Robert Steijn started with dancing on stage, when he was 43. In his solos he first positioned himself in the field as a deer dancer, but later he had a call to become a snake-dancer, which brought him to Brazil (Umbanda) and Mexico (the feathered serpent). Four years ago he started a collaboration with Ricardo Rubio, a choreographer from Mexico City resulting in their first duet "prelude on love", exercises in male tenderness and intimacy. Their next project is called "loverhood", based on personal healing rituals about desire and saliva. With the Berlin based choreographer Angela Schubot he created the duet "Brothers", a meditative event in which differences between each other's way of moving and being present in the body are respected.
He asks himself how, by dancing, he can become a free spirit in a human body. He likes dancers who challenge themselves to become more and more themselves in what they do.
Inspired by the work of shamans he structures his performances as rituals and lately he investigates performing as a way of public praying. Working as a nomad in the dance-field, he works and worked with a range of different choreographers and theatre-makers, like Frans Poelstra, with whom he founded the company United Sorry, Jessica Huber, Theater im Bahnhof, Maria Hassabi, Christine Gaigg, Latifa Labiissi, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. He also writes texts, creates drawings, and sometimes directs theatre-pieces.
10.04.2017
