Dance scholar Nancy Wozny highlights the life and work of Moroccan and Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Cherkaoui was honored with the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award in 2022 for his achievements in the worlds of both concert and commercial dance including choreography for Beyoncé and the Broadway production of Jagged Little Pill.
[Music begins, composed by J.S. Bach, performed by Jess Meeker]
Norton Owen: Welcome to PillowVoices, a production of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival with content from the Pillow Archives. I'm Norton Owen, the Pillow’s Director of Preservation, and it's my pleasure to introduce this episode hosted by dance scholar Nancy Wozny highlighting the life and work of Belgian-born choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Cherkaoui was honored with the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award in 2022 for his achievements in the worlds of both commercial and concert dance as well as on Broadway and in films. And here he talks about it all.
Nancy Wozny: Leave it to Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui to create a dance inspired by the legendary MIT linguist and cultural critic Noam Chomsky. Using dancers of different lineages established the stage space as a global meeting place where physical language was amplified and reframed. Cherkaoui mixed his own movement with that of a French circus dancer, an American Lindy Hopper, a Spanish dancer and a Hip-Hop dancer. The democratically shifting boundaries between bodies and movement not only made for a timely statement of shared power, but the use of gesture, multiples and sequence packed one potent kinetic cocktail. I wrote those words in 2020 when I selected Cherkaoui’s 2015 Fractus V as one of the top 20 works of the past 20 years for Dance Magazine. The work came to the Pillow’s Ted Shawn Theatre in 2018 when his company Eastman made their Pillow debut. Cherkaoui went on to win the 2022 Jacob’s Pillow Award. Pillow Executive and Artistic Director Pamela Tatge offers a concise snapshot of Cherkaoui’s remarkable career during the 2022 gala on the occasion of the presentation of his Pillow Award.
[audio of audience clapping]
Pam Tatge: Larbi is an artist of exceptional creativity who has been pushing against boundaries and definitions his entire career. The son of a Flemish mother and a Moroccan father, his company Eastman, based in Antwerp, Belgium, brings together dancers from multiple cultural backgrounds and histories to create ensembles that give us a sense of what global collaboration could look like. Here at the Pillow, his works have been performed by Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Cedar Lake, Aakash Odedra, and in 2018, Eastman performed one of Larbi’s masterworks, Fractus V, right here in the Ted Shawn Theater. He's choreographed, works for the Royal Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Martha Graham Pilobolus, and others. He did a music video with Beyonce and Jay-Z, the recent film Cyrano, directed by Joe Wright, and was nominated for a Tony in 2021 for his choreography for Jagged Little Pill. Cherkaoui has a humility and an unbridled curiosity about his place in the world, and he challenges himself to authentically connect with the human experience through his dances.
Nancy Wozny: Cherkaoui’s history at the Pillow begins in 2007 when his work Loin was performed by Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève. In 2009, The Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet performed Orbo Novo, a work inspired by Jill Bolte Taylor’s book My Stroke of Insight. Aakash Odedra performed Cherkaoui's stunning solo Constellation in 2011. In 2024, Cherkaoui returned to the Pillow with Ballet Genève, the company he now leads, with two of his works, Faun, a tribute to Nijinsky’s iconic Afternoon of a Faun, and the US premiere of Noetic, which contains the choreographer’s signature layered gestures. During his 2018 engagement, he participated in a PillowTalk with Pillow scholar Maura Keefe, where he delved into his artistic process and choreographic thinking. His very first venture into an artistic life started with drawing.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: I started as a drawer (Keefe: Mm-hmm). So I was more of a, as a kid I always drew (Keefe: Mm-hmm). And I think, so I always looked at things as a drawing, and so as many other choreographers, I, I see the full picture and I'm always trying to, to kind of complete it. So choreography inside of that matters, the whole deal. But the whole thing actually something that I care about deeply. And I always feel like I want to, to have, you know, to, to, to build everything around it as well. So the movement's important, but also the context of the movement.
