Korzo UP#6 with Zino Schat

“This world makes it difficult for men to show vulnerability.”

We meet Korzo maker, choreographer, dancer, sound designer, dance teacher, and jewelry maker Zino Schat on a gray Thursday in the communal kitchen. We're here to talk about a sensitive subject. Two hours earlier, he was still teaching at the Academy of Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam. Beside us we hear the soft clinking of dishes as someone unloads the dishwasher, and we are both immediately distracted. Zino is in the middle of the creation process for his new performance about ADD. He appears energetic, but also searching.

How are you?
“Busy,” he says. After a short pause: “But also good.” He tells us he was seriously ill not long ago. COVID hit, and his physical condition was gone. It is only now that he truly notices how important movement is to him. In his classes, rehearsals, and performances, Zino tries to create something he himself missed for a long time: a place where vulnerability is allowed to exist.

“In this world, it’s difficult for men to show vulnerability,” he says. “The studio is safe. We work with the body, people listen. But outside of that… that’s a completely different world.”

Still, those worlds cannot be separated. It became clear during a class when a Ukrainian student did not show up after heavy bombardments in her home country.“It affected everyone,” he says. “And yes, we talked a lot.”

How do you then use dance to give room for something like that?
“In a later class, I asked that student to dance around a small island of fellow students. It’s about moving between being okay with not wanting to participate for a moment, and choosing when you want or dare to be supported again.”

Not only in your classes, but also in your new performance Can you ADD something to my ADD?, you become very personal. What is that like?

“Yes. I honestly sometimes have no idea how to approach something like that. Sometimes it works, sometimes not at all. Then we are all lost.” The performance departs from his search for an ADD diagnosis and from his family full of people with ADHD. Still, he emphasizes that it is not collective therapy.
“It’s about my intergenerational experience. Not necessarily about how they experience it, but about how I remember my father and brother, and how I can embrace that.”

A crucial moment in that process is the memory of his father, whom he did not speak to for fifteen years and who did not recognize him when they reunited.
“When I put that on the table during rehearsals now, I have to make myself vulnerable. But I notice there is respect. That creates space.”

In your work you often examine masculinity as well. Where does that come from?
“I come from a very masculine family full of dopamine,” he says. “And my mother tried to hold everything together. But eventually I left home at a young age and ended up on the street, where I danced with a group for almost ten years. That group became my family, but it was also another masculine family with little room for vulnerability. Even though there was a literal form of carrying each other during performances.”

Isn’t that vulnerability?
“Maybe a different form. But how many men really talk? There is so much fear of being rejected. Of not being strong enough. Of not being relevant.” He pauses. “As a man, it feels like you always have to prove yourself. Because there is no unconditional love.”

That unconditional love does not exist?
“No. Not for men. Look, questions like how are you doing, how are you really doing, how do you feel, those are almost never asked among men. And yet they bring you closer together and create space. You learn to listen instead of throwing something over it.”

We talk a lot about speaking, but how do you tap into vulnerability in the body?
“In the studio I look for contrast,” he says. “How hard can we go? Maybe so hard that you break through something.” He mentions shame as an example. “That feeling that your clothes are burning your skin. From that shame you want to transform. From organism, a zebra, a turtle, until you eventually arrive on the floor as a vulnerable human being who has lost everything.”

He refers to an example from Exit Sign: "an earlier performance about two political figures trying to outdo each other until one of them wants to disappear into his own body out of shame. With a suit that burns your skin, with the desire to transform into another organism, until you finally arrive on the floor as a vulnerable human who has lost everything."

Is vulnerability a skill? Can you practice it?
“A strength,” he says without hesitation. “We all want to be vulnerable, but first we have to get somewhere. Sometimes we need help with that. I did breathing therapy, for example, where I cried for an hour and a half. Everything came loose.”

Let’s say I want to be more vulnerable. What is your tip?
He thinks for a long time. “You have to dig deep. Through dark times. And don’t do it alone. Share what you can share, in a way that feels safe.” He smiles briefly. “And accept that sometimes you don’t know. That being lost is part of it.”

We are still sitting on the wooden bench. The kitchen has grown quiet. Zino is about to show his unfinished work to a group of teachers. Full of vulnerability. Once again.

Can you ADD something to my ADD? can be seen on Thursday, February 19 and Friday, February 20 at Korzo during the Holland Dance Festival. TICKETS