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Reminder. It's great to have you here thinking about Kafka.

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Um, and in particular, if I may say, not only are you a German ist, but, uh, you have a career in dance as well.

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And so it's particularly fitting that you're helping us to think about how Kafka has been translated metamorphosed into the world of ballet,

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and in particular, the Royal Ballet's 2011 production of, uh, Differential Metamorphosis.

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Um. So let me go straight in.

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I mean, one of the things Kafka famously didn't want is to have the image of an insect on the cover of the book.

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Um, so how does any kind of form that is visual deal with this aspect of metamorphosis?

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And how did this how did the ballet deal with it? Yeah. Uh, great question, and thanks for having me.

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Um, yeah. I mean, the, the the great thing about dance is that then you have to do it through the human body.

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And the story is all about not having a human body.

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So it's actually interesting, um, to think about how to translate it to the human body and what they, what they did wonderfully, I think.

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So the, uh, the choreographers, uh, are to Peta and, um, the dancer is, um,

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Edward Watson, who was a principal dancer at the Royal Ballet until recently.

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And what they did is, is, is start to explore the most extreme movements of the human body, which we actually never use.

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Or rally. And I mean, we have to say that Edward Watson's, um.

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Abilities are beyond what most of us can do.

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But you get these very complicated, extreme movements, um, that, as I said, humans don't use.

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And so you get this contrast between how humans move, um, generally, um,

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and how a human as insects might move and sort of did some experimentations, they told me.

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And so one of the things they did was, um, they were thinking about fingers as, as kind of prongs because they felt like this was too mammalian.

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So they so they started thinking about, okay, what if we only allow fingers on the floor rather than the whole palm?

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And how does how do you start to move when you do that?

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Right. And they thought there was something very insect like about moving like this.

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And then one of the interesting things about the ballet is that it doesn't start with Greg was waking up as an insect,

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but it actually starts off with him as still in a human body.

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So you get this contrast. So he goes through very robotic everyday movements.

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He gets up very stiffly, gets out of bed, does is everyday things, get stressed, walks out on a coffee, go, takes the train,

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comes home, kisses his mother, goes back to bed, repeats three times but in a very robotic you know, almost like the human is.

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Last humans, then the insects, because it's just in this mode of how to move.

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Um, it's just this fascinating contracts that they set up from the beginning.

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Coffee shop. Yum yum.

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Philippine chicken. Stop.

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And then. In.

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The day you. Scott Lake.

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Lately, I. What's fascinating about that, um, and what you said about the the more than human is that it?

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And the way you beautifully showed us sort of moving in ways that humans don't, is that becoming insect is an extension of humanity, it seems.

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Then in your interpretation and in the interpretation of the ballet,

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it's accessing parts that are within us already, but are an extension of who we are.

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Does that make sense? Yeah. Yes, exactly. But maybe even even what's in us, but which we in our everyday lives don't explore, right.

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So that's something about improvisation, which I think is very important about the piece.

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And even though the ready piece might be fixed choreography, the the way of going, there is actually a lot of improvising, as I just said.

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Right. So, like, what can my body do away from what I do in everyday life?

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And so I think. Yes, exactly.

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It's not. It doesn't become non-human.

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It becomes almost extreme. And on the extremes of humanity or, you know, the possibilities of a human body beyond what we do in everyday life.

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And I think that's kind of interesting. Right.

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And like and that's sets up that contract, uh, contrast also with the family which is and which, which has a life to live has things to do.

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And he is almost just enjoying what he can do with this, with his body, right, with the human body.

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And, and in a text that's, that's, that's, uh, contrasted with the working life where you, you know, you would like to lie in bed,

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maybe exploring your body,

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but you have to get up at seven and you have to do this and this and this and this and this and this, and it's um, so that's,

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that's really interesting because it's thinking about it as a release from the human, actually, and, uh,

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a kind of an entry into, into something where as many readings would see it as a kind of reduction,

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as an erasure of humanity as a, as a, as a and after all, can I go get smaller and smaller and fades away and and eventually dies?

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Of course. But you all, you know, you're, you're pitching it the other way around that this is a kind of release from the tedium or from work or from.

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Yeah. And I think and I think that's not, that's not, uh, diverging from Kafka's texts all that much, because also in Kafka's text,

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he uses the word creature not for, um, Gregor as an insect, but actually for the, for the man from work who comes and has to collect him.

