THE DOG
DAYS ARE
OVER by
Ilse Ghekiere
Sitting legs
In the summer of 2014, Jan asked me to join THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER. The piece had recently premiered and was very well received. A big national and international tour was on the horizon, and so the group of dancers—the doggies, as we called ourselves—had to be expanded.
“The choreography is quite physically demanding,” Jan explained to me over the phone. As some theatres wanted to program the show for three or more consecutive nights, they were considering a rotating system. To prevent injury and exhaustion, they were looking for additional dancers—people who could literally and figuratively jump in when and where needed.
At the time, I had just submitted my dissertation and completed my MA in Art History. I was preparing for an academic career, and already had one leg out of the world of dance. In any case, these sitting legs were not up to the job. Still the dancer in me couldn’t say no to the challenge. Everything can be addictive—challenges, too.
And with that, the dog days began.
Me, the dog.
The piece, a sweet bone to chase.
Jumping between academia and dance, eventually landing back in dance—with a meniscus a little more worn out than it used to be.
Jumping and Counting
In their heads, each of the dancers holds a list of numbers to patiently scroll through. They count alone, but also together, like carrying a silent, internal soundtrack. The counting brings focus, but the sound of the repetitive jumping is also strangely meditative, even relaxing. And so, sometimes, they get lost. When someone loses their count and shouts “Count!”, one voice, or often a unison of voices, responds and counts the lost dog back in.
Jumping and counting: the quintessential bind of THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER.
I would often tell people who had seen the performance that I didn’t think of THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER as a durational slash flagellation piece. We weren’t fighting against time, pushing ourselves to survive the hour, nor jumping for the sake of jumping. Yes, the piece is tough, hardcore, a little on the edge—but it’s not about displaying suffering.
“We’re counting, after all,” I would say.
It’s this mental score, this hidden, internalized list of numbers, that helps lift and balance the physical toll. As dancers, we always have an overview; we know where we are in the story of numbers. The choreography drives us, but equally, we drive the choreography.
Routines
I would be lying if I said that the piece didn’t demand a lot from its dancers. A high level of commitment, dedication, and, to some extent, sacrifice was needed. When I began rehearsing with the group, I was deeply impressed by the discipline and focus. Like a team of professional athletes, we set up rules and routines that would help us. We ate at specific times and prioritized certain types of food. Some ingredients, like onions, were banished altogether.
As well as sharing increasingly intimate details about the inner workings of our bowels, we exchanged strengthening exercises for ankles, knees, and any other muscle or body part that needed attention. I still see myself standing next to Laura on the edge of the stage or on the theatre stairs, one leg dangling while the other pumps up and down, inflating our thighs like bike tires.
Some of us, myself included, had to stop any intake of liquid two hours before the show or else risk having urine run down our legs mid performance. It wasn’t the embarrassment so much as it was just incredibly distracting. One more situation to avoid.
In addition to the group routine, there were also personal routines: bodies are different, after all. For example, I would wear special pressure socks that supposedly stimulated blood circulation. I would also put gel pads under the heels of my flashy magenta shoes in the hope that it would reduce impact. God knows what actually helped and what didn’t. Sometimes just going through the predetermined steps of a set routine is comforting in itself.
After each show, the rituals continued. In the dressing rooms, buckets of ice-cold water awaited our sweating calves. An endorphin high, a wave of joy and relief—people laughing while stretching, high-fiving each other like we had just won a game.
Then, at last, came the final challenge of the day: getting down from the high. Falling asleep afterwards was perhaps the hardest task of all.
Hands on
On tour, we were often accompanied by two very kind osteopaths. They had become fascinated by the piece and, I guess, saw working on us as a kind of study. Via their hands-on treatments, I learned about corners and connections in my body I did not know about before. A kind of ecosystem of which I was aware, but now experienced in an entirely new way through the repetitive act of jumping.
One’s ability to jump for an hour isn’t just about muscles, or bone structure, or being fit. Your organs, your hormones, your overall energy levels are affected too. Jumping on your period: imagine that! An army of wombs being shaken and sloshed around at a time of the month when resting is advised.
Falling
The first part of a jump happens with force — an act against gravity.
The second part does the opposite: it gives into gravity.
Jumping, we often forget, is also an act of falling — of letting go.
THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER begins with the dancers negotiating their rhythms and finding a kind of collective pulse or beat. I always loved these moments, when the counting momentarily disappears and we simply had to listen to each other.
I remember the original cast saying that they had tried using a metronome, but that it was too mechanical. After all, our bodies, our sense of rhythm, is never identical. Long legs, short legs, deep bend, bouncy bend, light jumps, heavy jumps, slow pace, fast pace... How to find that pulse? How to find the heartbeat of tonight’s performance?
In an e-mail correspondence from that time, I write to a friend about the one break in piece, the only moment where we stand still before jumping again: “When I replace Piet, I have the honour of deciding when the group continues the piece. It isn’t timed or counted. The only rule is that no one should still be out of breath. Since I’m usually the one most dramatically trying to catch mine, this task seems to suit me well. Sometimes, we stand still for all of five minutes. Sometimes more. And it is then, at that exact moment, that the idea of either crying or just walking off crosses my mind. At that moment, I feel real. Like I have nothing more to hide. During this standing silence I know that everyone — dancers and audience alike — are starting to wait for the sign for the piece to continue. Because the show must go on. But I can never resist stretching this doing nothing just a little longer. Jan loses his mind over this. Calls this prolonging of silence so beautiful.”
Replacement
When you replace a dancer, you are always in relation to that dancer — as in, you are never them. You are filling the past presence of a body in a choreography, a choreography that is very much there. Your relationship to the choreography is therefore somewhat strangely placed in time, a little distant, and because of this, more free. Free from the history of its creation, free from the insecurities and excitements of not yet knowing what the piece will be, detached from the struggles of making something new. Like a classical musician, you pick up the score and position your instrument — your body, your skills — into the composition. Your job as a replacement is to inhabit the choreography, and to prove that regardless of who it's performed by, it can stand on its own.
The replacement doesn’t have a fixed place in the choreography and is detached from any one trajectory. Out of the eight roles in THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER, I performed at least five — and on rare occasions, I even switched from one role to another overnight.
This shifting of roles, especially from one night to another, felt like an almost impossible task. Layered on top of an already hyper-challenging choreography, it was one too many. In my writing from that time, I found a note about watching the video documentation on a train, and trying to cope with what now reads like a panic attack.
One thing I learned from learning THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER is that there is no shame in being a slow learner. Also, there is no shame in messing up. The piece is simply challenging. At times, even impossible. What counts (no pun intended) is the attempt, the commitment to try. Trying to jump again (and again), with love and compassion, for what you can do, and also for what you cannot.
In THE DOG DAYS, one actually can walk off. There will be no repercussions for such an act of care. Whenever one of us would have a hard time or get lost in our own inner dramas of over-discipline and self-judgment, Jan would say: “It’s really just a dance piece, people.”
Giving back
I have often wondered if the choreography of THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER carries sado-masochistic elements, and if it does, what that says about the relationship between pleasure and pain. If I think of sado-masochism as a consensual and respectful practice, I imagine the sadist as someone who carefully designs a series of actions that exactly meets the masochist’s threshold — the place where pain is still, or also, pleasure. The sadist therefore carries a great responsibility: to meet the masochist’s needs while also satisfying their own.
I recently heard the Austrian composer Georg Friedrich Haas speak about this delicate balance. Known for his demanding compositions, requiring microtonal tunings and often performed in complete darkness, Haas describes the relationship between composer and performer as one of inherent dominance and submission. Still, he insists that the composer must remain acutely aware of the sacrifices performers make to bring a work of art into being, and that they, the composer, must "give something back." That "something," he says, must live within the music itself: something beautiful, something meaningful enough to be worth the effort and the struggle.
When I think about THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER in this way, I imagine the choreography itself as a kind of loving sadist, and us dancers as the generous, powerful masochists. Through our jumping, we bring something beautiful to the audience, and we also get something beautiful back.
Ten years later, I still carry these memories in my body. So strong, so deep. To feel the simple power of a square, a circle, a diamond — geometrical patterns not just as shapes, but felt and embodied through moving. To feel the beat and the rhythm travelling through space. To notice how the energy shifts as we change direction and all suddenly face the same way. To swim and jump the waves in a sea of collective focus, to not only be in it, but also on it. To give and to receive. Something beautiful, something intimate. Something to always return to, even when your own dog days are truly over.
June 2025