Side Steps

Newcomer

Tess Voelker

There are these short videos on the internet, dance lectures from the "Dance Masterclass" in which Tess Voelker presents, for example, improvisation techniques. There, she recommends separating the perception of the inner and the outer, the environment, as an excellent tool for creating new movements. It was also improvisation videos on Instagram, filmed in a yoga studio during the Covid-19 lockdowns, that brought the dancer to the attention of Aurélie Dupont. In 2020, the then ballet director of the Paris Opera engaged the then 23-year-old for a new creation. Voelker, at the time a dancer at the Nederlands Dans Theater, was surprised that people felt she possessed a special talent for choreography because of her improvisational style. Because back then, she says, she defined improvisation and choreography as absolute opposites. Here, the momentary instinct and impulse. There, above all, time, the right timing as an important factor. Today, in her choreographic work, she always tries to see the other side of the coin, explores the other perspective, and believes that returning to the joy of improvisation makes such a change of perspective possible.

Tess Voelker was born in San Francisco in 1997 and grew up in Chicago and on the East Coast of the US. In 2016, she came to Dortmund for a year to join the NRW Junior Ballet. This was her first professional job. Following this, she danced with Nederlands Dans Theater 2, and in 2020 she secured one of the coveted spots in the main company of NDT 1. Since 2023, Voelker has worked as a solo artist, lives in Berlin, and choreographs for companies such as the Ballet d’Jèrri in Jersey, for herself, and now in Dortmund. For the three-part evening Tribute to Mozart, Voelker’s new creation is described as a “dance reflection on the idea of ​​infinity.” In our conversation at the end of February, she doesn't want to say much about this work, her idea, her project. She doesn't want to limit herself with words, so that "she can still breathe." There it is again, her deep interest in improvisation, which allows for free, unprejudiced reflection.

“The exploration of improvisation is always an exploration of myself,” says Voelker. Perhaps it is this vulnerability that makes her work, her movements, so fascinating, so powerful in their fragility. Get home safe is the (working) title of her Dortmund choreography. And that, too, is a very personal approach. Tess Voelker has suffered many injuries. Returning to the stage is, for her, like “returning to my center.” She wishes all her dancers could feel this sense of their own center. During the rehearsal, the moving Lacrimosa from Mozart’s Requiem is playing. And Tess Voelker says to her Dortmund ensemble: “Dance is a celebration.” A celebration of all emotions.

Sarah Heppekausen

Tribute to Mozart: Premiere at the Dortmund Opera House on 18 April, further performances on 26 April; 23 and 28 May; www.theaterdo.de