Programme notes:

BOTIS SEVA: ‘I DON’T CREATE WHAT PEOPLE EXPECT. I CREATE FREE SPACE, AWAY FROM THE NORM.’ 

The British choreographer and hip hop artist Botis Seva (1991, South London) is grabbing attention internationally with his brooding, spiritual mix of crump, hip hop and modern dance. He is now visiting the Netherlands with his own dance company, and with a guest choreography for Nederlands Dans Theater. Dans Magazine interviewed him about his life and work.

A new name is buzzing around the international dance world: it is Botis Seva (33), born in London and the first British hip hop choreographer to receive an Olivier Award. Seva received the prestigious award for BLKDOG (2018), a raw and intense dance performance full of shuddering bodies wearing tight-fitting hoodies. The furious energy, expressed timidly and violently with bent backs and clenched fists, refers to hidden traumas inflicted by domestic violence, and to the unspoken feelings attached to depression, often described as ‘black dog’. All these traumas wind their way out in a semi-dark atmosphere, reinforced by the pounding soundscape by Seva’s steady composer, Torben Sylvest. You hear taped children’s voices, steps that culminate in a gunshot, gasps for air that sound like military commands.

BLKDOG, created for the 20-year-anniversary of Sadler’s Wells dance theatre in London, was performed in the Netherlands just off and on. Seva’s new group choreography, Until We Sleep, will tour four large theatres in the country, ending in The Hague’s Amare. Seva will also visit the Netherlands coming spring to work with the young ensemble of Nederlands Dans Theater. Reasons enough for an interview. 

I heard your father lives in the Netherlands. What’s the story there?
‘That’s right, he left his family with five children early on and moved to the Netherlands, where he fathered even more children. I think twelve or so. I don’t know all of my half brothers and sisters, and I’m not sure whether I’ll try to visit him. Our relationship is complicated. I made a short dance film about the things a father feels as he deserts his young son. I want to be a better father. I have three children with my partner Lee Griffiths, who is also my producer: a seven-year old boy and a girl and boy aged three. Although the twins keep waking me up much too early, I really love family life.’

What was your childhood in London like?
‘I was raised by my mother, who’s an immigrant from Congo and Angola. She always kept several cleaning jobs at a time in order to give me, my two sisters and two brothers a better future. I hugely respect her motherly love and work ethic. Thanks to hip hop classes in a community centre and dance lessons in school I didn’t wind up in the street and on the wrong path. My mother found it difficult at first that I dropped out of university for an uncertain future in hip hop. But now she’s very proud.’

Is that why your new performance, Until We Sleep, is about female leadership?
‘Yes, it revolves around a primeval mother. A strong woman who guides a community through a challenging time towards a safe haven. She is constantly torn between leading and listening, between making sacrifices and being assertive. She tries to heed her internal powers and is inspired by the voices of her ancestors. I take that mystical energy from the past and somewhat boldly combine it with the present time. I raise the question of who do you listen to, and which voice do you follow? I personally draw a lot of faith from my religious beliefs. I read texts in the Bible that offer me support in this mad and complex world. I feel a strong connection with a larger whole.’ 

Until We Sleep enjoyed its world premiere at the schrit_tmacher festival in Kerkrade. Does the enchanting singing bird still drive the musical theme?  
‘My composer and hip hop producer Torben Sylvest saves up as many sounds as he can, which he records all around the world. He captured this exotic bird song in the forests of Cuba. Now he mixes that original recording with all sorts of instruments and electronics. The bird theme also returns as a symbol of freedom in the feathered costumes, which are both heavy and warm and offer shelter and protection. It’s about a spiritual nesting feeling, as the foundation for a strong community that attempts to fly and to flee.’

Which dance styles do you throw into the mix?
‘Hah, everything really, from popping & locking to crump and modern. I also let my dancers improvise. That’s how my organic dance idiom is created.’

You’ve also made solos and films in the British Museum?
‘In that bastion of art, I wanted to use hip hop to question the ancient beauty ideals, locked away in the frozen postures of white marble statues. You see me as a fleeting shadow, coming from far off to nearby and bouncing back and forth between the echoes of all this heritage, on my way to a new and coloured future. But you can interpret it however you like.’

