BOOKS&CULTURE
Boukje van Zon was another post-war migrant who made a rich contribution to New Zealand's cultural life. In FREEDOM TO DANCE (Wily, $39.99), Dagmar Simon, Francesca Horsley and Raewyn Thorburn follow the life and work of the founder of the Van Zon School of Creative Dancing, a remarkable woman who charted a new course for contemporary dance. In a no-nonsense chronological history, van Zon's personality emerges from between the lines, especially through a series of illuminative personal tributes strangely banished to the back of the book.
by Chris Moore
BOOKS
All three authors of this fascinating book are alumni of the University of Auckland: Dr Dagmar Simon (PhD, Dance Studies), Francesca Horsley (Master of Creative and Performing Arts, Dance (Hons)), and Raewyn Thorburn (Diploma in Performing Arts, Dance).
Freedom to Dance tells the story of Boukje van Zon, an inspiring Dutch dance teacher who directed her Van Zon School of Creative Dancing in Auckland from the 1950s to the late 1980s, and had a lasting influence on New Zealand's contemporary dance scene.
Her story is told in the context of life and arts practices in Europe (1920s–1940s), the German occupation of the Netherlands, expatriate life in Indonesia, Dutch migration to New Zealand, and the twentieth-century socio-cultural and artistic environment of New Zealand.
It further includes Boukje's teaching methods and many dance photographs by Dutch photographer Ben Boer – as well as some by iconic New Zealand photographer, Marti Friedlander.
Freedom to Dance is an important book in the canon of New Zealand dance history in that it thoroughly documents the innovative teaching practice of an immensely influential Auckland creative dance teacher, Boukje van Zon, whose ideas and philosophy still resonate today. Ms van Zon who taught in New Zealand for 30 years (from 1959 through to the late 1980s), was a Dutch immigrant from Friesland, who brought her knowledge of contemporary European dance to a country that was just emerging from the strictures of war and still somewhat in thrall to "Mother England".
Ms van Zen's teaching was designed to empower the person in respect of creativity and body/mind connections, emphasising the fact that as the body discovered new ways of moving, so too the mind would expand and an individual's confidence would grow exponentially.
The focus was not on training dancers as performers per se, although this was in fact a natural outcome of the process of creative explorations. Chapter Eight: Innovation in the Studio is a valuable documentation of Ms van Zen's philosophy and the Laban-based principles that guided her teaching process.
The van Zon School of Creative Dancing, which was officially opened in 1962 began in the front-rooms and gardens of like-minded friends who lived in Titirangi - at that time a mecca for "new migrants, many nature-loving people and artists" (pg 85). As a new mother of two young children, Boukje (as she is referred to throughout the book) had become involved with the burgeoning Playcentre movement and found that her "philosophies were very similar to those of Playcentre" (pg 86). The parents of this close-knit community were very supportive of Boukje and their children formed the nucleus of her early classes.
The popularity of the classes for children, teenagers and adults ensured that they very quickly grew beyond the confines of Titirangi however, and by the early 1960s, the school "expanded quickly, riding the crest of the societal changes happening in Aotearoa New Zealand" (pg 109). The book documents the performances that helped to popularise the school so that by the late 1960s it had grown to 500 students and Boukje had started to train her longstanding students to become teachers. A cooperative performance company called Dance Theatre became the vehicle for showing work and began developing repertoire "through group effort; even solos and duets" (pg 115).
Freedom to Dance is written by a team of three writers (Dagmar Simon, Francesca Horsley and Raewyn Thorburn) and the authors are committed to contextualising all aspects of Boukje's development as a teacher within the framework of societal change and the growth of contemporary dance in New Zealand and the rest of the world. This is one of the book's real strengths and helps to make the case for the importance of Boukje's contribution. Of real interest also, are the personal stories of Boukje (who died in 2010), her husband Maurice who is also Dutch and their three daughters Carla, Michele and Yvonne who were all fully involved with Boukje's school and performances. The book is fully illustrated throughout, with photos, performance ephemera and other images.
Boukje's contribution to dance in New Zealand is borne out by those van Zon-trained dancers who did go on to have careers as teachers, performers and in other arts related activities. Many of them have written heartfelt tributes to Boukje in the final chapter, which speak of how her classes changed their lives for the better and gave them many tools with which to continue their own explorations.
by Jenny Stevenson