14/10/2021
In Memoriam Aat Hougee
Aat Hougée (1945-2021) passed away on October 5th, after a short illness, in Chelyabinsk, Russia. He was a fierce advocate for experimental dance in the Netherlands and beyond. His innovative spirit, bravery, openness, enthusiasm and support for dance have paved the way for numerous dance artists and educators all over the world. It is with sadness but also wonder and gratitude that we say goodbye to him. We also wish to express our heart-felt condolences to his partner Olga Pona and daughter Djuna Hougée.
Aat was, among others, administrator of the Opleiding Moderne Dans in Amsterdam till 1989. He then left for Arnhem to found a new school, the European Dance Development Center (EDDC), which had students enrolled in both Arnhem and Düsseldorf. Together with Mary O’Donnell Fulkerson (1946-2020) he directed EDDC till 2002, when it merged with the ArtEZ Dance Academy under the directorship of Hlif Svávarsdottir. After retiring from ArtEZ, he moved to Russia, where he tirelessly dedicated himself to the development of contemporary dance in Siberia.
From our guest teacher Eva Karczag
“Aat’s influence was felt by the many artists who taught, and the numerous students who studied at the Opleiding Moderne Dans, later renamed School for New Dance Development - SNDO (Amsterdam), and at the Center for New Dance Development - CNDO, later renamed European Dance Development Center - EDDC (Arnhem).
Working initially with Pauline de Groot and later also with Jaap Flier in Amsterdam, and with Mary O’Donnell Fulkerson and Lisa Kraus in Arnhem, Aat was instrumental in setting up and running experimental dance departments that were hotbeds of inquiry and exploration. His vision went beyond the confines of institutionalism. He bent rules in ways that made it possible for students to study in unconventional ways from artist/teachers who taught the passions they were exploring at that very moment. The studio was sacrosanct. Unlike the more usual institutional protocol of fitting subjects and students into existing curricula, Aat championed the principle that subjects taught always revolved around current interests of working practitioners. Ideas were constantly in development; there was a constant stream of showings of work-in-progress and performances - in studios, in theaters, in corridors and odd indoor spaces, in various and varied outdoor spaces. The atmosphere hummed with creative drive 24/7 - students had access to the building day and night.
Aat was more than an administrator. He had a keen eye for the most innovative and indomitable dance and performance artists, musician/composers, designers, video artists, thinkers ... whoever he could find working within the post Judson idiom. Invitations to teach provided income that saw many of the artists, who were predominantly freelancers, through lean times.
This was a time when wild joy ensued if unpredictability was in the air. Aat embraced this spirit of improvisational mind in the structures he created. It was during the early years of EDDC, inspired by Mary and her experiences at Dartington College (UK), and Lisa and a number of resident and guest teachers, (including Steve Paxton, Lisa Nelson and Richard Kerry), who had taught and/or studied at Bennington College (VT, USA), that this was stretched most expansively. The school year was run as a series of workshops lasting from 2 to 6 weeks; 2-hour morning Awareness Classes took the place of traditional technique classes; students were actively encouraged to create work and perform; the curriculum was incessantly tweaked and re-tweaked to adjust to the needs of students and teachers. All this, of course, held difficulties as well as delights - we were all learning along the way.
These practices, curiosities and insights have been spread worldwide, carried by the numerous students who graduated from these two schools. Many of us who taught or studied under Aat’s leadership remember him as the unassuming witness who watched, often from a back corner, the workings of the astounding phenomenon he had set in motion.”