Nancy Wozny: Cherkaoui has worked with dancers who come from a variety of backgrounds and is known for his inclusive approach to using multiple forms of dance within one piece, which is also reflected in his own diverse training as a dancer. He’s interested in the idea of a horizontal hierarchy of dance forms and their evolution.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: It's just, it's just a feeling Like for me, it was a feeling that I, I felt like it's not like that, it's like this (Keefe: Mm-hmm). So I always saw it like that. I always felt like I had a, uh, it's, it's like dialects or it's like languages (Keefe: Mm-hmm). You know, people will say, oh, English is very important, and like, yes, English is very practical, but it's, it's not more important than other languages. And even, you know, people in different places speak English differently and have different vocabulary. And, you know, you go to India and people have incredible like words they use that they don't even use, the British don't even use anymore (Keefe: Mm-hmm). And just because of the, the, the, let's say the migration of, um, the content behind a form, like a language, you know, so whatever is like, I think that those art forms, they are moving, they're constantly moving. So ballet is moving. Mm-hmm. It's constantly alive (Keefe: Mm-hmm). And, uh, to reduce it to what it was 50 years ago and kind of go like, that's like to, to, to treat it only that way is, is, it's not very smart because it's alive (Keefe: Mm-hmm). And it's, it's, it's changing as we speak through the choices of dancers, how they approach it, the choices of choreographers, how they choreograph, the, the thing. So it's, it's shifting. And I think on the other side, the qualities, the energetic qualities that you can find in, in, in other traditional forms of dance, like let's say Indian dance (Keefe: Mm-hmm). Like, Odissi or, or, or Kuchipudi or you see things that, that are not present in these other styles that you feel are really important and beautiful and human experiences, human qualities that you want to see and you think like, oh, then I'll just have to study that, Flamenco because that, that, that only exists in that style, but it's a human quality and that human quality can be shared by all of us. It doesn't have to be narrowed down to that style.
Nancy Wozny: Regardless of the type of training that a dancer brings into the studio, Cherkaoui wants to find out more about what lies beneath that training. What kind of mover is the dancer?
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: Well, first of all, I wanna say it's always extremely inspiring (Keefe: Mm-hmm). I mean, to have people who have a technique and who know exactly how, where, from, where to put certain, you know, to pull certain things from a certain place. So it's never bad to have technique (Keefe: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm). It's just that I do think that there are other forms and other techniques (Keefe: Mm-hmm) than the technique you have, whichever technique you have, there is other techniques that are out there. So when I work with ballet dancers, I always speak about you can really work really well on your legs, on one leg and balance and everything, and that's fantastic. Now try this on an elbow, try this on your back (Keefe: Mm-hmm). Try this on another, on your hip and you will see that you can use the knowledge you have of how you do it on your leg, on your arm. And that's why, that's where yoga comes in. Because for me, in especially Iyengar yoga, there's a lot of alignment that really clarifies to what the degree the arms and the legs can do similar things, and so those are things that I love to share with classical dancers (Keefe: Mm-hmm). To go like, you can do this. It's, it seems scary to go to the floor and do that while you are all the time working at the barre, but actually it's not that far
Nancy Wozny: Here he discusses the structure of Fractus V, the meaning of the piece and his choice to use many kinds of dancers.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: In, in practice there was the, the, the, let's say the topic, which was this idea of like a fractured, that's why it's called Fractus V, like as if I was torn in five people and I'm trying to put these people back together. That's kind of my own reading of it. It's like trying to say like, okay, we are all one, but we've been so divided and, and so that's why we're all wearing the same thing. It's actually,bBut then one is a Hip Hopper, one is a Flamenco dancer, one is a circus artist, one, you know, we are, we are all coming from very different disciplines, which in the dance world are seen as separate. But we, we worked together and, and it was hard. I mean, everybody had to swallow their pride and just kind of like dig into what the other person was really good at and that you may be not as good at, but it's not the competition (Keefe: Mm-hmm). It was about being together and dancing together and sure some people are better at something than others, but that should not matter. What matters is that we are there in the moment together.
