Anna van der Kruis on the process of The Reflector 2025-2026 with non-dance-writer Joost Vormeer and Dansateliers dancemakers Ashley and Domenik.

Matching critics and artists to stick together for a longer period of time is an intuitive process. Both Joost as Ashley and Domenik are introverted, smart (my words). Both of them like to extensivly research their subjects and, in their minds, build worlds with endless possibilities. They are melancholic, playfull and in a way distant: from another world.

In an 2020-2022 version of the Reflector artist and critic met quite often. I, as their personal coach, kept my distance. In these two years with Joost and Ashley and Domenik, there is some contact that doesn’t involve me, but most of the time I am accompanying Joost. I see the same shows (though not always at the same time) and I am invited to join their meeting in the spring of 2025 – in order to build and share a vocabulary. 

Because this trajectory is personal, for both performers and critic, the end product might be anything. There is no online magazine or newspaper to please. No fixed form or word count – the critic doesn’t even have to write. A state of not knowing can be paralyzing. What to do, when all is possible and nothing is expected? But it also opens up our minds.

Joost and I talk about embodiment al lot. As writers we tend towards excluding our bodies. With my thoughts I can form building blocks, an immaterial way of being in the world that comforts and protects me. I build sentences and paragraphs to contain me when I feel overwhelmed, or stupid.

When Joost says he might want to dance himself, to give back to Ashley and Domenik, or at least to know what or how to give back to them, I am exited. It feels brave to me that he might do so. It is this thought, this concept, that becomes the heart of what Joost writes, eventually. 

In the winter of 2025, just before New Year, Joost and I talk on the phone. “I want to write a story”, he says. In fact, it has already formed in his head. We speak about how a new work of art – this short work of prose – might serve Ashley and Domenik in their search for words, for reflection, but quickly decide this is something we will address later. First things first. 

On the fifteenth of January I receive an e-mail. Joost has written The Braille Room. A short story about an art critic that looses the ability to read. I enjoy reading every detail that reminds me of the works I have seen by Ashley and Domenik, the conversations we’ve had. Next to the story, a second document is attached, called Sidenotes. 

In this document Joost reflects on his own writing, as well as on the works of Ashley and Domenik. It starts with the thought of Joost dancing instead of writing. Reading this immediately tears me up. When face to face, later that month, Joost tells me the Sidenotes feel like “homework”. 

I experience the Sidenotes as a conversation with Ashley and Domenik, but also as a conversation with me, the reader. A context to the story. I see the story as a creative and embodied reply. A way for Joost to trick his words, to not hide behind the abstract – the intellectual, but to stay close to the intimacy of observing other bodies, not instantly needing to know what they express. I think it is this “detour” that anchors the experience of the work and allows Joost to write about it with a great sensitivity and deep understanding.

After finishing a final version, Joost sents both his texts to Ashley and Domenik. When they have read it, we meet and speak about themes of shyness and loneliness. About feeling confronted and the urge to find language, professional as well as personally. To be understood. 

We speak about the difference between one-way interviews or reviews and this process. About how stretching time has made a difference. The ability to slow down, gather more information and reflect again. “It’s hard,” Joost says. “Because there are so many different routes in, but also generous, attentive.” 

I wish all artists could receive words like these, when still searching for their own. To help them detect what they are looking for, and perhaps also positively influence the way the work, the process and their bodies are precieved though fresh eyes. To contextualise. 

The Reflector is a trajectory that Domein previously organized with Festival Cement in 2021/2022. Together, they sought a sustainable way of reflecting on art, a new connection between artist and critic. In 2025/2026 Domein organized a new – dance – edition of The Reflector together with and made possible by Dansateliers Rotterdam.