Nika Jankovic - dancer, teacher, choreographer

Who are those driven people that delight us with their dancing night after night? Nika Jankovic was one of those 'mysterious' creatures during Conny Janssen Danst's MIRROR MIRROR, and again during the Winterparade. She's also a great dance teacher. Let's hear her side of the story.

" In contemporary dance you have yourself to give"

The road to Rotterdam

When I was three years old, my grandma took me to ballet class and I never really left. Where I come from (Pula, Croatia) there aren't any dance academies, only amateur dance studios. So I moved to the capital when I graduated. People from the only dance company there then saw me in class in one of the studios and invited me to join their youth ensemble. Then after a year of being in that company, I decided to get a diploma in dancing and went for auditions abroad. I got accepted into the Theaterschool in Amsterdam, and now I'm here to do my internship at Conny Janssen Danst.

24/7

When you're a dancer, dancing never really leaves you. The work never goes away; you're always in it. I'm constantly thinking about what I'm doing, how I'm walking, standing, and so on. So part of the preparation for rehearsals and performances is subconscious and omnipresent. I can be walking down the street and realise how a movement works, without even doing it. It's always going in the back of your mind, 24/7.

Preparation

Right before I go on stage, I need some time for myself to get into the specific mental state performing requires. You need to be able to create another world on stage, so I need my silence and that focus. I try to connect the warm up exercises to what I'm going to be doing on stage.

I also visualise the performance and I go over certain parts of it as well, to prepare physically. These are mostly the parts I'm always a little bit insecure about, just to anchor them in my body. But then I also do one or two parts of the choreogarphy that I'm really good at, just to boost my confidence!

Perfection

Back home I never knew how 'everyday life' can be a performance. It doesn't need to be so very esthetical, like it is in ballet, for example. I once saw a performance by a Croatian dancer doing a duet with a girl. It was completely unlike anything I'd ever seen before. That exerience really encouraged me to focus more on the expressive side of dancing as well and not just on the esthetics. Focusing only on the esthetics pushes you towards a depressed outlook on dance, because no one is perfect. Ballet aims for perfection. It is presented as a very pretty world, but it isn't when you look behind the scenes.

I do embrace the ambition that's present in ballet, however, but I think there's a difference between pushing for perfection and trying to be the best you can be. You will never reach perfection, but you can always aim to improve yourself. Striving for perfection gives people the wrong idea and then they start to be destructive instead of constructive in their practice. What I love about contemporary dance is that you also have yourself to give, and not just that image that is expected of you.

Outlet

A long day of rehearsals can be an outlet to me. I don't find my work stressful in the way many other people do. For me, dancing is a way to get everything out. Without dance you hold everything inside yourself, there is no way to express your feelings in that sense. Don't take me wrong, I can talk about things, too. But to breathe deeply and sweat it out, that is what works for me. So after a day of work I feel good. Then we can sit down and talk rationally!

Over the past four years, in school, I haven't had a lot of free time to discover what I like to do besides dancing, so I'm doing that now. I like to spend time with friends and be around people that have nothing to do with dance. You learn so much about yourself and what you do by seeing other people and how they approach their work. People that have 'jobs' rather than completely immerse themselves in their work and identify with their profession, as we dancers often do.

Conny Janssen Danst

My beliefs about dance resonate with what Conny Janssen practices in her performances and rehearsals; the idea of 'perfect imperfection' and expression as well as esthetics. The fact that dancers get to create and aren't just 'given' the material is something I love, too. It's kind of the best of both worlds. At Conny Janssen Danst you get the chance to express yourself instead of just executing someone elses choreography. Coming here, I didn't expect to get so much freedom to be yourself. I expected to have a lot of material put on me, especially since I'm an intern. It really surprised me how much freedom I get to create material. Creating together gives me a chance to learn from each of the dancers. It's fascinating to see how they perceive the material. It gives you an insight into all these different viewpoints and into their personalities, too.

Performance

It's really nice when audiences are moved by what you do. I don't want to transmit an exact feeling, but if people in the audience can interpret my movements in a way that speaks to them, then that is valuable to me. There's always something that we all have in common. If they connect what I do on stage to things happening in their lives, that may have nothing to do with dance, then they take something away from the performance. I enjoy that.

Dreams

Working at Conny Janssen Danst was a dream. I didn't expect to ever be part of a dance company, because I trained to be a dance teacher. So coming here is a big step towards my dream life. From here on I hope to get more contracts, even as a freelancer. My real dream would be to have a home within a single dance company.

© Foto Richard Beukelaar

[ Dit interview is tot stand gekomen tijdens mijn stage marketing & publiciteit bij Conny Janssen Danst 08/2013 – 07/2014 ]