doble-ocho

What tango can do to you !

by Marij Faessen

In 2007 Ellen Kocken filmed in El Corte. She filmed El Corte’s founder Eric Jeurissen, the lessons and the milongas. Ellen describes her work as documentary portrait. During the next Doble Ocho festival the El Corte documentary will be shown again in LUX ! Marij Faessen interviewed Ellen for this special occasion.

Can you tell us something about DZIGA?
Dziga is a workplace for moviemakers and video artists. I founded it ten years ago, because I wanted to make documanetaries. DZIGA is a foundation, which produces short movies. Our goal is not the big, global movie industry, but the development of movie talents.

How did you get the idea to make a documentary about El Corte?
I have been dancing for fifteen years. I find Eric a fascinating person, as a teacher and as a tango organizer and El Corte is a wonderful meeting place for international tangueros. The idea of making a movie about El Corte has been on my mind for years, but since I was unable to raise enough funds, I never was able to do so. That is untill the province Gelderland granted us a subsidy.

Eric gets a lot of request for filming in El Corte. Most of these requests he declines. Why didn’t he decline your request?
Little by little I won Eric’s confidence. I have been dancing for 15 years and also know him in another context. My ex-partner was involved in the first great El Corte renovation. And Eric also knew that I had my own enterprise. He always showed a great interest in it.
I think I was able to win Eric’s confidence, because our approach was clearly different than what other people want to do.
Eric is not somebody who easily delagates tasks to other people. We made appointments about the moments we filmed, so Eric did have some influence on what we filmed. The deal is that I make my own movie, a documentary portrait of El Corte.

How did you experience the making of this documentary?
The extraodinary thing is that Bert Huibers, the camera man did dance tango for 5 years. He immediately understood what to film. I noticed that people were looking for a way to deal with the presence of a camera. They were looking for the right distance and involvement. People also did react differently because I assumed a role that was unfamiliar to them. Just like during my study (antropology), I was doing field work and that was quite a challenge.

What struck you most?
El Corte is a very special world. Personaly I discoverd myself in dancing tango and that is what I have in common with a lot of other dancers. The social aspect of tango is important, it is not about how you look, but who you are. I always experienced it this way and the documentary has strengthend this feeling. But also the confronting aspects of tango, the rejections, the part about not being a member of the group is there. What we tried to do is capture the essence of tango in images.

Did you succeed in this?
Not in words, you don’t get it explained. The dance can do a lot to you. It can give you a happy, warm feeling. However I think that we did manage to capture this feeling.

What was the biggest surprise for you?
The biggest surprise for me was that tango is a very important part of life for so many people. For us it was exciting to show that El Corte does mean a lot in the world of tango.

link to Dziga
read the complete interview here