Nancy Wozny: There’s no doubt that Cherkaoui possesses an extraordinary collaborative spirit, yet he also considers every aspect of a work. His relationship with music is particularly interesting in that he sees music as deeply embedded in cultural identity. Here he speaks to how his ideas around music continue to evolve and expand.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: Actually, in my first work, already like 18 years ago, there were certain things that we were, uh, like I was working with Damien Jalet, who's another choreographer from Belgium, and he was a performer in, in my show, and he had studied ethnomusicology of like, uh, traditional, oral, traditional music from Italy. And so he came with a beautiful song, but he couldn't sing it alone because he was like, it's polyphony (Keefe laughs). I need other voices. So he needed my voice (Keefe: Uh-huh). He was like, you should sing this voice and you should sing that voice. And he was kind of like helping guide how to bring it together. And I was hooked. That moment to harmonizing and working on, you know, finding harmony. So afterwards, I, I, I met A Filetta, which is a group of course, I met Patrizia Bovi from Italy, Christine Leboutte. Many, too many to mention here, uh, musicians from the, the Mediterranean who work around, you know, oral traditional music, which is not written in scores (Keefe: Mm-hmm). But actually just transmitted maybe, uh, you know, certain songs are done once a year around Easter. You know, like it's often, uh, linked to, uh, to rituals. And, uh, and they, they've been kind of like, like people like Giovanna Marini, for instance. She's an ethno, ethnomusicologist from, she's I think 75 or something. Like she's done, she was a friend of, uh, Pier Pasolini. So really like, uh, this whole generation of people who looked at Italy for its deeper roots (Keefe: Mm-hmm). You know, uh, trying to protect it from, from television and from all the, the like, let's say dumbing down of, of, of a, of a, of a culture. Because there were, you know, as television was coming in, in Italy, a lot of their traditions were wiped away because people were just watching television. And so, uh, people like her were trying to, I to, to, to keep the traditions alive (Keefe: Mm-hmm). And, uh, and I was really, you know, totally moved by her journey. And, and so I wanted to also sing those songs (Keefe: Mm-hmm). And kind of give them a new life elsewhere. So when people ask, I'm like, yeah, go and look up for that, and that and that, and you will see that there's a whole, you know, there's lots of roots that are almost disappearing, but they're still there. And I just often, when, so I, I don't see myself always as an author. Like when you're saying like, oh, you're composing (Keefe: Mm-hmm), I'm like, no, it's more like arranging (Keefe: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm). Arranging older music or, and sure, sometimes certain melodies come up and maybe one day it would be great to be, you know, uh, to dare call myself a composer. But right now it's more like arrangements of, of all the traditional music.
[music excerpt]
Nancy Wozny: Fractus V is a work for all men, which has a particular significance here at the Pillow, founded by Ted Shawn who created his Men Dancers company on these very grounds. The choreographer addresses issues related to this choice and gender in general.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: People always project. So they go like, oh, it's a woman and a man. It's a woman. And they, they make so much about the duality. People love duality. They love left and right and black and white, and they love to, and me, I'm, I'm right there in the middle with my own identity. I'm like, I really feel like I'm right there in the middle. So having worked on this duality all the time, I was interested in working with only men, because that's what we appear to be. But then inside we are, we're everybody (Keefe: Mm-hmm). And we are everything. And I, so I wanted to, to speak about, you know, the qualities of a, a male entity (Keefe: Mm-hmm). And, but then it, it, for me, there's also a lot of female entity in those male entities (Keefe: Mm-hmm). Like, it's just that the anatomy (Keefe: Mm-hmm) just kind of reveals a, like the prejudice is one way, but then, you know, inside you can feel like some days you are more than (Keefe: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm), you know, just that or that.