What will you be making with NDT 2, coming February?
‘They are virtuoso dancers technically, but I would never raise a leg high up into the air. I start from bent backs, shoulders and arms. I am currently experimenting with eight dancers. In my mind I am responding to a British critic who was disappointed that Until We Sleep was not a follow-up to the successful BLKDOG. I don’t create what people expect. I create free space, away from the norm. That’s why my company is called Far From the Norm.’

Botis Seva’s dance performance is supported by the Fonds Internationale Dans (FIND). In this Fund, Amare, Holland Dance Festival and Nederlands Dans Theater join forces in order to bring high-profile international dance productions to the Netherlands and to further raise The Hague’s profile as the country’s leading city of dance.

This interview as published previously in Dans Magazine, November 2024.

Text: Annette Embrechts 

Press quotes: 

The press about Until We Sleep

“Botis Seva builds a kind of bridge between an Africa of archaic darkness and the streets of an angry 21st century.” Tanz NRW - The Netherlands 

“A sophisticated choreography of the semi visible; fitting for the night, for sleep, and also for memory, which can be partly conscious, known, and partly dreamed.” Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger - Germany 

“A spectacle that stimulates all the senses.” De Limburger - The Netherlands “Often, the speed at which dancers traverse the stage in parallel seems as quick as the lightning backdrop. These are dancers at the top of their game” Picture it Post - France 

“The immensely talented company combined athleticism with fluid movement to create animalistic imagery through angular, almost staccato moves” Sussex Express – UK

Credits:

This programme was made possible by the Fonds Internationale Dans (FIND)
In FIND, Amare, Holland Dance Festival and Nederlands Dans Theater join forces in order to bring high-profile international dance productions to The Hague and to further raise The Hague’s profile as the leading city of dance in the Netherlands. 

Choreographer & Director: Botis Seva
Composer: Torben Sylvest
Costume Designer: Ryan Dawson-Laight
Lighting Designer : Tom Visser
Dancers: Jordan Douglas, Shangomola Edunjobi, Larissa Koopman, Joshua Nash, Rose Sall Sao, Joshua Shanny-Wynter, Victoria Shulungu

Rehearsal Support: Hayleigh Sellors
Apprentice artists 2023/24: Margaux Pourpoint and Penelope Klamert 

Mix & Mastering: Pär Carlsson
Music Collaborators: Pär Carlsson, Chief Chebe, Charlotte Clark, Moustapha Gadiaga, Mohamed Gueye, Eric Mauricia, Paul Shofolahan, Teodor Sjöqvist, That Colombian songbird

Costume supervisor: Rosie Whiting
Costume Makers: Sophie Lincoln, Izzy Pellow, Klara Landin Larsson, Isobel Williams, Chantal Short
Prop Maker: Bek Palmer
Set Design: Matter Design 

Photography: Camilla Greenwell, Tom Visser
Film: Ben Williams 
Visual Design: Daniel C Ferro

Far From The Norm Team
Artistic Director: Botis Seva 
Executive Producer: Lee Griffiths
Marketing Manager: Siân Gilling
Production Manager: Andy Downie
Touring Production Manager: Chris Burr, Andrej Gubanov
Until We Sleep Tour Manager: Gabija Capelyte
With thanks to Shiloh Seva and Lou Cope.

Until We Sleep is co-produced by DanceEast, DE SINGEL, Points Communs - Nouvelle Scène nationale of Cergy-Pontoise / Val d'Oise, Rum för Dans, Sadler's Wells, schrit_tmacher Festival, Tanz Köln (Cologne), Théâtre de la Ville - Paris, The Joyce Theater and The Lowry. 

Commissioned by Brighton Dome & Festival and Warwick Arts Centre. Supported by FABRIC and University of East London Dance: Urban Practice. 

Funded by Arts Council England, The Linbury Trust, Cockayne Grants for the Arts, PRS Foundation’s The Open Fund and The London Community Foundation.

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