Hannes Langolf Workshop – Saturday 6th July

Hannes’ workshops went wonderfully well.  Read the testimonials & here are some pics and a short video of some of the people who stayed behind afterwards to cool down and network…  Read an interview with Hannes below…

The workshops were held at the gorgeous Siobhan Davies Studios, in London…

A very mini interview with Hannes Langolf…

– When did you decide that you wanted to be a dancer?

It was coincidence that brought me to my first dance class.  I was 8 years old and a friend of mine didn’t want to go to her first class on her own. So I decided to go with her and I kept coming back.  It became my passion over those next years, something that I didn’t choose to do but something that I felt I needed to do, after school, on the weekends.  The older I got, dancing became more and more just what I did, an identity, a way of communication, expression and it started to feel inseparable from my life.

– What will the morning workshop bring beginners?

We all use our bodies to communicate every second of the day.  Consciously or unconsciously.  To me, this is the essence of dance.  It is universal and it is all around us and within us.  The morning workshop will be working on the awareness of how we can tune into that movement in all of us with confidence, to listen to our bodies and pay attention to each other to see what the body can tell us and how we can exaggerate this innate gift to create what we call ‘dance’.

– Besides being a career choice, what does dancing bring you/mean to you?

The fact that I work with my body and mind every day of my life has become incredibly precious to me.  Being a dancer is not only about physicality, but very much about a confrontation with one self.  A spiritual exploration of the big questions.  Everyday you stand in front of a mirror, literally or metaphorically.  You create movement from emotions or inside states, you trust other bodies in partner work, and in the end your body becomes your tool to express and communicate something.  To me this means dealing with reality and humanity all the time, stripped down to an essence of physical understanding, which I feel is sometimes getting lost in our times.  As an artist, my body is my tool and canvas at the same time and it became a huge privilege for me and a great reminder of our instincts and human connections and something to hold on to in our fast moving, technological society.

– How would you describe the sort of dance you’ve trained in?  Contemporary?

Before training professionally in contemporary dance, I did all sorts of different styles.  Jazz, Hip Hop, Street dance, Modern, etc. I then decided that contemporary dance was the direction that seemed the most rich and open for me to realise what I was interested in and this journey has lead me to work in different fields between dance and theatre after my training, to connect the worlds of movement and communication.

– Could you imagine living your life any other way?  Does dancing also reflect the core values you live by?

For me personally, being a dancer is something that came from within.  Sometimes I reflect on how I got to where I am now.  And that journey is so connected to my life, the way I live and the values I hold.  Like every passion, it takes on an importance at some point that shifts your life to grow around that passion, sometimes unnoticeably.  It becomes inseparable.  I have many other interests that I can imagine will grow into a passion in my life.  They are not connected to dance necessarily. But at the essence of all my interests lies a big desire to share, to connect with people, to investigate into a truth of humanity.  And I can imagine following that desire as a nurse, as a sign language interpreter, as a teacher, or having my own little café…  Dance is certainly not the only way. But for now, it is my way and my way of living.