Quick Q&A: Karine Plantadit

Dance Magazine, April, 2008 by Wendy Perron

A gale force onstage, Karine Plantadit is a dancer with astounding technique matched by a frank sexiness. She is currently working on a new project with John Selya, whom she met while dancing in Movin' Out on Broadway. Together they are creating a dance version of Jean Cocteau's La Voix Humane (The Human Voice) to premiere April 25-26 at Joyce Soho. Wendy Perron spoke with Plantadit during a rehearsal break in January.

What was your early training? I was raised in Cameroon, so my first training was ballet in Africa. As a teenager, I went to the Rosella Hightower dance center in the south of France. At 16 I saw the Alley company in Paris and they blew my mind. I decided to follow them to NYC. I joined the school on scholarship; my first job was with the Jamison Project for a year. In 1989 Mr. Alley passed away, the two companies merged, and I was with the Alley company for seven years.

When you first got involved in the Broadway version of Lion King in 1999, did you know it was going to be such a hit? I did the workshop with Julie Taymor and Garth Fagan. The first day when we all met, there were musicians from South Africa, and Julie described how elephants would be coming down the aisle. I thought, This woman is crazy, but also, We're in for an incredible ride!

I saw you in Saturday Night Fever on Broadway. Your dancing was so powerful and energized that you stopped the show. How did that feel? It feels like you're doing what you're supposed to do. You're no longer separate from your partner, the material, and the audience; you are completely one piece. The audience can feel when you give yourself to the material unequivocally. We're looking for a moment when we feel so safe that we can give everything without looking back.

What did you do after you left Broadway? I shot two movies. In Frida with Salma Hayek, I was the Josephine Baker look-alike. And then I was one of the inmates in Chicago. I was on my way to no longer dancing, but then there was an audition for Movin' Out with Twyla Tharp. I thought, Before I finish my dance book, maybe she and I have something to say to each other.

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What did you learn from Twyla? Intelligence of the body, intelligence of the mind, the brain. I learned to make a movement mine while being challenged by her vision. She is demanding but extremely generous in her joy of choreography. She is an endless trail of movement, constantly creating, never stopping.

How did La Voix Humane get started? John gave me the play The Human Voice and we went into a studio to see if we could work together. Can we hear each other's voices one on one? The first half hour was pure butter. I was in complete listening, no impediments. This play is about a woman's broken heart. It is opposite to what you think John Selya would do. It takes courage to step away from the image people have of you.

Is there a plot in La Voix Humane? This woman is on the phone talking to her lover or ex-lover. It's about that moment when you are trying to hold onto something that is so leaving. My character is in the face of tremendous emotional crisis. She goes in and out of being crumbled. In many ways something has died.

When you are busy with classes and rehearsals, how do you take care of your body? New resolution as I am 38: to make sure that whatever I do to my body will not hurt. A lot of us have gone beyond that threshold of pain, like we're separate from our own body. To be completely in my body, I do yoga, ballet, and swim three times a week.

What advice do you have for younger dancers? To remember that passion is the reason you started dancing. Your passion has got to be tangible, cultivated. It's like something you eat every day. It's your story line, your thread, your vein of gold.