First Relay Interview:
Extracts

"My wish would be that circus would keep its own specificity and yet reach the same level and artistic value as other artforms."

"I think being an artist comes in a way from the necessity inside you."

"Well, I'm not sure how much I believe in freedom. I feel like a lot of the decisions one makes come out of a kind of training – whether that's training from seeing stuff or training from doing stuff."

"I do believe that everyone is looking to be original, but we're incredibly influenced by our environments. And so I don't think it's so much about being original as having an awareness of that and understanding where your work is situated in society, in art, and in art history. I actually think that the big error is to not be curious, to not search, or to only look at your own frame. It happens a lot in circus that there's a lack of curiosity for what's happening in other mediums."

"I was attracted to circus because I feel that it does have that layer of authenticity, or a lack of pretending perhaps."

"It's naked, which doesn't happen a lot in circus."

"I would like to take the risk, from the start until the end of the creation, of making something that I want to make, and telling something that I want to tell."

"I want to see the risk if it is natural to be there; I do not want to see a fake thing in a performance."

"I don't think so much when I practice. I think before. So when I go into a studio I've thought about what I will do and I'm actually the interpreter of my own ideas."

As an artist my wish is to continue to be inspired. It's also complicated for me to put in words – even in French it would not be so easy. For me it is a lot of searching. I would also hope for more spaces to create – there are so few free spaces, but it is from these spaces that creativity, that something new, comes.

"I feel with Alexander we made together what I would have wanted to make alone. So maybe if I would have been on stage the topic would have been quite similar. What I would make and how I would do it – I really don't know. I would be a really bad performer for the same reasons as in ANECKXANDER. Because of the birth mark I engage with the gaze in a very specific way, and it would be very difficult to get past that."

"I don't think it will change anything. I think Alexander's definition was just a curiosity for me – that he thinks like this."

"I think that the kind of approval that you get from doing circus is now a mainstream approval. It's very hard to point out circus artists as being outside society and I think that's part of the reason we have a hard time defining circus."

"I completely agree that there is a danger that the individual or the particular is not that necessary, or not that innovative, not that new any more. I think we will soon have a development where we go to the very ordinary or the usual – something like a Jérôme Bel in the field of circus."

"I think in performance theory the word that is used for that is 'auratic presence'. It's connected to post-dramatic theatre – so theatre that actually produces presence instead of re-presenting. As western spectators we are very much trained in thinking of presence and of art in general as a tool to look for truth – so I guess realness and presence and here-and-now are linked to that.

What I find interesting is not to abolish the word 'authenticity' but to observe in circus that, more than in theatre or dance, we are more visibly engaging with the constant balancing between realness and representation. And it says a lot about the content of a human being I think – or possibly, it could do, in a world where we stage our identities to an extent that didn't exist before."

"My goal is to stage my experience in front of the audience as witness."

"For me identity is not something that I'm interested in exploring so much on stage. I get the impression from my perspective that identity politics is kind of at an impasse, and I think that what queer was trying to do, as I understand it, was to think outside of binaries, and I think queer / not queer has become a binary, unfortunately. I don't think that getting up on stage and declaring yourself – 'yes, I'm this!' – that that kind of representation is enough. I think destabilisation is more important – which is what queer was trying to do, but I think a lot of queer artists don't do it successfully."

"I think routine is a useful tool that we all use – but the question is to what extent is it useful. And on stage to what point can it survive before it becomes dead."

"A big part of the monotheistic religions is talking about group experience. Watching a peformance has some similarities because you can surpass yourself through the group experience that you share with the audience and the artist. The thing of the group means you surpass your oneness, your being alone."

"I do think we clap way too often in performances, and I have constantly consciously searched for different ways of avoiding applause, destabilsing the applause moment, or interrupting the applause during a show. I think at the end though the applause has a function of 'we have been together and we end this moment here' – it's not always towards the performer, but is maybe more of an acknowledgement of the audience having sat through this thing together, and so ending it together."