Rutger Zuydervelt

"Choreographer Daniel Linehan’s ‘The Wonder Of It All’ radiates joy and togetherness. From cerebral to wildly energetic, the piece feels like a ritual that slowly transforms into a euphoric dance party. Creating the music for this was a joy. It brought me back to the nineties, when I was discovering electronic (dance) music. That feeling of wonder and discovery seemed an apt comparative to the sense of awe that Daniel and the dancers convey in ‘The Wonder Of It All’. 
 
Normally (if there is a ‘normal’), the music I score for dance performances is made scene by scene, and then stitched together. But in this case the approach was different: in line with Daniel’s ideas for the choreography, I decided to make one 50-minute composition, to make sure that the whole piece felt like one continuous flow instead of a sequence of fragments. From that moment on, the dance was created in response to the music, with only a few tweaks in the score. 
 
So this was a weird one, with the music pretty much finished so early in the process. It felt like I was being lazy, not working until the very end… but each time I saw the performance during its creation process, I was amazed by the magical unity that movement, sound, light, and scenography seemed to form. I guess art doesn’t always have to be a struggle." - Rutger Zuydervelt