Movement Choreography:
for Nosferatu (2023) releases 2024/5)
I
https://www.focusfeatures.com/nosferatu
Premiers DEC 25, 2024 USA and January 2025 UK | HORROR
Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.
STARRING
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Emma Corrin, Willem Dafoe, Simon McBurney, Ralph Ineson
DIRECTED BY
Robert Eggers
I previously worked with Robert Eggers on The Northman (2022) where my main choreography was for The Beserkers, so I completely understood the incredible detail and rigour with which Robert works,
For Nosferatu, my main research tool was in fact my own body and its own choreographic history.
My Movement Choreography for the language of Nosferatu draws up my idiosyncratic and original choreographic approach developed over 30 years of creating work and evident in my solo works such as Mythic and Black Mirror . I have done prior research into possession, hysteria, human and animal hybrids, the occult and Witchcraft and I am absolutely fascinated with transformation and how the body, or body and costume in particular, can allow the performer to find the more than human or the un-human.
Nosferatu and Butoh
I have also studied Butoh for over 30 years and am one of the very first European artists to receive Arts Council funding for this type of work in the UK and take this approach into mainstream dance and theatre contexts and actor/dance training in UK Universities. The ideas and approach of Butoh are deeply imprinted in my approach to movement choreography. My work with Butoh is very different in many ways from other Butoh artists in that I am situated as a Western Choreographer and my work draws upon legacies of other movement practices (such as somatics and Performance Art) and is also heavily informed by my training as a Fine Art painter. Although the press have latched onto Butoh, it really is as wide and personal a field as 'contemporary dance' so my approach will differ enormously from any another Butoh dancer and I wish to reiterate that my movement approach is mine and not reducable to a generic label.
Butoh is the absolutely perfect language for Nosferatu. The Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata is quoted as saying such things as, 'We shake hands with the dead' or 'Butoh is a corpse standing upright in a desperate bid for life'. What he meant, is that in Butoh we go beyond the notion of self, and try to access other states of being, including allowing the body to be a vessel for other entities; such entities could be air, wind, birds, animals but also ghosts, demons,.. in fact the body, when open, can transform and mutate into anything.
The Butoh dancer trains to become receptive to poetic images and impulses , allowing the mover 'to be moved, rather than move'. There is a relationship, I assert, between the Butoh body being moved by unseen forces and being possessed by various entities and the unseen forces that move Ellen and Orlok in the narrative of Nosferatu.
Butoh is sometimes called 'Dance of Darkness' which is a specific term in its inception and strictly speaking refers specifically to the work of Tatsumi Hijikata (Ankoku Butoh). Butoh plays with all of existence, the comic and light, love and death; it is fair to say though that Nosferatu mainly demanded the actors encounter their own darkness or shadow and Butoh was just one way to do that.
Butoh differs from other physical actor training methods, such as Lecoq or Grotowski, as the Butoh Dancer does not imitate or pretend but really tries to transform the self, and disappear so that something else can appear, a process of Becoming Nothing to Become Something.
Butoh inevitably builds from ideas within the legacy of Noh Theatre, which in turn refers back to ancient Shinto and Buddhist thinking around Kami (numinous spirits), and then later, hungry ghosts who need appeasing and come back for revenge or wander the earth. Again, the connection for Nosferatu is very clear.
Butoh also has strong origin links with the German Expressionism of Mary Wigman, and Harold Kreutzberg and the Japanese import of their ideas via Takaya Egushi and Baku Ishii. The original Murnau version of Nosferatu (1922) is imbued with strong Expressionist visual and movement languages, . However, I held back from applying any discernable Expressionist language to the movement. What mattered in Rob's version was a root in naturalism and to believe in the movement, and to find what I in fact prefer to call not even Butoh but 'psychophysical gesture'. In. this way the Actors movements already have an emotional response within. For example, with Lily, I worked a lot with shaking, breathing, eyes and face contortions, as the body can then do a lot of the emotional 'heavy lifting 'of the actors work. The movement is, of course, still demanding and requires total immersion on the part of the actor. I firmly believe that actors can do this and still step out of their role, and be 'themselves' and then return to the scene, knowing the body will remember and do the work.
Process
I created and rehearsed some the material prior to filming in my local and remote village hall in Suffolk (incidentally the county was home of some of the worst witch trails in the UK so I took pleasure in conducting my own movement witchery to give voice to the 'return of the repressed'!).
I had also conducted workshops six months prior to filming on States of Possession.. I was able to use these workshops to test out and formulate the most swift, effective methodologies, images and prompts to give to both Lily Rose Depp and Bill Skarsgaard when working in the very tight filming scheduling where lots of rehearsal and laboratory process is just not possible, I did in fact have very generous allocation of rehearsal time with both actors, and with Lily I was able to discover so much about her own unique strengths as a tremendously capable physical actor, and then integrate that into the movement sequences.
I initially worked a lot with Bill and both Rob and I had anticipated this would be my main work on the film. We explored the slow walk of butoh (suri-ashe) a walk that hovers on the margins between life and death, and a walk that aimed to find the walk of the undead/dead. We found some great physical material, but then once he put on the costume and prosthetics. we all realised that the movement had to be stripped right back. Bill retained some little details like hand gestures, but essentially the monster was conjured through make up and costume and Bills extraordinary ability to become the character. Bill in person is very sweet, kind. and radiates this kind of youthful 'puppy' energy so to see him completely become something diametrical to himself was truly remarkable.
