OPEN CLASS & Q&A — 8 NOVEMBER 2025
OPEN CLASS & Q&A — 8 NOVEMBER 2025
SOURCE STATUS
The final protocol contains a substantial direct Q&A transcript.
Source label:
DIRECT ARTIST Q&A — TRANSCRIBED IN PROTOCOL.
This is the strongest source for Jeremy’s own explanation of the workshop and his broader practice.
WORKSHOP PURPOSE
Jeremy states that he is interested in imparting:
A WAY TO THINK ABOUT CREATING DANCE.
He is not primarily interested in teaching participants to reproduce his individual method or aesthetic.
He offers ways that he arrives at material so that participants can apply analytical and critical thinking to their own practices.
MOVEMENT / IMAGE
Jeremy states that although much of his work is movement-based, it is also strongly:
IMAGE-BASED.
He describes applying the workshop thinking to:
- constructing images;
- creating worlds;
- working across different artistic registers;
- people who do not identify primarily as dancers.
COOKING
Jeremy explains that the line dances were the ingredients.
The group’s use of them in the space became the prepared dish.
The audience encountered the served result.
AWARENESS / VARIABLES
The cooking model makes participants conscious of variables they already use.
Jeremy describes composition as both:
- poetic;
- technical.
WORLD / MATERIAL
Jeremy states that he often begins with a clear idea of the world he wants to conjure.
He then identifies the materials needed to paint that world.
SLIDIN’ THRU
Jeremy describes Slidin’ Thru as connected to:
- nostalgia;
- moving with nostalgia;
- historical confusion;
- questions of origins and memory.
Do not expand this into a full work analysis.
SKELETON
Jeremy describes beginning with:
A LITTLE
or:
A SKELETON.
Further layers can then be added.
Questions include:
- What is needed?
- What is not needed?
- What should be inserted?
- What should be removed?
- What is the meat on the bones?
COLLABORATION
Jeremy describes himself as hands-on.
He states that:
- sound and scenography affect one another;
- he often edits music himself;
- he draws scenic ideas;
- collaborators with technical expertise realise them;
- he delegates;
- he trusts;
- he values working with long-term friends and collaborators.
FAMILIARITY
Familiarity can support:
- consensus;
- connection;
- efficient negotiation;
- work under tight independent-production conditions.
Jeremy also acknowledges that valuable events can emerge from unfamiliarity.
LOOSE / STRUCTURED
Direct statement:
“The work is both loose and highly structured.”
Professional performances can move among:
- open practice;
- fixed choreography;
- structured improvisation;
- solos;
- duets;
- musical cues;
- spatial landmarks;
- known transitions;
- defined endings.
ROCK TO ROCK EXAMPLE
Jeremy describes:
- an opening negotiation that changes each performance;
- a clear ending marked by crossing a line;
- highly choreographed formations;
- a choreographed handshake section;
- structured improvisation;
- fixed solos and duets;
- timed practice sections;
- return to set material.
Do not reconstruct the whole performance.
AGREEMENTS / ROADMAP
Jeremy describes agreements as:
- landmarks;
- stations;
- a roadmap;
- a basis for freedom.
NATURALISM / FRESHNESS
Jeremy wants studio practice to retain:
- freshness;
- real connection;
- unpredictability
when transferred to a stage.
This unpredictability is supported by substantial rehearsal and shared practice.
PERFORMING ROLE
When asked when he decides to perform in his work, Jeremy answers:
“When I’m needed.”
He states that he does not need to appear if the work does not require him.
HANDING THE WORK OVER
Jeremy describes live art as a moment when the work is handed over.
Performers may:
- alter it;
- transform it;
- test its agreements;
- produce exceptional or unsuccessful versions.
The maker must accept this variability.
ECSTASY
Jeremy connects The Ecstatic with:
- repetition;
- church face;
- praise break;
- catharsis;
- physiological thresholds;
- Black American histories;
- South African histories;
- oppressive histories;
- physical buildup and rupture.
BREAKING POINTS
A breaking point occurs when exhausted material opens a new space.
It can create:
- transformation;
- transition;
- momentum;
- revelation;
- an ending.
More intensity is not always required.
POLITICAL PRACTICE
Jeremy states that the practice is deeply political.
The line dances are based on movement encountered in specifically Black spaces of:
- creativity;
- sociality.
The work asks:
- where rigor occurs;
- where knowledge is produced;
- which practices are admitted into institutional spaces;
- how movement sources are acknowledged.
THE UNDERCOMMONS
Jeremy connects Fred Moten and Stefano Harney with questions concerning:
- spaces of rigor;
- knowledge production;
- extensive bodies of work outside dominant institutions;
- bringing these forms into other spaces and bodies.
Do not describe The Undercommons as a literal workshop score.
BODY / POLITICS
Jeremy states that politics may be difficult to escape in the body one inhabits.
He describes making intentional choices about the sources and tools of the work.
AUTHORSHIP / CULTURAL CONTEXT
Jeremy states that collaborative authorship is not completely his.
He discusses differing reception in:
- Botswana;
- South African or Southern African movement contexts;
- European presentation contexts.
The same work may receive:
- enthusiasm;
- scepticism;
- different critical readings;
- different resonance.
HISTORICAL FUTURE STATEMENTS
The Q&A contains statements about touring and future US presentations made in November 2025.
Treat them as historical statements from that date.
Do not present them as current future plans.