Shared Platform

New initiative by Emily Molnar and Fernando Hernando Magadan for NDT dancers

At the start of the season 2020-2021, NDT initiated a brand new project called the Shared Platform. We invited 18 international artists in dance and theater from across the Netherlands to work with the dancers of NDT 1 and NDT 2. The initiative aimed to create an opportunity for research and development for our dancers with a focus on diverse voices, ideas and approaches.

The Shared Platform was a month long training platform intended to help us develop tools for future projects.

One of the artists who worked with our dancers was breakdancer Redouan Ait Chitt, winner of the Zwaan for ‘most impressive dance performance’ in 2019:

“It was super inspiring to work with such skilled and talented dancers. I’ve introduced them to Breaking in such way that they can use the floorwork, dynamics and levels of this dance style to their own vocabulary.

Playing around with a complete new arsenal of movements challenged the dancers to find new possibilities. Their determination, curiosity and joy brought an amazing vibe that turned these sessions into a creative playground.”

Redouan Ait Chitt. Photo: Mikaela Kelly.

18 international artists in theater in dance

In total, 18 artists in theater and dance worked with our NDT dancers during the month long training platform. These artists were: Michael Schumacher, Guilherme Miotto, Spencer Dickhaus, Kenzo Kusuda, Lea Ved, Anouk van Dijk, Amos Ben Tal, Redouan Ait Chitt, Amy Raymond, Samir Calixto, Dunja Jocic, Ander Zabala, Astrid Boons, Conner Schumacher, Alesya Dobysh, Antonin Comestasz, Min Li and Heidi Vierthaler.

Lea Ved. Photo: Rahi Rezvani.

Lea Ved, both a dancer with NDT 1 and one of the choreographers that gave workshops, about the Shared Platform:

“Considering the global shifts and unprecedented times that lay around us, NDT has managed a remarkable start of the season, kicking off in full swing. We are lucky to have our time and schedules still filled with so much attention to our art form, and to have this time together for development.

The Shared Platform has already been a rich exchange that feels like a big buffet of tastes and ideas that fuel a variety of appetites. Twice a day, for approximately two hours each, every workshop has differed in its mode of engagement and curiosity, specific to a physical, cerebral, theatrical, sensitive, or investigative world.

Within the platform, I also had the immense pleasure to lead a series of workshops in the Rubberbandance Method, a hybrid technique codified by choreographer Victor Quijada merging together classicism and breakdance; work that I spent three years of my career training with in Montreal, Canada.

I have been so thrilled to share this with our incredible dancers in NDT, knowing how this method has the capacity to deeply inform development and creativity. With all I have been excited to share, I am so inspired watching my colleagues enter the world of Rubberbandance, channeling roots from hip-hop in celebrating their individuality and self-expression, and myself serving as any conduit for providing the kind of space and environment that supports them.
I’m eager to continue a dialogue of these meetings of worlds, and I am very grateful for this exchange!”