Ahead of the UK premiere of his latest dance work, REMACHINE, at Sadler’s Wells East this week (May 14 – 16), Dutch/Swedish choreographer Jefta van Dinther talks to A Youngish Perspective about the fascinating influences behind the work.
What first sparked the idea for REMACHINE, and how did the theme of automation versus human agency evolve in the creative process?
I have worked on many projects where the body was put in motion by external forces or materials but with REMACHINE, I became interested in creating something mechanical – something human-made – that could physically impose force onto the body, both as a metaphor and as a real condition.
We built a 10m wide rotating disc to perform on that creates constant centrifugal force, and the choreography emerged from the dancers’ choices in relation to that force. It created an unstable ground and a vocabulary around locomotion and walking – which is something deeply tied to humanity as a species. The work ultimately asks questions about how humans interact with the systems and technologies they create.
How do you translate abstract concepts like control, causality, and “inescapable systems” into physical movement on stage?
In this work, there’s no illusion – the effort and survival are completely real for the dancers. They’re navigating opposing forces while losing their sense of orientation in space, all while existing in darkness and singing live.
It becomes a genuine survival game. The concepts aren’t abstract in rehearsal; they’re physically embodied through exhaustion, instability, and the constant negotiation between control and surrender.
Your work often explores the boundary between human and non-human – how is that tension embodied in REMACHINE?
I often place the human in juxtaposition with the technological or explore humanity through cyborg-like expressions. What’s interesting in REMACHINE is that this machine-made environment begins producing something strangely organic. At times, the dancers resemble bacteria in a petri dish – something animalistic and primal. At the same time, the machine creates something synthetic within them. The work moves constantly between nature and machine, organic and inorganic.
In many ways, that reflects what it means to be human today: we’re already hybrid beings. We have plastic in our bodies, we live algorithmically, and the work speaks to those contradictions.
Can you talk about your collaboration with composer Anna von Hausswolff and how sound shapes the dancers’ experience?
The singing acts as a counterpoint to the brutal material reality onstage. The machine and physical labour are very concrete, but the voices create an escape from that world – something spiritual or otherworldly. Ritual and lament become important elements within the work.
We used songs by Anna von Hausswolff, whose voice has this raw, primal quality – almost like calling across mountains. Together with vocal coaches, we created choral reinterpretations of her music, stretching and looping the compositions. The singing isn’t polished in a classical sense; it’s communal, and deeply human.
What challenges and discoveries emerged from working with performers in such a physically and conceptually demanding piece?
We accepted early on that this is an extremely difficult condition to exist within, and rather than resisting that, we leaned into it. The struggle itself became part of the work.
What became interesting over time was watching the dancers adapt – finding their groove within something initially hostile. It reflects something fundamental about existence: even within difficult systems, we slowly learn how to move, survive, and soften ourselves against resistance.
The performers were chosen because they could handle the physical demands, but what fascinated me was how the body conditions itself through repetition. A very specific kind of virtuosity emerged from repeatedly inhabiting this environment.
What kind of emotional or intellectual response do you hope audiences leave REMACHINE with?
My work tends to create an open associative space – full of codes, signals, rhythm, and abstraction – where audiences can project their own meanings. But REMACHINE also touches something very basic about what it means to be human, and to exist on a constantly rotating world.
For me, the piece evokes a kind of dark beauty – an existential journey that is both unsettling and strangely moving.