Being and Nothingess

Darren Johnston hasn’t had a typical journey into dance. “I grew up through an exciting time in electronic music. I started breaking when I was 8 years old, catching that more underground first wave of Hip Hop culture, then pretty much followed the thread of electronic music beyond. Most of my friends turned to making music, but I was always interested in the effects of the music, the sensation and the buzz it created. We were in the midst of a recession so I travelled around going to different raves and parties (dancing on stage at events such as Raindance). Also I skateboarded a lot until I decided on which direction was right for me.”

This led Johnstone to Laban, where he found himself questioning the accepted truths of dance training. “Subcultural musical history had much more connection with my life and evolution,” he explains. “I was always puzzled when studying in 1996- 1999 why we were learning more about John Cage and Merce Cunningham than we were about artists like Aphex Twin and Chris Cunningham. I never felt any urge or desire to represent or adhere to past contemporary dance movements, as it bore little resemblance to my life and the generation I've grown up in. I respect the past and what has happened, but feel no desire to recreate it today.”

By the time he presented Ren Sa in 2005, Johnstone was already forging his own path, caught between genres and confusing some critics, but winning a Herald Award and capturing the public’s imagination. “I find it fascinating that my work is often found in the theatre section and at other times the dance section, and to be honest don't mind this. Perhaps it is both. I think my work is dance, my work is theatre, it is film and it is sound - it could even be Opera for all I know!”

It is easier to avoid categorisation altogether in assessing Ousia, his latest work. Certainly, it is as likely to appeal to ravers as dance purists, and Johnston affirms that describing it as “multi layered, multi dimensional” is more accurate than any attempt to locate it in a specific genre. “I see my work as an experience, a happening and something that engages on a deeper level than simple story telling or sensationalism,” he continues.

Ousia itself is as mysterious as its classic Greek title. “I loved this word as it seems to still cause controversy over its actual meaning,” Johnstone notes, and he's right. German philosopher Heideigger went so far as to say that its meaning had been lost, and both Plato and Aristotle used it as the foundation of their studies of nature and being. “I interpret it as 'essence' and this really captured my imagination. 'Ousia' as a word is evocative and allows the imagination to create different interpretations. This is true to most of my work and Ousia has its own logic in my mind, but I am sure it will evoke other interpretations from others.”

Like his earlier work, it reflects his fascination with Eastern aesthetics, as well as dream imagery and the subconscious. “When I go to see art or entertainment I want to be transported to another world. I spend enough of my life in reality so personally have little interest in seeing it re-staged. I love the absurd and things that don’t fall into a linear sense of narrative.”

“The piece I had in my mind started as a holographic dancer using Victorian illusion but I wanted to find a reason for the apparition. But its not always about what happens in front of the eyes, sometimes its about what it does to you inside and how it makes you feel. It is also about the emotional journey and individual and collective audience experience.”

Despite the abstract and cerebral descriptions, Ousia is immersive. Partly due to his close connection with the Warp record company, Johnston uses music and abuses technology to achieve startling effects, pulling his pieces out from the stage and submerging the audience in images, lights and sounds. “More and more I’m trying to develop work that gives the audience the creativity to find their own meaning. This is not a cop out, though. I am always very clear in my head what it represents for me. I hate spoon-fed narratives and love to come into contact with strange things I didn’t expect to find. As an audience member, I never like to rely on a programme telling me how to view it or appreciate it.”

It is this that can make his work controversial: by crediting the audience with intelligence and refusing to spell out his meaning, he tends to find that “the best reactions...are from people that are not single art-form specific or minded.” And while Ousia is undoubtedly based on movement, it is a sign of dance’s healthy diversity that so individual a talent can still fall into its remit.