The Cabanon: “From Off to On”

Video short description

Intro: The Cabanon is a fully equipped apartment of 6.89 m² including an infrared sauna and a whirlpool bath. It hosts four rooms and it is most likely the smallest apartment in the world. The inside dimensions of the Cabanon are H: 3 m, W: 1,97m, L: 3,6m. It has a 6m² window overlooking the city. It is organized into four spaces extravagantly different in materials and heights: a 3m-high living room with kitchen, a 1.14m-high bedroom with plenty of storage, a toilet with a rain-shower, and a spa. The Cabanon is the conversion of an existing attic used for storage into a living space. It is located on the top floor of a 1950’s residential building in the centre of Rotterdam and takes its name from the eponymous cabin of Le Corbusier at the Côte d'Azur. The Cabanon is an experiment in space for B. and B. -the architects and the owners, who increasingly saw personal growth in voluntary reduction. However, this reduction was never understood as austerity. The Cabanon is of the most luxurious smallness, an “epicurean reduction”. - - - - - - - The Video: When they started thinking on the documentation for The Cabanon the architects thought about making a video as well as taking pictures. They were not thrilled by the idea of appearing themselves performing the expected domestic tasks (cooking, sleeping, reading…) and instead B&B thought that two dancers will immediately elevate the aesthetics of the place adding a poetic and artistic touch to a very domestic space. The two dancers that appear in the pictures and the video of The Cabanon are two exceptional ex-NDT* dancers: Boston Gallacher (Scotland) and Guido Dutilh (Netherlands). When B&B they first saw them dancing together at the stage in The Hague, they instantly fell in love with their movements; little did they know back then, that Guido and Boston would be performing in a very different “stage” than the one they were used. B&B always saw the large window in the Cabanon as a stage overlooking the city. Its velvet curtain adds a scenographic aspect to it and it creates a sort of urban scenography in the centre of the city “staging” itself artistically, theatrically. The decision to collaborate with the two dancers emphasize these scenographic aspects of the project, and by “performing” in the spaces the architects wanted also to demonstrate and investigate what is possible in terms of movements inside of The Cabanon, because if one can dance there, one can certainly live there too. B&B discussed beforehand with Boston and Guido about their ideas; the dancers then sent B&B pictures of some outfits and the architects picked the ones that they found fitting the best for their performance at The Cabanon (neutral colours to not interfere with the strong palette of the Cabanon). B&B presented them their sketches for the images and the 50 page “script” for the video. B. had a quite clear idea of what she was looking for and the script would say for example: “Guido in the living room turning in circles; black outfit; silver confetti falling from the ceiling; camera from the door shooting first his upper body, and then the feet”. This is one of her favourite scenes. For other scenes they just decided about the camera position (being architects, they wanted to show the space from specific points) and the dancers could completely improvise, and that was fantastic. Once they were there altogether, new ideas appeared… it was a great process. B. had selected the song “From Off to On” from The Knife for the video. She was captivated by its melody and sound and was completely sure it had to be the song that would accompany the dancers in their moves. B&B thank The Knife (Karin Dreijer and Olof Dreijer) for their generosity to let them use their incredible track “From Off to On” that became the epicentre of this magical video. *NDT (www.ndt.nl) - Nederlands Dans Theater is the most prestigious Dutch contemporary dance company.