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Ah, has to check on him. Why? He's not at work.

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Right. And he calls him the creature of the boss. So someone who?

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Yeah. Has to do. Has to is stuck in this in this working life.

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And it's almost as if almost a comment on the lack of humanity that goes into this strict working life.

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You mentioned the family, and then you mentioned the kind of work people.

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And one of the things that was very striking in the ballet is that there's a little bit of insect movement.

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I'm beginning to move now, a bit of insect movement in all the company, isn't that?

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Um, can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah.

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And I think that kind of comes to listen to your point about, about actually not a radical break from humanity,

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but the connections actually between humanity and this extreme humanity or this extreme exploration of the human body.

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Um, and I talked about, ah, the choreographer Art Peter has talked about this in and dancer two about the process of choreographing, which wasn't.

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Okay. Well, we'll take Atwood Watson, who does Gregor in a separate room and we'll explore with him what the what what he can do as an insect.

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And the family would do very different things,

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but that they came together in the beginning as a group and started to explore what an insect might look like,

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and then took some of these ideas also into the choreography of the family and thinking a little bit about, okay, what's that?

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What's that extra humanity in all of us so that there's still a kind of a connection that that he's not.

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Completely separate from the family. But there is still this connection does not mean we might all one day wake up as medicine.

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Well, I mean, perhaps and I think this this if we if we take the insect like then as a kind of exploration or improvisation or,

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or maybe a changing body or change.

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Funny. Then we're coming into interesting territory about what it means for us when we get older, when we can't do what we could do when we were 18,

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are, you know, think also about disability and what what does that to do to our way of moving around a space.

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And that all comes back to improvisation or, or reconfiguring our relationship to space.

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Right. And I think that's both in Kafka's text, but also what the choreographer does so beautifully in the piece is exploring that that's.

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Uh, improvisation of movement that we all have to do at some points.

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Right? And so, yes, we might one day wake up in some way.

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As an insight. I love the idea of the change as improvisation.

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Let's look at a piece that tells us exactly about that.

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Yes. Okay.

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Oh. Uh, that's so powerful.

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Um, as a, as a kind of series of images.

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And you really also feel exactly what you said, this sort of reaching into the movement and reaching into this other existence.

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Um, um, now, this all could sound very nightmarish and alienating and, uh, dark.

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And obviously that's often how Kafka is read. But I know that, like me, you think there's other things going on there as well.

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People tend to think that the transformation has already happened.

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And, well, what interests me actually about the ballet is that it shows that, well, what if we think of the body,

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actually from the perspective of Gregor Witch, who wakes up in a body who doesn't and he doesn't know what what it can do.

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And so it's actually an exploration of a body.

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And even if it doesn't always add up in the texts how many legs he has, when he can do that, his size and everything,

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it's might be just a, uh, a way of thinking about what it's like to have a body, and you don't know what that body can do.

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And so I like to think of the text as a continuous metamorphosis, of an exploration of what a body can do, rather than,

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uh, let's count how many legs he has and then look at a book of insects and see which insects kind of come on to me.

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And as something. Joyful in exploring your body and what it can do.

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And I mean, that's why we love dancing. That's why we love sports.

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That's why we find achievements in sports so interesting.

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Right? It's it's this extremes of human capability, but also in our own, you know, achieving something that you thought your body might not do.

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And like improving your body is, is joyful.

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And this wonderful passage is actually in the Metamorphosis, where he's suddenly hanging on the ceiling and enjoying himself.

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And that's what it says. And so, yes, horror.

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But then there's these little moments where actually he's enjoying himself and the sadness comes from not being part of the family anymore,

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but actually. The embedded part actually offers a lot of joy.

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And and and it's quite funny.

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And the beginning when he, you know, it's almost falls out of, uh, it's this kind of very Kafkaesque.

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Um, uh, slapstick. Almost. Right.

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Like, absolutely. And then wonders how he's going to get to work.

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Exactly. The first thing. Yeah, yeah.

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And there's still that's that the humanity or, you know, the previous mindset of what time is it's how do I get to work?

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Uh, this will wear off quickly. Quickly. I'm sure. I just have to get to work.

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Uh, you know, and rather than saying, oh, I just I give up, I, I really like, um, what you said about the joy and the expansiveness.

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Um, and it's right that he, he learns to sort of climb the walls and so on.

