Tomáš Danielis
Profile
Tomáš Danielis (1980, Banská Bystrica) is a graduate of The Ján Levoslav Bella Conservatory in Banská Bystrica. He received his master’s degree at the Faculty of Music and Dance at The Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. He was a founding member of the Theatre Dance Studio (1998) in Banská Bystrica. During his time with the ensemble he closely collaborated with the choreographer Zuzana Hájková. After relocating to Bratislava, he collaborated with a range of Slovak and international choreographers and tutors, such as David Zambrano, Steve Paxton, Andrew de Lombinière Harwood, Miroslava Kovářová, Marta Poláková, Frey Faust, Willi Dorner.
His solo debut project Dnes som ťa skoro stretol (2000) was an instant success. His subsequent works reaffirmed his inimitable artistic approach.
His foremost productions include light art-video-dance performance Landscapes (2011), emotionally charged production Locus (2016), and exceptionally pure project in terms of dance Suites (2016) – that received awards in recognition of the inimitable approach to creating compositions from movement material, inspired by the music by Bach.
For the Theatre Dance Studio in Banská Bystrica he created, in 2010, the production Spomienky tela. At the Bratislava-based festival Nu Dance Fest he featured with such projects as On The Red Lawn, Mainly Love, 21 & Counting. His most recent project, 21 & Counting, performance about movement, words, euphemisms and particularly about all that lays behind reaffirms Danielis’ permanent interest in the quest for sources and triggers of social tensions. The performance is based on the delayed celebration of the 2éth anniversary of the author and performer on dance stage. He revisits his memories and uses dance and movement as narrative instruments to talk about words, correctness, context, euphemistic escapes from reality, and the lack of trust in values.
As author and performer, Tomáš Danielis collaborated on the projects Ardent Body Communication by Frey Faust, Cie. by Felix Ruckert, Cie. Willi Dorner, Freyer Ensemble, Granhøj Dans and many others.
Mr Danielis is laureate of a number of prizes for performing art and choreography, such as the 2007 Contest – TanzRat Wien, special prize for choreography and performing art at the 2007 Theatre Arts Festival in Rybnik, Poland, and the prize for choreography at the same event in 2009. His performing art also earned him the Reumer Prize for the production Men and Mahler from the repertoire of the Danish ensemble Granhøj Dans.
Along with choreographies, Mr Danielis creates a system of training in dance technique and improvisation. He has led the workshops in Raffinerie and Danscentrum Jette (Brussels), TQW (Vienna), Tanzhaus NRW (Düsseldorf), Hot Summer (Kyoto), Dansehallerne (Copenhagen), CODARTS (Rotterdam) and elsewhere. He was assistant to David Zambrano, Frey Faust (1998 – 2004) and artistic director of the Internationale Bühnenwerkstatt Tanztheaterfestival (Graz, 2011 – 2013). Since 2013 he has been managing the IG Tanz Steiermark. In the period of 2016 – 2017 he was chief dance master at the Moscow Ballet. In 2017 he founded FEYNMen, a group of artists engaged in dance, performance, visual art and music. Currently, he advances his choreographic and tutorial work largely in Brussels, whilst engaging in additional projects across Europe and regularly returning home to Slovakia.
Tomáš Danielis has long been focusing, particularly in his solo projects, on bringing together digital visual arts, dance and movement. He is known for taking due regard to thematic diversity, whilst creating specific and innovative movement vocabulary. He works with a wide range of folk motives, through contemporary dance techniques, mainstream dance manifestations, all the way to civil elements of movement theatre. His signature style is characterised by high intensity of movement expressiveness, defined intellectual concept and uncompromising dramaturgical stylisation. By cumulating production elements, he cleverly creates tension which he subsequently doses to the spectator. The form he engages in most is a solo project that enables him to build a dance libretto on concentrated personal statement and viewpoint. His inimitable dance performance is epitomised by intellectual cynicism and a sense of humour.
The concept of the solo project Locus – concept of me (2016) draws from exploration of the process of creating our identity as influenced by memory. The essence of genius loci, the space of our existential map is manifested as determining factor in assessing or identifying key moments of being. Tomáš Danielis is particularly interested in inner space that is covered by seeming banality, everyday routine. That is precisely where he finds sources to explore beauty as well as ugliness. Those are the fundamental forces of the mechanism of our lives. They determine the vantage point of perspective. Naked body, when poetically lit, is beautiful. Its melancholic movement creates a visually rich portrait. Mr Danielis uses aesthetic counterpoint, as he puts on a long-haired wig. He thus blends into the beauty of human body the irritating drop of vulgarity. The intellectual irritation is, in general, an ever-present element in his performing art. It can be identified in all of his choreographies. The dual principle of identification based on personal history in Locus – concept of me confronts beauty and its deformation. In its fragility, the naked body is tormented in the end in post-orgasmic cramps. In the next part, Mr Danielis subjects a dancer with a wooden puppet on a human scale to similar polarisation. The puppet becomes his partner, burden, comparative alter ego. With its passivity, it fends off external factors. He uses it to establish contact with the spectators. Once he puts on civilian clothes, in the dynamic part built on pressing expressivity of technically challenging movements, the dancer dramatically accentuates the currency of the previous nostalgia of choreography. In the contrasting neurotic rhythm of dance sequences, he follows with poignancy on the intimate dialogue with spectators.
