Interview with David Massingham on ‘Hinterland’

What was your starting point?

Hinterland was a piece I made 12 years ago. I wanted to revisit with a new
experience, but to revisit the title more than the old piece. I like the idea of
hinterlands. They vary in the way they are defined in dictionaries but are
essentially areas around a port where industries developed, producing a
disparate, normally immigrant, community of people, like Marseille for
example. I wanted to concentrate on the romance – the way people ‘are’ in
these communities.

How do you like to work with your dancers? What were the
choreographic/creative processes that you used to create material?

I give creative tasks and improvisation stimulus - I create material with the
dancers. This piece is about my direction not my choreography. I shape as a
3rd person. I was more concerned with the overall cohesion of the piece.

I kept a book of ideas – I wrote down words or images that I noted as I was
walking around to use as improvisation starting points. These words became
60 key words used as a starting point. We put them on 15 pieces of paper on
each of the 4 sides of the studio so they represented front row seats. It’s a
way of creating new ways of travelling and also relating choreography to all
sides of the audience. All the improvisations were filmed – we play back and
look for key moments that could be turned into set choreography.

I like working like this. When you play back you make decisions on moments
of movement that you might not normally choose. It’s a huge editing task –
you have to look for moments that can be recreated.

Improvisation also helps to build a key vocabulary. One of our key themes we
named ‘bounce action’. It became our common vocabulary alongside
percussive noise, drags, turns and spins, colliding in the air, staring and
stillness. Underlying the piece is a unified feeling of isolation, inner
landscapes and a sense of remoteness. Bringing commonality to the piece
helps with the selection of material. The problem can be that you end up with
too much material. I was worried there was more than one piece in the
material. I let the dancers explore, I concentrated on cohesion.

What was the inspiration for costume?

I wanted the dancers dressed in clothes not in costumes. I worked closely

with the designer in the way they look and the costume designer introduced a
whole new element to the piece. Fabrice bought in a book on photography
by Daido Moriyama with images of hinterland. His costumes have affected the
way the piece was structured. Fabrice will also have an influence on the
lighting.
How did you select your music or sound? How would you explain the
relationship between music and dance?

The music was found on day 2 or 3 of rehearsal day. I found it in my drawer; a

piece I hadn’t got around to listening to yet – it was given to me by the
composer Stephen Montague. I could hear 3 major sections in the music – 6
minute underlying period, 4 minute building period and an 8 minute closing.
The music is called ‘Varshavian Autumn’, but I wanted the audience to have
the image of an autumn sky that wasn’t gloomy but more like a path of light
that passes you at speed. I like to play with polarising, especially in music.
Playing with opposites, like full body movement polarised with stillness, or
slow paced atmospheric sound with fast, slicing movement.

Lastly, do you have a particular style to your choreography?

In this piece, I feel I’m battling against the direction I see the dance world
moving. Bodies are getting left static in space, where dancers did shift across
space. Underlying that, the dancer is themselves dancing, they don’t become
someone else – so they establish who they are – you see them as them –
very human – people say my work is about humanity.