Didy Veldman
Artistic Director and Award Winning Choreographer
The Voice of Her Gremlin
“What’s the purpose?”
For me, as soon as you start taking yourself more seriously, when you start to fight for yourself, there is a sense of responsibility that arrives. Being ‘officially’ a choreographer, it changes you. You become more responsible and those questions, or your Gremlins, start to pop up. ‘What am I doing?’ ‘Why am I doing this?’ ‘Does it serve a purpose?’
I think it’s important to ask those questions and to feel that responsibility.
As soon as people don’t respond to an idea you start to feel ‘hmm maybe it was a crap idea’. You have to decide whether you want to pursue it and if you haven’t got people who are willing to push for that idea it becomes really difficult and you have to do it on your own. But if you believe enough in it, there might be an interesting outcome.
Sometimes it makes me freeze. I get blocked, irritated, I want to stop and I don’t know where to go. But you get used to that as well. You realise that you will have shitty days. Sometimes you push through, sometimes you don’t; sometimes the insecurity takes over.
Having belief in yourself makes you vulnerable. You have to open up and you have to accept that you don’t have all the answer and that’s okay. You’re here to discover the answers.
The Gremlin is fed by time pressure, judgement, or when an audience or director comes in. When outside people come into your working space it can feel like your working space is broken. You’re on to the next step; it’s no longer just play. When that time arrives the questions become more frequent. That pressure serves a Gremlin.
It makes me question why am I doing this, do I want to do this, how can I make something different and how can I discover more about who I am?
It’s not a bad thing, it can be nice to have voices that says “Hey wake up, what are you doing? You’re repeating yourself; You’ve done that in your last creation. Why aren’t you renewing yourself?”
I want dancers to ask questions.I want dancers to participate. I want dancers to have those Gremlins.
If I didn’t have my Gremlins, it wouldn’t be any fun. They keep me on my toes and keep me inspired.