In the production Mainly Love (2016) Mr Danielis employs the principles of docudrama, whilst actively using the interaction between movement and digital media.
The context of the production exceeds meta-portrait of an autocratic personality that is defined in digital visual environment in motion – in fragments from conversations with five sexually abused women and a single predator. He thus opens discourse, in which he strictly avoids general principles related to emancipation tensions between sexes and simplification of the issue. He works with a wide range of interactive trans-medial and purely movement modes as instruments of expression. The dance diapason cis created by a blend of specific movement vocabulary, classical dance technique, luscious mid-way dance aesthetics and the expressiveness of acrobatics. Dance sequences are interlaced with poems and documentary statements.
Despite the strongly performative theme, the production exceeds the limits of sexes. Mr Danielis explores the positions of the sexes, the attitude of sexuality to power, and the consequences of such interactions. Sudden cuts of images along with distinctive musical structure enhance the tension in the expressive movement statement of the performer. Photosensors attached to the body of the dancer and placed across the stage remove the barrier of the source of impulse between the dancer and video-projection, thus escalating the pressing point of the statement. The tension strips naked the untoward nature of aggression of power. The graphic projection of the naked female body on the floor and horizon of the stage space create around the laying dancer absorbing space. It is a territory that disappears under any attempt to grasp it. Thus emerges an image of a blend of fragility and inappropriate power. It is a commentary projected on stage.
The transcription of the painful social theme into the dance language unveils the mimicry of predators. In his production, Mr Danielis is on the lookout for mechanisms that enable tolerance of smaller or grater autocrats and the subsequent tendency to excuse or give reason to their violence
In the unusual collaboration with the Moscow Ballet, Mr Danielis created a choreography for the production Equilibrium (2017When staging the project he tested his ability to transmit artistic intentions in creating choreographic material for the ballet company. The leitmotif is the balance between power and choice. Dancers are pulled in a set of games in which they have to solve situations and face related obstructions. They constantly compose strategies that enable their self-realisation, trying to balance action and reaction, keep the balance between self-realisation, integration and public fulfilment. The production is part of the trilogy about power which has been something Mr Danielis has been recently working on. It is a choreographic show-jumping based on game theories and immersions into the depths of human existence. In chain reactions, the movement impulses create fundamental changes, twists, and add drama to the relationships on stage. Both the solos and duets are exposed to incessant influence of the group movement. In his concept, Mr Danielis highlights the need for the quest for an opportunity to make decisions and take responsibility for them.
- 2000 – Dnes som ťa skoro stretol, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: International Festival Art of Movement, Yaroslavl
- 2002 – Sextet, directed by: Peter Jaško, collective choreography and performance: Matej Bohuš, Tomáš Danielis, Milan Herich, Peter Jaško, Anton Lachký, Milan Tomášik. Première: International Festival Bratislava v pohybe, Bratislava
- 2005 – Feather, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: Štyri (+1) dni tanca pre Vás, Banská Bystrica
- 2007 – Proxima Parada, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: Int. Bühnenwerkstatt Tanztheaterfestival, Graz
- 2007 – Alone, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: festival of contemporary dance and movement theatre Nu Dance Fest, Bratislava
- 2009 – In Medias Res, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: WUK, Vienna
- 2010 – Spomienky tela, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: Theatre Dance Studio, Banská Bystrica
- 2010 – Smetiar, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: festival KiosK 59, Vienna
- 2010 – Damnation, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: Štyri (+1) dni tanca pre Vás, Banská Bystrica
- 2010 – Grenztänzer project, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: ImCubus, Graz
- 2011 – Landscapes, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: festival of contemporary dance and movement theatre Nu Dance Fest, Bratislava
- 2011 – Jade, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: TTZ, Tanz & Theater Zentrum Graz
- 2011 – Back to myself, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: Int. Bühnenwerkstatt Tanztheaterfestival, Graz
- 2012 – On the Red Lawn, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: Bora Bora Dance & Visual Theatre a Granhøj Dans, Aarhus
- 2012 – Behind the Endings, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: La Caldera Les Corts, Barcelona
- 2015 – 20th Trust, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: International AVAYAVA Contemporary Dance Festival, Pune
- 2016 – Locus – concept of me, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: TTZ, Tanz & Theaterzentrum Graz
- 2016 – Suites, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: TTZ, Tanz & Theaterzentrum Graz
- 2016 – Mainly Love, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: IG Tanz Steiermark
- 2017 – Equilibrium, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: Ballet Moscow
- 2017 – Suvenír, team work: Eva Andrášová, Mária Čorejová, Tomáš Danielis, Zuzana Novotová Godálová, Zuzana Husárová, Ľubomír Panák, Jakub Pišek. Première: Nástupište 1 – 12, Topoľčany
- 2018 – Maybe but of course, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: Forum Stadtpark, Graz
- 2018 – Game, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: Theater am Lend, Graz
- 2019 – 21 & Counting, choreography and directed by: Tomáš Danielis. Première: festival of contemporary dance and movement theatre Nu Dance Fest, Bratislava.