from l. to r.:
Tor Melboe, Marie Louise van Laarschot, Sjoukje Osinga, Louise Frank, Adriaan Kans, Bert Terborgh, Pauline Daniëls (hidden behind Bert)
As director Jan Kassies had warned me, after four years of Theaterschool guinea pig freedom, in september 1971 the walls started again closing in, and the Scapino Academy insisted for me to join their rehearsals for the White Swan pas de deux; but my dream was to be a modern dancer, my nightmare Prince Charming.
Two years before, in 1969, Ineke Sluiter had founded the Rotterdams Danscentrum, Holland's first modern dance repertory company; Ineke had expressed her interest in me joining the company, but didn't have the budget for yet another dancer.
That september in 1971, by phone I nagged her time and again with my Academy induced woes and laments, trying to win her over to let me be part of her company, no matter how, no matter what; finally Ineke invited me to come see the company in rehearsal, "...and Adriaan, let me speak to my board'; music to my ears.
On the floor against the wall, with my knees tucked up, in awe I watched a rehearsal of Pina Bausch's Im Wind Der Zeit; my burning desire from that point on was to dance in this divine piece of choreography.
Meanwhile, Ineke had arranged with her board to offer me a contract as their very first student-dancer; I grabbed the opportunity without any second thought, pittance salary included.
Some months later I danced in the piece of my dreams, and every time I stood in the wings preparing for my entrance, I dedicated myself to the gods I imagined this piece was created for.
ROTTERDAMS DANS CENTRUM 1971-1973
Artistic director Ineke Sluiter
First modern dance repertory company in Holland
Solo and company dancer in choreographies by:
Pina Bausch, Liz Dalman, Bianca van Dillen, Lucas Hoving, Sheldon Ossovsky, Ineke Sluiter
FIRST INDEPENDENT MOVES 1973-1974
In cooperation with free-lance choreographer Bianca van Dillen and Yoka van Brummelen:
Change (joint choreography) with original music by Frank Broeders
‘Hit’ of the 1974 HOT Dance Festival in The Hague
Shortly after striking out independently, my first ‘official’ moves as a choreographer were welcomed as the ‘hit’ of the 1974 Dance Festival in the HOT theatre in The Hague.
Lucas Hoving embraced me warmly. Appreciated. And about time. Some years before, with my militant, ‘avant la lettre’ gay glitterrock exterior -which I still consider an act of courage in those homophobic years- Lucas had chosen to overlook my presence anytime our paths crossed.
Though Change was a ‘hit’, I was looking for more than a common artistic vision.
This spiritual extra I encountered in WEGTEJATER, a cooperative of dancers and musicians, who some years before had built their own studio in a large houseboat in the Amstel river; ever tried sustained balances with ships passing by....?!
In 1975, WEGTEJATER’s founding members decided to move to Findhorn, the spiritual community in North Scotland, and for the next three seasons I directed both studio and company, by then on land!
WEGTEJATER 1975-1978
Leading dancer, teacher, choreographer, and artistic leader in this cooperative of dancers and musicians
One of the two (next to alma mater Pauline de Groot) open modern dance studios in Amsterdam
On my invitation Tai Chi Chuan master Phoa Yan Tiong also taught open company classes
Ei-land 1975/76
production for children; six dancers; three musicians
Original music for violin and percussion by Frank Broeders
On our first official gymnasium tour, our bus, packed with props, was everywhere welcomed by crowds of cheering kids. Sure, it was the season of St. Nicholas, but wasn’t this overdoing it? Us city folks were touring the provinces all right!
In our semi-permanent studio in the local gymnasium, overlooking black muddy polder-landscape shrouded in autumnal rains and mist, I began choreographing my first lengthier pieces.
Unicorn 1977
My first 20-minute solo
Original music for violin and percussion by Frank Broeders.
O unicorn among the cedars
To whom no magic charm can lead us,
White childhood moving like a sigh.... (W.H.Auden)
The alma mater of Dutch avant-garde dance, Pauline de Groot, never known to be generous with praise, had me dumbfounded, when she told me she’d rarely seen a solo this honest. Thank you, ye gods...!
Ode 1978
Duet for two women
Original music for string quartet by Frank Broeders
Two women on a spiral path gradually approach an empty, lit-up center stage, supporting each other through precarious passages in their journey.
The string quartet, premiering Frank Broeders’ original composition at the Rotterdam Dance Festival,
was for the first bars of its second movement missing out on its female cellist player.
Her eyes and her attention, riveted on the two female dancers in a particularly tender supporting passage, had momentarily gotten the better of her professionalism.
Same-sex love duets, also in modern dance land, are still a rare breed indeed.
CHIAROSCURO first evening-length production 1979
Commissioned by the Shaffy Theater, the Amsterdam avant-garde dance temple of the time.
Dancers: Ellen Crawford, Astrid de Wild, and me
Music: B.A. Zimmermann : Présence. Ballet Blanc for Chamber Orchestra (1961)
Text: Alberto Savinio: Drama of Noonday Town (1916)
To my bewilderment, the premiere of Chiaroscuro turned out to be a veritable succès scandale.
Half the audience booed, the other half cheered. While several critics happily dipped their pens in vitriol.
Confused and confusing, Chiaroscuro reflected my inner turmoil: a provocation begging for approval.
At 29, I had not yet realized the depth of my unresolved rage against the deeply homophobic, restrictive world of the 1950/60’s I grew up in as an artistic, homosexual boy.
Rage, also as the protective mechanism for a deep underlying sadness, aching for acceptance into the human fold as a worthy human being, not the rejected outcast I felt I was.
While another 16-year old homosexual boy at my high school jumped to his death from the 10th floor of his apartment building, I refused to curl up and die and created a persona, which, a gay friend told me later, made him afraid to walk next to me; my gay flamboyance could easily be spotted from 30 meters away.
I’m still grateful I had the courage to create this armour and fight back. But over the years it became a prison of sorts, a wall around my heart, behind which I hid my need for drugs to outcry my internalized homophobia and inferiority feelings.
At 23, an lsd trip gone bad burned off this persona. For several years I struggled to regain my inner footing, focusing solely on my art and my spirituality. Now in my seventies, in retrospect I see this struggle has been lifelong.
It might seem an open door, but nothing is more important than from the onset of life to be valued and validated as a human being, worthy and deserving of love and respect.
While creating Chiaroscuro, I had no clear view on what I stirred up. I merely suspected my work to be too esthetic, too 'nice', for late 1970’s post-modern taste.
After another oproarious performance, I asked my lighting designer, Dennis Gillanders: “Dennis, am I too nice?” He laughed out loud. “You’re anything bút nice, Adriaan!”
Bewildered, I began to realize I’d allowed my inner demons to run away with my creativity.
I refrained from touring the piece and withdrew into a year of creative reformulation.
Photography: Erik van Dijk
1979-1983 Teaching and choreographing for Benjamin Feliksdal, former Dutch National Ballet soloist, who founded the European School of Jazz Dance, the first independent school in the Netherlands offering students an allround curriculum for professional training in this newly budding field in the Dutch dance world.
VALLEY 1980
Inspired by original music from Rwanda (drums, chanting and hand-clapping), I choreographed Valley for six highest year students of Benjamin Feliksdal and premiered the piece in the Utrecht Dance Festival 1980, together with my own solo North Star
My contribution to a Lecture-Demo Benjamin organized in the Koepelkerk, Amsterdam in 1981
