What do freestyle basketball and ballet have in common? We might be tempted to say nothing, or at best very little. But here is where ISH comes in.
Born out of one man’s desire to bust out of singular silos, Amsterdam based ISH Dance Collective may well be the world’s foremost exponents of cultural collision. Think extreme sport meets hip hop meets theatre meets classical music. By bringing athletics, acrobatics and dance together, they make work rooted in the spectacular and virtuosic; yet with a nod to the artistic.
As the company’s founder and director Marco Gerris says, “For me, it felt like there was something about all these different skills that was coming from the same place; or like there was a way to unite them.”
This June, Australian audiences will get the chance to experience the fusion when Gerris & Co present Elements of Freestyle in the hallowed halls of the Sydney Opera House. Indeed, the choice of venue – a place long associated with traditional high culture artforms – speaks to both the borderless audacity of the company and the remarkable journey of its creator.
From the Philippines via Belgium, Gerris found his people in the skate scene of Amsterdam. Before long, he was the Dutch freestyle skating champion. Yet, having also been a student of music and theatre, he was not prepared to be just an athlete. “I would have got bored just doing one thing,” he confesses. “I didn’t want to be only an expert in one thing but really good at a lot of things. I was someone who really loved to do different things. So ISH just came from that.”
Fast forward a quarter century, and Gerris and ISH are an award winning, globe-trotting combination; proof that, with the right vision, even skate punks can grace the stages of storied highbrow venues.
On this, Gerris elaborates, “The secret is to have a lot of respect for different worlds, and to try and let people understand these worlds. Actually, for me, it’s an easy, ongoing process.”
Though this makes for a cool grab, the nitty-gritty is more problematic. Creating work like Elements of Freestyle is an exacting process. “It’s like finding the right pieces to bring that puzzle together. For me, there’s not a big difference between hip hop or ballet or circus. It’s all part of the activity, of the passion, the physic, the love. It’s easier to look at it that way, and then bring it all together.”
Clearly, rigorous rehearsal is fundamental to a show packed with circus like tricks. “So, how can we have some guy doing a jump while someone else is dancing or acting in the performance? I mean, yes, it is dangerous, but risk is what it’s all about.”
Here is where the ISH aesthetic gets injected with adrenaline. “You are always searching for the outer limit,” Gerris explains. “So, when someone is doing a jump, a lot can happen; but we have done it before many times in the studio. Does it sometimes go wrong? Yes, but in a way, if you don’t die, we laugh about it.”
In this, we sense something intrinsic to the extreme sport mindset that underpins the company’s work. “For me, it’s a part of the lifestyle,” Gerris adds. “So, it’s not just doing the most difficult trick, it’s sharing the lifestyle. We are all searching for something with our movements. We are searching for that kind of freedom. So, the trick is only the end result, but the process part is the most interesting.”
With such a spirit at the core of their practise, we may wonder where on the sport/art spectrum it lands. Gerris ponders a moment before answering. “To be honest, I never thought ‘how can I make it art?’ For me, that’s too much highbrow. I want to create the most crazy, spectacular show…but through showing the art of the skills.”
That said, ISH are renowned for their use of classical music, and for bringing a choreographic beauty to their shows. To Illustrate this, Gerris calls to mind a cyclist friend who, he says, performs “a tango with his bike.” Moreover, he argues that despite the “pure physicality” his work is famed for, there is always a through-line of the abstract and conceptual, however subtle.
Though we are all now versed in the art of the cross-genre mash-up, ISH Dance Collective is pushing the idea further, often bringing seeming opposites into harmony. Theirs is a volatile blend of trickery, danger and theatricality.
Unique is an overused adjective, yet perhaps it is appropriate here. With notable humility, Gerris accepts the compliment, but hastens to add, “The thing is, I was never searching for that. I remember when I first started ISH, I was thinking about my friends and the people around me, and I really thought they were the coolest people ever and I wanted to show that to the world. And I just got lucky that I rolled into a theatre and people gave me the chance.”
It is fair to say that the one-time skating champion has taken that chance not only with both hands, but with feet, blades and violins. And anything else he could bring to the mix.
ISH Dance Collective will present Elements of Freestyle at the Sydney Opera House from 25 – 29 June. For tickets and more information, visit www.sydneyoperahouse.com/dance/elements-freestyle.
By Paul Ransom of Dance Informa.
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