Learning from Janet Adler

An Interview with Jens Wazel

BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT

Photos by Jens Wazel

Jens Wazel is a photographer and filmmaker based in Berlin. He has created a film and two books about Janet Adler, the founder of the Discipline of Authentic Movement, a studio practice sourced in the relationship between a mover and a witness, which she developed and taught for more than five decades. Jens’ film, LIGHT | Five Days with Janet Adler was released in 2023, shortly before Janet’s death. Jens then created a photography book, Janet Adler | LIGHT, and LIGHT | Five Days with Janet Adler: The Story Behind the Film, which were published in June of this year. Here, Jens relates his incredible tale meeting, befriending, learning from, documenting, and ultimately saying goodbye to Janet Adler.

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Can you tell me a little about yourself and how you became interested in documenting dance teachers?

I grew up in East Germany during the Cold War. After the Berlin Wall fell, I moved to the States, did a master’s degree and worked in tech at Microsoft in Seattle for almost a decade. But then I developed an autoimmune disease, so I quit my full-time job, and found my way to Esalen Institute in California, where I became a work scholar for two months. One morning, I walked into a freeform movement class and just loved it. I had always associated dance with steps or choreography, but here I experienced a form in which dancers follow inner impulses rather than prescribed steps. It felt great.

I later found conscious dance events in Seattle, and in the summer of 2004, I went to Dance Camp in California, where I met Vincent Martínez-Grieco, the founder of Soul Motion. He became my teacher. I completed the first Soul Motion teacher training, and then taught across the Pacific Northwest, in Hawai’i, and California. I also became interested in other movement practices, like 5Rhythms, Open Floor, Contact Improvisation and Authentic Movement. I relocated to the Bay Area in 2012, but then returned to Berlin in 2016 after 25 years in the US.

Just before I moved, I spent a weekend filming Anna Halprin at her Mountain Home Studio. She was 96 years old, and it was the last time she was filmed dancing in her studio. I made a film about the experience: A Morning with Anna Halprin.

What drew you to Janet Adler?

In late 2019, I attended an Open Floor workshop with Andrea Juhan in Italy, and I explained the history of conscious dance to two new dance teachers. “You should write this down,” they said, and since I had started to become a filmmaker, I thought: “I should make a film.” I talked to a dance therapist friend in Berlin, and together we mapped not only the history of the conscious dance movement and its teachers, but also the practices and teachers that they had been influenced by. It was like a tree with roots and interconnected branches.

I then created a list of teachers I wanted to interview and started writing emails to ask if they would be interested in participating. Among others, I arranged meetings with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, the developer of Body-Mind Centering, and with Daria Halprin, the co-founder of the Tamalpa Institute. Authentic Movement also seemed relevant to the project, and in my research, I came across Janet Adler. I knew nothing about her but immediately had a strong feeling that I needed to meet her.

What was your process?

In the first email we exchanged, I told Janet that I was listening and following impulses, and that although I didn’t know why, it felt important to see her. She resonated with that and invited me to visit her in Canada for five days. All my other interviews were shorter, but she wanted to allow for enough time to let a process of discovery unfold.

I went to the States in February 2020 and started filming, did a dozen interviews in San Diego, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area. Then COVID hit, and I had to cancel the remaining meetings, including with Janet. We were both very disappointed. We then continued writing emails and met over Zoom. She sent me resources about herself; I sent her stuff about myself. It became personal, we wished each other happy holidays and exchanged virtual chocolates. We were hoping COVID would be over soon, but it took two years before it was safe to go.

In April 2022, I finally flew over and spent five days with Janet on Galiano Island near Vancouver. Those five days were really rich. We had been preparing for this meeting for two years; we had established trust and an understanding of who we are. In hindsight, what we did during those five days mirrored the Discipline of Authentic Movement. There was a lot of listening and listening again, taking time, and seeing what was needed at any given moment. Every morning, we had hour-long check-ins without the camera. Only then would we decide what to do that day. It was a beautiful process of joint discovery.