Nancy Wozny: In watching Cherkaoui’s works, we witness an incredible openness, to ideas, to influences, to the world around him. He talks about his hybrid upbringing as one that nurtured a deep curiosity concerning the fabric of the cultures around him.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: Well, it's something I had to be (Keefe: Mm-hmm). I mean, because of my upbringing, I mean, I'm an I, I, my father's Moroccan, uh, Arab. Uh, I was raised Muslim. I was raised with a mother who's Catholic. I was in Belgium where when I went to school it was, um. Uh, none, there was no religion. We were actually science, you know, it was science and it was, so I had TV where I was watching, uh, anime from Japan, so, which is very Shinto and Buddhist-oriented. I loved Bruce Lee, so I was completely in awe of, of how he moved. And so the influences were multiple. Like I was watching the BBC, but then Hollywood movies, but also Bollywood movies and like it all. And so your upbringing is just very multiple (Keefe: Mm-hmm). It's not just one thing. So that flexibility was linked to feeling like I didn't want to lose any of those connections. And every time there was, um, a situation, people were like, do you feel more Moroccan than Belgium? And it was hard when you're 6, 7, 8 years old to be asked some such a question. It is actually painful because you are neither and you are both. So I've learned now to say I'm both fully, I'm fully Moroccan and I'm fully Belgian. And my, because the ancestors of my father, they bring this with me and that, and so the more you know, there are these connections, the, the easier it becomes to, to realize you are connected to all these things and you don't have to deny anything in order to belong to something.
Nancy Wozny: There’s a complexity to Cherkaoui’s work and that sometimes involves a second set of eyes. This is where a dramaturg comes in and can be so useful. He considers the value and necessity of having such a person by his side.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: I think it depends on the length of a work (Keefe: Mm-hmm). Also, when you are talking about the work of an hour and ten minutes or something, it's good to have someone who looks at the overall and experience. So it was helpful to have a dramaturg, just to have a first observer (Keefe: Mm-hmm), who would just talk about his associations looking at something (Keefe: Mm-hmm). So when we were doing a scene that just felt like intuitively the right thing to do, but you don't always, you know, sometimes you have deep intention, but sometimes you're just intuition. And that's okay. You don't always have to have all the answers. I mean, it's not only an intellectual exercise; to choreograph is also feeling. So you might feel something, you might not be able to say what it is exactly, but you do it because that's the only way to have that feeling be put in the space. And uh, and I believe very much in that intuitive process next to the fact that you could talk hours about the reasons behind everything you're doing (Keefe: Mm-hmm). That is like explaining your life, you know. I could explain hundreds of things, but. In the moments themselves, I was just living it (Keefe: Mm-hmm). I was just doing it. So, uh, working with the dramaturg, he can look at it and just go, oh, well I felt that when I saw this, or I saw, and as it made me think of this. And then they would come with, um, you know, material that goes like, oh, this reminded me of that. And that's really helpful because sometimes it just, sometimes it, it stops you from going too far into something that's already done. Sometimes it's actually encourages you to, to connect it with the things that they come with. So it's, it's, it's a gift actually (Keefe: Mm-hmm), a dramaturg for me, it's, it's never been someone I tried to please. It was always there to kind of give me the mirror or the feedback that I couldn't have objectively as I was in it myself (Keefe: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm).
