Anoushka Jago: “Working this way reveals another side of your personality”

Last week, the cast of ‘Something to do, someone to love, something to look forward to’ completed their current creative process.

Anoushka Jago is a first-time performer with ilDance and spoke to us about her initial experience, how this work has introduced her to a new way of performing and what she is looking forward to when touring with BACK2BACK.

Something to do, someone to love, something to look forward to, by Lee Brummer and the cast of Siri Elmqvist, Jennifer Wallen, Naomi Kats and Anoushka Jago, is a new multidisciplinary work which advances conversions of movement and text mediation in a performance context. Lee Brummer, together with the cast develops a unique and brave language which utilises particular and articulated movements with spoken text. Based on an interview of one woman's life story, Brummer and the performers tell the personal tale about the fight for a better future and what one individual went through to find it.

Tickets for BACK2BACK, an evening of two new works toured by ilDance in celebration of 10 years of activity, are now available here.

Something to do, someone to love, something to look forward to rehearsals - Photo: Nikola Stankovic

Can you tell us about how you connected to ilDance and in particular Lee Brummer, leading into this project?

Anoushka Jago: I met Lee on the Gaga teacher training programme in Israel, where we overlapped briefly in 2019. Then she invited me to join the project, unexpectedly, in January this year.

It was a very nice surprise and not one that I could have foreseen. We had a zoom audition, which is very of the moment I guess, but the invitation to even audition was a very lovely surprise.

It seems like you had an intense 5.5-week creation process for ‘Something to do, someone to love, something to look forward to’. How did you find it and how did it compare to what you anticipated?

AJ: Well, it felt like five days, not five and a half weeks at all, the time just went so quickly and it was an all-around incredible experience.

There was something so special about it and it felt very important to be dealing with Teuta Hatipi’s story and trying to find ways to bring that to life.

And I guess we were dealing with 100 things at one moment, so that’s why the time went so quickly.

It definitely was intense but in all the best ways.

How did you find working with the text and basing the work on the interview Lee had with Teuta?

AJ: It is not something I had ever done before and it was definitely a challenge. I think it created this new layer of vulnerability as a performer.

As dancers, we are so used to being on stage and using movement as our language. Having to use our voices meant that I had to be present in another way and it reveals another side of your personality, I guess.

I think that made the process quite emotional and intimate because we are having to draw on these other aspects of ourselves that we are not so used to or comfortable with as a default.

I think ultimately, it meant that we were able to connect more deeply as a group and go into the story with more depth.  

You had a couple of public showings at Estad Norr and DansPlats Skog but now there is a couple of months until you perform it on the BACK2BACK tour. What comes to mind when you think of taking the work on tour in September and October?

AJ: Oh, I’m very excited about the shows. It has been really interesting to see from the showings, what people pick up on from the story and what resonates because everyone is super different and I think that is because Teuta’s story is very rich.

People can see themselves inside of it, so it has been really exciting to see what stands out for different audience members and I guess the more we perform it, the more that will reveal itself.

I’m looking forward to getting back together with the team and seeing how the story is received in a more formal performance environment. It feels very important that people hear about Teuta’s life and experiences and I’m excited to see whether that makes people think differently or reconsider some things.