TON SIMONS: (JP/R. Berto Wedhatama)
Like many other contemporary choreographers, Ton Simons of the Dance Works Rotterdam troupe considers his work an offering to his audience.
Simons graduated from the Rotterddamse Dansacademie dance school, the Netherlands, in 1975 and began working as a professional dancer.
In 1978, he moved to New York, where he began to produce his own work. This led to the formation of his own dance company, Ton Simons and Dancers, which gave annual performances in New York from 1986 and participated in renowned international dance festivals.
While his work in New York kept him busy, Simons still found the time to continue working in Rotterdam as a regular guest choreographer with the Rotterdam Dance Company.
In 1999, he was appointed the artistic director of the company, which he renamed Dance Works Rotterdam.
"I regularly worked for the company as a guest curator. (The offer) was a wonderful opportunity," he said.
He used to choreograph all the movements by himself up to little details.
"I would work until 3 a.m., wake up and tell everybody, 'let's do this and this'," he said.
After suffering a knee injury, his stopped dancing full time but remained active as a choreographer -- discovering and inventing movements with his troupe of dancers.
His dance company's first performance in Jakarta on June 12, was not complimented by an elaborate synopsis about the double-bill, which also included the company's guest curator, New Yorker Stephen Petronio.
Simply titled "Rotterdam/New York", the full-length program consisted of Simon's Mortal Coil and Petronio's Lareigne, which he pointedly referred to as a style that followed the so-called "Balanchine-Cunningham" river of modern ballet aesthetic, the two icons of 21st American ballet.
A form of pure dance, his 45-minute Mortal Coil -- which included Eminem's hit rap song "Lose Yourself" and River Phoenix's lines from the movie My Own Private Idaho played over the top of Mozart's tunes -- anchored its main idea to the most famous English playwright, William Shakespeare.
"The title, Mortal Coil, comes from Shakespeare's monologue in Hamlet, those 'to be or not to be'," he said.
Mozart's "Serenade in B flat -- Gran Partita", which played throughout the dance piece, was performed in a style called "ala Turk", or the Turkish style, which was considered fashionable in the composer's time.
"If Mozart repeats (a musical phrase), we repeat. His music is like the sun, very bright but also (creates) a shadow. (It's) very happy but also sad, very serious but also joking. It's about the human condition," Simons said.
"I chose Eminem because his language is like Shakespeare. Well, in my head," he said, adding that River Phoenix's line taken from Guy Van Sant's movie was meant as an intermezzo.
"I thought that after so much movement, it'd be nice to have a little bit of a pause."
With the eclectic dance scene in Europe -- from classical ballet to the revolutionary conceptual dance -- Simons believes his modern style of dance still very much fits into a niche.
"I think it's wonderful to have all these various styles available. In Rotterdam alone there are four companies which do different works," he said.
Like other state-funded dance troupes in Europe, Dance Works Rotterdam juggles performances at home with touring and time out to create new productions.
Simons and his company will continue touring Indonesia before heading to other countries to perform. He is also busy preparing a new performance using a Bach piece -- this time in collaboration with a Portuguese pianist.
Simons said he is happy living and working in Rotterdam, a city he, in some ways, represents -- as endorsed by Rotterdam Mayor Ivo Opstelten prior to his Jakarta show.
"But I still keep a flat in New York, and a suitcase," he said.
Dance Works Rotterdam
June 16
Concert Hall,
Taman Budaya Yogyakarta
Jl. Sriwedani no. 1, Yogyakarta
Ticket: Rp 15,000
