Jean Ann Douglass: Can you start off by telling us a little about the project you’re working on right now, Labyrinth Within?

Pontus Lidberg: It is a dance film project with the idea to make it into a stage piece too. This way, it will have two lives.

JAD: You’re probably most well-known for your piece The Rain, and from what I understand, this new work is going down a different path. How are the works different?

PL: One difference is that The Rain was completely made for the screen from the beginning. It cannot be performed on the stage in its current version. I am open to a stage adaptation in the future, but the work will have to be re-imagined.

Another difference is that there’s a continuous score for Labyrinth Within, as opposed to a music collage.

I am taking a very large step into narrative. There was a subtle narrative in The Rain, as there is in all of my works: there is always a grounding event or course of events. In this new work, the story is more detailed and the layout is important for how the story unfolds.

And this work is only for three dancers, so it’s more of a chamber piece.

JAD: Perhaps you could talk about the dancers that you’re working with.

PL: I met Wendy [Whelan] at the Vail International Dance Festival two years ago when I did a piece for Morphoses. She fits very well into the imagined part for the female dancer in this film: it is as if it was written for her. I’m a big fan of her dancing; she is a unique talent because she is a mature performer who still has no limit to what she can do.

Gabrielle Lamb was introduced to me through a mutual friend, who thought we would be a great match, and it turned out to be very true. I’ve been working with her for a year on various projects and our affinity keeps on growing.

I brought the dancer Giovanni Bucchieri from Sweden to work on this piece. He is a close friend that I’ve known for 22 years, and with whom I’ve worked on select occasions. He’s someone I pick up for special projects. He’s very enriching for the process, very talented and with a lot of imagination.

JAD: The Joyce SoHo Residency has artists work with an editing advisor. Your advisor is Jill Johnson [a close collaborator of William Forsythe]. Is this your first time working with her?

PL: Yes. I was advised to have a chat with Jill Johnson through various sources, all at the same time. They all told me, “You should meet this woman, you’ll have something special.” It is the first time working with her, and it is definitely not the last. We will meet again in other projects later in the year.

JAD: What can audiences expect when they come to your open rehearsal on Monday?

PL: It’s going to be very informal. We’re only three weeks into the process, so we’re not even halfway there. We will actually rehearse in front of the attendees, so they will see the process of choosing certain things over others, of trying to improve material. We have 10-12 minutes of work that we can perform at this time. We are also planning on showing some excerpts of The Rain, to show how the work could look when it’s finished, and has the full production value behind it. Then, for the last 30-40 minutes we’re going to have a dialogue, probably a Q&A.