Anouk van Dijk (NL)- is a Dutch choreographer, director and the Founder of Countertechnique. She has been the Artistic Director of Australian contemporary dance company Chunky Move from 2012 – 2019. Before moving to Australia in 2012, Anouk van Dijk had an extensive career as a choreographer and dancer in Europe. Starting her career as a dancer in the late 80’s, Van Dijk formed her own dance company in 1999 in Amsterdam, producing twenty full-length works that toured the globe. In 2012 Van Dijk was awarded the Golden Swan (Gouden Zwaan) – the Netherlands’ most prestigious dance accolade – in recognition of her outstanding artistic and academic contribution to dance in her home country. During her tenure as Artistic Director of Chunky Move, Anouk van Dijk has created thirteen full evening works, which have toured internationally extensively. Anouk works currently as a free-lance choreographer, director and educator, and is the Artistic Director of Countertechnique. She has recently created works for Staatsballet Berlin and the Münchner Kammerspiele, and later this year a new full-evening work for Skanes Dance Theater will premiere at Malmö Opera.
Anouk van Dijk has developed Countertechnique throughout her career as a dancer, choreographer and educator. Over the last twenty years, the knowledge and experience she gained – in constant dialogue with her dancers – was gradually transformed into a detailed theoretical system and a teaching method, which now forms Countertechnique. Van Dijk has trained all 35 other Countertechnique teachers to date. Together with Prof. Dr. Gerald Siegmund, she described the theoretical principles and practical application of the technique in the publication Dance Techniques 2010.
“I would like every dancer to establish a quality of movement that is so sincere that both the dancer and the viewer experience it as if it was created on that moment and can never be repeated like that anymore – the dancer in dialogue with his body, the space, his audience, fellow dancers. To discover how to access movement before it becomes dance, is crucial for every dancer. It is the most profound thing I have learnt from all the great and passionate teachers and fellow dancers I encountered, and who never stopped discovering. Without the availability to movement, there is no true dance. Teaching dance educates me over and over again how to dance myself, by learning through the eyes of others. Every day allows me to see dancing from a new perspective. And still, after 30 years of dancing it never gets boring!”