Nancy Wozny: In addition to his concert work, Cherkaoui has also worked in the commercial sector. He’s choreographed for Cirque Du Soleil, the Icelandic band Sigur Ros, and worked with director Joe Wright in his films Anna Karenina and Cyrano. One of his most significant achievements is his work on the 2018 Broadway musical Jagged Little Pill with songs by pop superstar Alanis Morissette, a libretto by Diablo Cody and directed by Diane Paulus. Cherkaoui was nominated for an Emmy for his choreographic work on Jagged Little Pill. He reflects on making choreography that exists in service to another artist's vision.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: Well, I, I mean, it's always somebody I kind of like (Keefe: Mm-hmm) because if not, it's really hard. Um, uh, so for instance, with Jagged Little Pill, working with Diane Pollis was really inspiring (Keefe: Mm-hmm). I mean, she's such a…
Maura Keefe: Oh, so, um, music by Alanis Morissette and a book by Diablo Cody.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: But, uh, we, yeah, it was a, was an amazing experience working with Diane and, and working on the music of Alanis, which I knew since I was a kid. And, and I was a huge fan (Keefe: Mm-hmm). So I have all her albums, so I was super excited. You know, I was like, uh. You know, like a fan, like just going like, I love everything you do (Keefe and Larbi laugh). She was looking at me like, okay, this is the choreographer of this, of, of the, of the musical she was gonna do. But it, it, it worked out great and we had a lot of fun and, and it was great to, 'cause I knew all the songs, so it was almost easier than some operas I've worked on (Keefe: Mm-hmm) where I have to really study. You know, like there (Keefe: Uh-huh), I knew everything before. Like I knew the lyrics, I knew, I knew it all (Keefe laughs), so I was very prepared. So, so sometimes it's easier because of that. So even I was telling Diane, why don't we use this song? And she's like, I never heard that one. I'm like, yeah, it's on that album (Keefe and the audience laugh). And, you know, like I was really very, very much like a, a fan boy (Keefe laughs), you know, just pushing the, and the, and the topics in that specific um, musical are all things that I care about a lot 'cause it's about identity (Keefe: Mm-hmm). Which is a word that often gets thrown around, but like, it's the multiplicity of your identity (Keefe: Mm-hmm). So the fact that you can be many things at the same time. And, uh, and so I really loved all the characters that were present. The, the, the, a dysfunctional family. I'm like, okay, I (Keefe laughs) completely can relate to that. So I felt really at home with the topics and it felt like I wanted to be part of making, you know, putting that into movement.
Nancy Wozny: He goes into more detail about the process of collaborating with a creative team, which reveals a genuine quality of listening and responding to the ideas in the room.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: And it's this ritual of trying to connect that I felt was important in practice. And with Jagged Little Pill, there was, uh, uh, Diablo Cody or, or, uh, Brook, she was, she was writing a whole, you know, story, narrative. But we had so much space also to speak to her about what we felt was working or not. She's incredibly open (Keefe: Mm-hmm). So there were even parts that we could discuss where I felt like. I think this character might even say this or that, and she would be, oh, that's interesting. And 'cause, 'cause we would always go from personal experience and as this dysfunctional family was full of, you know, narrative between a mother and a daughter, or a mother and a son. There was so much that you can, from, you can draw from your own life to, to, to, to give into this collaboration if, if the artists that you're working with are open enough for, for that type of feedback. And Diane was, and, and so was Brooke (Keefe: Mm-hmm). So, so it was, and Alanis really let us just play with the songs, you know, she came later in the process again to look at it and, and realize what we were doing. And, and she was, uh also, yeah, incredibly gifted that seeing the details and even giving advice on levels that were not her function, but she would just go like, maybe you guys could do this or that could be work. And we did because it was just such good advice.
