10 Questions: An interview with Neel de Jong
Neel de Jong is a deeply spiritual performer who translates dance into theatre. She is highly sensitive of the dualities in life: the “inner reality” and “reality”. She constantly processes the external world and attempts to classify everything by searching inwards. Her finely tuned dance routines, sometimes working in stark silence, using oblique body language, gestures and facial expressions are recurring themes in her work. Check out her Virtual Flyers: “Moving Landscape” for the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and “Inner Landacape” for 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Neel also teaches weekly dance classes in Rotterdam and Den Haag so I had to catch up with this talented artist and dancer from her home in The Netherlands to find out more about her.
Dance Parade of Holland Dance Festival - Neel is on the right
1. What made/inspired you to become a performer/artist?
I think that loneliness made me become an artist. The feeling of being different from other people around me and the suffering which came out of that. And then, there was the accident, and all of a sudden I became visible during a theatre-class, and even better: I could see myself!
2. What is your show about and what should the public expect from your show?
While I perform my show I am looking for the crack in my soul over and over again, because in that crack lies the truth for me. I listen to my body and ask myself why is today different from yesterday? Out of this search I prepare an open concept where I can fall back on or/and can start from; at the moment I am working with the themes ‘the doll’ and ‘feeble legs’. During my shows I listen again to the crack in my soul, I mix that with all the ingredients out of my studio-work and that will be my communication with the public. The public can experience feelings and emotions on a higher level than what happens in daily life. Intensity is my speciality.
3. What is your favourite Festival or Fringe and why?
Up till now my favourite Fringe is the Edinburgh Fringe, because I feel welcome there and recognised. That’s great! The church Roxy Main is a beautiful place to perform!
4. What’s your best advice for aspiring/artist/performers on the Festival/Fringe circuit?
Strangely enough I don’t believe in advice from a distance, because my experience is that everybody has to find their “own wheel”, that’s part of the job.
5. What is your funniest and also, your worst experience performing or attending a Fringe/Festival?
My most profound moments on stage are when I fall together into myself and time and space are fading away in front of the audience. Mostly afterwards I realise that I did what I thought I never dare to do. That’s magic.
My worst experiences are when I feel that the public cannot handle my special sense of time (it can make them restless, sometimes even angry) and when I cannot keep the distance between them and myself. That’s hell.
6. As you travel performing at different festivals/fringes, what is your favourite place to vacation and chill out and why?
I love to work and I travel only for that reason, all my dedication is towards that. I chill out within my work.
7. Who is the person you most admire/d and why?
At present I don’t have any idol. I am longing for horizontal meetings.
8. What is the best tip you have ever been given.
Listen to your inner voice and be honest towards that. Dare to be lonely, because it has happened already.
9. What is the best book you have read and why do you like it?
The Bible - so many different worlds and beautiful stories, it is unbelievable.
10. If you could change one thing about the world what would it be?
This question is an illusion for me, so there’s no answer possible.
Apart from that, I can say: “Self-realisation” is my life-quest.
For more information about Neel de Jong, please check out her website.