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But of course,

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that is also taken away from him with the apple in his back and the illness and and there it strikes me we're much more into the territory of age.

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And I think I can say this because I'm quite a bit older than you of, uh,

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your knees are no longer working as they used to, and you're not being able to do the things you used to.

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And, um, and that reduction. So we're back to the reduction again, aren't we?

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Uh, in the end. Yeah. That's right. So.

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I think that's I think that's a fascinating point, because in a way, I mean, we have this fantastic dancer who really, you know,

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can do all these amazing things, but at the same time, there is a limit there because he can't move as he usually moves.

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And it's a lot of. It's actually the improvisation happens in in a lot of reduction and with set rules okay.

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So you can't put your hand down. I mean you have to use your only your fingers.

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What happens then. And I think that's connection to changing bodies.

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And, and um, ageing is very interesting because we, we tend to think of that as a reduction of what we can do.

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But mind it also offers something new. Right.

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It says something. Is there something in walking the streets slower because, you know, and that's at the age of 80 perhaps.

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Right. And walking through the city slower does not afford something that previously the city didn't afford because you could rush through it.

132
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Right. And what's, what's what might be the options there too.

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So yes, reduction and also opening up new possibilities that were perhaps there,

134
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but you didn't use or because you, you're too busy rushing for a train.

135
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Exactly, exactly. Um, now, one of the I mean, this is, uh, one of many translations of Kafka that we're kind of talking about in this series.

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And obviously, whenever one does that, there are certain things that are amplified and certain things that are reduced or certain choices to make.

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Um, and it's, you know, particularly powerful in this very visual form of what,

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what happens to the text when it becomes, um, movement, when it becomes dance, when it becomes music actually as well.

139
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Mhm. Yeah. Uh good question. So music is a is a very interesting thing I think because.

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I should we should mention Frank moon, who's the composer of the piece and who's on stage making the music all by himself.

141
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So he he makes noises and the choreographer describes the dance.

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Actually, that Gregory is a is a partner, is a is a collaboration between the musician and Edward Watson.

143
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And that's and so when Edward is extending his leg up and you have this screeching noise that the composer make, but it's not set in time.

144
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So they can they can work together, you know, and maybe even tease each other, like how far can you go?

145
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And it does the movement go on or the music go on and respond to each other.

146
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So, you know, and the sounds that Gregor makes as an animal, um, and there's that fantastic camera angle as well from above the foot.

147
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That's right. Yeah, yeah. I find sort of mind blowing to the camera work.

148
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Yeah. And for the DVD. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. That's right. Um, one of the interesting things is that.

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Um Gregor in the previous life is a travelling salesman and so relies on voice.

150
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And then suddenly he can't speak, or he can make noises and he still thinks he's speaking with them,

151
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realises that there's no there's nothing coming back from other people and that they don't understand him.

152
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And it slowly fades away and that's again that. Not a transformation that has already happened, but that's happening.

153
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Trends. Um, but that's that that interests me that that that that change from someone who relies so much on his voice for his work,

154
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to someone who's exploring his body and can't speak, is is is actually the same as going from the text, a text based medium to a dance based medium.

155
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Right. And so going from. Speaking about his transformation to dancing, his transformation.

156
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And that's. That's that's why it's I think it's a wonderful text to do in this way.

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And it's very little I mean, he doesn't go doesn't have dialogue in the text and the family does.

158
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And um, so it makes a lot of sense actually to, I think to.

159
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And also, I mean gesture and movement and embodiment are so central in all Kafka's titles.

160
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Yeah. Someday. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

161
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Um, that's that's heaps of wonderful moments in Kafka if you start exploring them and are often quite sticky.

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So, you know, and, uh, the fantastic work has been done on this by various academics, but but the kind of the, the.

163
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Uncoordinated movements,

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especially of the humans that always miss the mark or they like that are as cramped in some way into spaces that don't quite fit,

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and they slip on something, or they try to. And I think at the beginning of, um, of deviation, um,

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he wants to actually kick a mouse away from somewhere, and instead he just helps the mouse on its way.

167
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Right. These kind of little movements that that show you that the human characters are always kind of failing.

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And that's also where a lot of the humour is. But it also contrasts with The Metamorphosis,

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where in a way he starts to succeed with his new body and then hang on and explore this new state at the, at the ceiling.

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Right. So I find that that contrast very interesting,

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that suddenly that that rather than these failures of movement here we find also at least a little bit of success.