At the end, just before I left, she told me that while we had planned to make a film, she was unattached to the outcome, that those five days and the journey we took together had been important to her at this point in her life. I decided that I would probably not make one big film about conscious dance anymore, but individual portraits instead, and that Janet would get her own film.

We worked on it together. I never bring a protagonist into a project so early, but Janet and I had already collaborated from the beginning, so it felt natural. For three or four months, we exchanged daily emails, sometimes 10 to 20 a day. We talked about and agreed on every word and image in the film. When it was 80 percent done, Janet shared with me that she would not be able to respond as much because she had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. I doubled down on the editing, worked 80 hours a week, and in the end hired another editor to help get it done. I needed Janet to see the finished film.

And she did. The film was released in early July three years ago. My inbox exploded with messages from Janet’s colleagues and students all over the world. I felt like a messenger and forwarded everything to Janet. After three days she stopped responding, and I kept sending those messages to her family. Volunteers came forward and translated the film subtitles into seven languages.

I planned a film premiere in Berlin for July 20, 2023. On the morning of that day, I woke up to an email from Janet’s husband that she had passed away.

Janet loved rituals. She would light a candle before any conversation we had. So, after I received the news, I lit a candle, and I cried. Janet had become not only a teacher and collaborator, but also a friend. I didn’t tell anyone until the end of the film premiere. It was like a memorial, but nobody knew except me.

How did the film turn into two books about Janet?

In addition to filming, I had also taken still photographs when I visited Janet on Galiano Island, so I decided to create a photo book with quotes from the film. It then also occurred to me that I had all these emails that Janet and I exchanged over three and a half years. I contacted Paula Sager, who had been the co-editor for Janet’s last book, and shared my idea of publishing excerpts of the emails. Paula liked the idea but also felt that it needed a narrative – and that I should be the narrator.

I said, “I’m a photographer and videographer and a journalist. I’m behind the camera.” I resisted for over a year. But then I woke up one morning and looked at the emails again, letting them speak to me. I started writing, and then I couldn’t stop. I wrote every day for three months. I sent the manuscript to Paula and she became my editor. I shared the finished book with Janet’s family, and they gave me their support for the project. I then taught myself book design and found a print-on-demand publisher that prints in high quality and works internationally.

The book was officially released on June 25th!

What are some thoughts or lessons you took away from the process?

My whole journey with dance changed my life. It changed my body and how I look at the world, not just physically but also emotionally and spiritually. This journey then led me to Janet, who was truly living her teachings. The work we did together reflected that: moving and witnessing, developing an inner witness in both the mover and witness, and then making that experience verbal.

It’s been four years now since Janet and I spent those five days together, and I am still coming to understand what has changed in me. It’s often small moments, like when I stand in a checkout line at the grocery store: instead of being forward in my body, anxious to get somewhere, I can lean back in my body and breathe and listen to what’s happening. It’s a beautiful practice.

What do you hope readers take away from the book?

I am very happy that I can share about the incredible journey that Janet and I took together. It really is a human story of two artists meeting in not knowing and trusting the process, reflecting the principles of witnessing and presence that Janet taught for more than 50 years.

Do you have an upcoming project or focus you’d like to share more about?

I typically don’t look for projects; they find me. On the day of the film release, I was sitting on my balcony thinking about everything that had to happen in my life to enable me to meet Janet in the way that I did. On top of that list was my grandmother who died 25 years ago. She had a hard life, lived through two world wars. But she didn’t let those experiences make her bitter, she became a teacher and an artist. I am thinking that I might make a film about her, and about how we are influenced by those who came before us. I know that I will wake up one morning and start, just like I did with my book about Janet.

Any other thoughts?

How do we share the richness and the wisdom of dance and movement? How can we help spread some of these messages and practices into the wider world? If more people would just stop and listen, remember to breathe and find their feet, I think we wouldn’t have so many wars. And it has to start within me. I don’t know how many minutes of each day I manage to do it myself. It’s about forgetting and remembering, forgetting and remembering again. And maybe that can inspire someone else, too. Just like Janet inspired me.

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To learn more, visit janetadlerlight.com.

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