I first got to know Jan twenty years ago, as a fellow student in dance school. Then I got to know him as a close friend, both of us stumbling into the early years of our careers. I then got to know him as a choreographer, sitting in dance studios and black boxes, witnessing the beautiful and vulnerable beginnings of what would become his body of work.

Then I got to know him as my boss, dancing in The Dog Days Are Over (2014), a piece built entirely on counts and jumps. Then, when stories of sexual harassment and abuse of power surfaced in the dance world, I came to know him as someone who stands up for his colleagues and values strong work ethics. Then, I moved to Oslo, where I continued following my friend’s work from the audience seats at Dansens Hus. And now I’m beginning to know Jan’s work through writing. Writing this, I’m wondering what words can contribute anything to something that is often best left wordless, namely dance.

When I think of Jan back in school, I think of his shoulders and neck. They seemed tight, almost locked—a physical tension that made his dancing jagged, like something urgent trying to break out. When he moved, he sometimes reminded me of Ian Curtis from Joy Division: stiff and choppy, but completely engaged. All-in. At the same time, he was radiant, full of curiosity and enthusiasm. Especially, when watching performances, Jan had this way of lighting up. His eyes were generous, both for dance and for those around him.

Jan began creating work during a period of major shifts in the Belgian dance scene. Conceptualism was in full swing. Heady, dry, and often cynical to the bone. With all that thinking, dance began to feel less dance-like, and at times, it was no longer clear what qualified as dance and what didn’t. In the midst of this, Jan made the radical choice to commit to the craft of choreography and to centre the dancing body in all its rawness. He didn’t reject tradition, but built upon the canon, while at the same time insisting on fundamental choreographic elements: space, body, time, and energy. His interests – minimalism, spatial patterns, repetition – were not considered new, but Jan didn’t care. He just kept digging.

I remember him saying very early on that he wanted to make work that was both artistically challenging and accessible, especially for people who might not yet be familiar with contemporary dance. And that’s what he did. He won over new audiences, including my dad. His early pieces toured extensively. Not just internationally, but through cultural centres across the provinces. This touring model was frowned upon by colleagues in our field, because, let’s face it, you’d rather be at the Avignon Festival than showing your work in the middle of nowhere, right? Again, Jan didn’t care. Eventually, he did both.

I’ve always thought of Jan as someone who cracked the code between choreographic rigour and emotional accessibility. His piece Sweat Baby Sweat (2011) is a perfect example: a love duet, simple in form, but devastating in its slow, aching intimacy. Two bodies leaning on each other endlessly, tremblingly, holding and being held. Then the voice of Cat Power breaks in, like a pop poem, shaking the meaning of the dance.

Music, in all its forms—pop, classical, noise, jazz, and spoken word—weaves through all the twelve full-evening performances Jan has created since 2010. Despite the influence of postmodern dance, many people still view dance as existing only in relation to music. As the saying goes, dance is often accused of “humping the leg of music.” And while music can steer a dance, it can just as easily consume it. In Jan’s work, the complexities of this sometimes problematic codependency has become a recurring theme—a red thread through almost all of his pieces.

In many ways, you could say that Jan’s choreographic process resembles that of a classical composer. There is a lot of counting, with PDFs and Excel sheets full of numbers. Documents of obsession that might look like pure mathematical gibberish to an outsider. Dance is frequently deconstructed and distilled into short sequences of movement. Stripped of narrative and obvious meaning, these sequences can be seen as the notes of a musical composition. But the reality is more complex: the body is always there. The body is never abstract.

Watching a rehearsal of CANCEL BERTHA, I thought about how this new creation with Carte Blanche fits into, but also gently deviates from, the arc of Jan’s work. In this piece, the taped grids of previous works have transformed into a hand-painted blanket: still a grid, but softer, echoing the stroke of a human hand. The dancers’ focus on counts, movement, and the importance of spacing remains. Yet here, Carte Blanche moves together, but never quite the same. Music still forms the seed of the choreography, but now a silence begins to grow from it. An invitation to listen to the not-music, to see dance in the not-dancing. And then, somewhat unexpectedly, the optical illusion of a resting dog.

After listening to feedback from Jan, one of the dancers replies that yes, they’ll try to adjust based on his notes—but first, they need to figure out how to manage all the other tasks. I feel deep sympathy for this small moment of overwhelm. Jan’s work is demanding and often strict. Learning in that kind of environment isn’t easy. For slow and insecure learners like me, it can be especially frustrating. But looking back, I can now say that once the choreography is mastered, the strictness and control shift into something else—something more akin to care.

Making a performance with a group is like embarking on an expedition together. And as with any expedition, the choreographer must constantly weigh the needs of the performers against the needs of the work.

During the CANCEL BERTHA rehearsals, Jan tells the dancers that, by the end of the performance, he wants the audience to “know” the material—making a small gesture with air quotes. He adds, “And through that, I hope they also get to know a bit more about you.”

I write in my notebook: Not to express who we are, but to express the kind of person and group we become, through the performing and expressing of a work of choreography. To be CARTE BLANCHE. To become CANCEL BERTHA.

About Ilse Ghekiere, author of this biography:

Ilse Ghekiere is a Belgian artist and art critic based in Oslo, working as a dancer, writer, researcher, and lecturer. She holds a degree in dance from the Conservatory of Antwerp and a master’s degree in art sciences from the Free University of Brussels. Throughout her international career, she has collaborated with a number of prominent choreographers and developed an artistic practice deeply rooted in research, with a particular focus on the agency and position of the performer.

She is the founder of ENGAGEMENT ARTS, a movement that addresses sexual harassment and abuse of power in the arts sector, and has established herself as a strong and outspoken voice in both artistic and political contexts. Ghekiere has published critical writings in journals such as Norsk Shakespeare Tidsskrift and Rekto:Verso, and is currently active in Oslo’s dance community as a performer, writer, and board member of PRAXIS Oslo.