Nancy Wozny: His commercial career also includes a Beyoncé-Jay Z video set in the Louvre Museum in Paris, which he choreographed with JaQuel Knight. Here he elaborates on his many collaborations with the multi-Grammy winning icon Beyonce, with such a touching humility.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: Well, there's not that much to say. I mean, I had worked with them twice before. Well, with her…
Maura Keefe: There's plenty to tell.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: Yeah. No (Keefe laughs), but I mean (laughs), it's just that, uh, we, we, like I I, I think three years ago or something was the first time I was really surprised by a call, and that was for Tidal, it was, um, a benefit concert in which many different artists that are under her Tidal (Keefe: Hmm), um, uh, what do you call that? Like a, it's like a music provider (Keefe: Mm-hmm). Um, uh, and there was a benefit concert, uh, specifically I think for people who were victims of police brutality. And so she called and she said, could, could you come? And she, she didn't call. Her people called and they said like, could you come and work with us on, on the choreography of one or two songs? And that was the first time. So that was three years ago. And then afterwards they called again for something for the Grammys last, uh, I think it was last year. Was it last year? In January, I think. Um, to, to, to kind of choreograph when she was pregnant. That was really exciting because it was such a, yeah, they were, the concepts were very beautiful. It was around the table. And you know, I I, the funny thing, the funny little story with that is that I didn't know she was pregnant until quite late. So when I was making the moves, I was really trying to just have her do a lot. And every time I got feedback it should be less (Keefe laughs). It should be less. And I'm like, why? Like, she's such an amazing mover (Keefe laughs). Why would she want to do less? And then she was like, yeah, sorry. And then I saw, and then I'm like, of course you want to do less. You're, you're pregnant. Like, uh, it's, uh, so it was very interesting to, you know, even as collaborators, we know sometimes very little (Keefe: Uhhuh). Like we, we just, we, we work on faith. You know, you just kind of go and you get feedback and you don't know is this the right direction, but they write you and, you know, so it's a very, it's a very intriguing process. And then with um, uh, now with the concert, uh, we were working on the concert and I was just helping a little bit. I mean, they don't really need my help. They're incredible. Uh, the choreographers she's working with, uh, Chris and um, JaQuel, JaQuel Knight. Um, and so, but they just asked me to come and give some feedback on things. So I did that, and then suddenly there was this idea of doing the, a video and I had more time than the others. So I, I, I, I worked on some stuff in the day and, and most of it got kept and, and, you know, put in the context of that video.
Nancy Wozny: Cherkaoui explains his aesthetic choices for both movement and scenic design at the Louvre.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: It was about empowerment and, and also female empowerment. And I, I love that it was all female dancers. And then it made me think of Marta Graham (Keefe: Mm-hmm). And the contractions of Martha (Keefe: Mm-hmm). And I, I had worked with the company last year, so I felt like maybe doing a small ode to Martha Graham would be, you know, well placed in that context (Keefe: Mm-hmm). 'Cause it's just such a, you know, like a, a specific movement. It's so simple and repetitive and it kind of fits well in the (Keefe: Mm-hmm), in the museum aspect. So it became partly. Installation rather than choreography (Keefe: Mm-hmm). There's other parts that are more choreographed (Keefe: Mm-hmm). Like the hip dance or something (Keefe: Mm-hmm). But that part felt like it, it just made sense to, to, to become one with the space and then break the space up once in a while. And yeah, it was, it was nice that they liked it. I was super happy that they were happy with it.
Nancy Wozny: There’s no doubt that Cherkaoui will continue to challenge himself, his dancers, his collaborators and the audience in the works he puts on stage. I will let him have the last word as he offers some gentle advice to young dancemakers.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: You know, you have to start somewhere because that's something I also always wanna say to young dancers. Like, just start, like, don't, don't, don't worry whether you can already do it 'cause you'll learn and you get better after five years, six years (Keefe and Larbi laugh). I mean, it, it can't go down (Keefe laughs). You know, you do get better. So, so sometimes it just like, you have to just take the step and do it. Even if people say it's not good yet, you're like, fine. Okay, I don't care. I just keep going because eventually it just works out. So I love to work with people who are courageous.
[Music begins, composed and performed by Jess Meeker]
Norton Owen: That's it for this episode of PillowVoices. Thank you for joining us today. On behalf of Jacob's Pillow, we look forward to sharing more dance with you through the films, essays and podcasts at dance interactive dot jacobspillow.org, and of course, through live experiences during our festival and throughout the year. Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts for helping launch this podcast series. Please subscribe to PillowVoices, wherever you get your podcasts and visit us again soon, either online or on site.