My main work was with Lily and we did rehearsals spread over a few months. Lily is an incredible performer and to my delight she is also very flexible and physically strong. So I would either transmit choreographic sequences prepared on my own body, and then adapt them to her body. Or, I would shape material directly on her body, particularly for what the press are calling the 'exorcist' sequence. This sequence in fact came very quickly in one rehearsal, as I had in mind very clearly some of the images from Charcot's studies of Hysteria, which both Rob and I identified simultaneously as a great source of inspiration. My main concern with this kind of extreme movement is the physical toll of the repetition of takes needed in front of the camera, but Lily was totally up for doing this all herself and no CGI or Stunt double was used.
With Lily, there were quite a number of possession sequences, so with a careful reading of the script with Rob the movement material was shaped so each one had a different temperature or colour; some possessed, some erotic and some innocent. I also worked with her on sleepwalking or floating and ethereal movement sequences both on set and on location.
The Death Scene
The sequence that in fact took the most movement choreography and crafting work was the 'death scene' between Bill and Lily. After rehearsing on several occasions alone with Bill we all felt something else was needed. Thankfully Rob had his original exquisite version of another script ending to draw upon. In front of the camera, this final scene took a lot of work, mainly technical with tight camera angles and lighting, but it was well worth the huge effort and I am very proud of the movement choreography for this scene. It pushes Rob's original narrative in an eerily beautiful and highly emotional direction.
Other Scenes in the Film.
I helped pull together the Roma Dance movement, working together with Crowds Directors, and also had a light touch on some scenes in a hospital. I assisted Emma Corrin with movement for some of her convulsions.
There is a conception. that the movement choreographer just turns up with material and transposes into on the actors body. This is just not possible, or desirable, as the actors will have their own internal narratives, images, physical aptitudes and ideas. I had the trust of the actors and Eggers to allow this dialogue process to unfold and many revisions and versions were explored until we arrived at the best material for each scene, accommodating camera angles, script continuity, set locations, costume, and so on. There is always also the balance to be found between too much choreography, too much control, or conversely not enough structure and we had to constantly find the right balance to each scene. I think when working with such idiosyncratic 'invented' movement scoring, this is always going to be the best process to follow.
It has been an honour of a lifetime to work on this film and I look forward to seeing it in the cinemas.
I have not released images or videos or compromising information, directly connected to the film due to NDA.
Background Image Credit photo copyright Aidan Monaghan/Focus Features
Press mentions of Movement Choreography for Nosferatu:
Visarg, FandomWire: November 8th 2024
Yeah [we had] Marie Gabrielle Rotie, a Butoh choreographer who I worked with also with on The Northman. Lily did tons and tons and tons of body work with her. (Eggers)
A lot of people have wondered if some of that stuff is CGI enhanced, but she [Lily-Rose Depp]did all of that stuff physically. (Eggers)
Directors Guild Theatre of America
Guillermo del Toro and Robert Eggers Q & A at post-screening Directors Guild Theatre of America, Los Angeles Thursday 7th November 2024 published in Variety.com 2024 author Clayton Davis.
Time code 13.25 to 14.20
During the Q&A, Del Toro said he had used a Butoh dance teacher on the set of his upcoming film Frankenstein, and asked if Eggers had done the same for Depp’s choreography. “Yeah [we had] Marie Gabrielle Rotie, a Butoh choreographer who I worked with also with on The Northman,” Eggers said. “Lily did tons and tons and tons of body work with her.” The results were so impressive Eggers said, “A lot of people have wondered if some of that stuff is CGI enhanced, but she did all of that stuff physically.”
Guillermo del Toro responded that the movement is ''REMARKABLE''.
Den of Geek, October 15th, 2024
RE: I remember you worked with Ása [Júníusdóttir] on lowering your voice and Marie-Gabrielle [Rotie], the movement choreographer who is instrumental in Lily [-Rose Depp]’s performance and your death scene together. But in the beginning I thought she was going to have a lot more to do with your physicality. And there was a point where both of us felt you were doing too much stuff. Once you were in all the make-up, the costume, you just needed to be. You had the full make-up on for one of the first times and you were like, “Yeah, I don’t really need to do much. I just went to pee in the make-up, saw myself in the mirror and it was the scariest experience of my life.”
Breznica, Anthony, 'Bill Skarsgård on Remaking Nosferatu and the Pressure of “F--king With a Masterpiece, Vanity Fair.com, November 13, 2024.
Bill Skarsgard (BS)
Before putting on the prosthetics, we explored so many weird things and looked into butoh, this sort of Japanese corpse dancing.
Did you say “corpse dancing”?
BS
Yeah, butoh is this Japanese corpse dance. It’s all these, kind of, mummified movement patterns. It’s spectacular. It brought this much more precise and much more rigid and slow movement.
Vanity Fair
Canfield, David. ''Lily-Rose Depp’s Road to Nosferatu: “People Have Been Ready to See Me Fail”,
Vanity Fair ,November 21st, 2024
VF
Once you land the part, obviously a lot of physical training goes into it. Walk me through that work—you trained in butoh, is that right?
Lily Rose Depp
''Yeah. Butoh is this Japanese dance discipline, it’s fascinating. Rob was most inspired by the total abandonment of the self so that you can let something else enter your body, like another spirit. If you watch videos of it, you’ll see these people with the most blank stare—it really feels as though they are not there anymore. There is room for something else to come into them. That was a really important aspect of it. Then we worked with an amazing movement coach, Marie-Gabrielle Rotie. She is phenomenal, really helped me map it all out. Going into it I had thought that it was going to be maybe more improvisational; the physical parts were more vague to me in my head. I didn’t realize how choreographed it was going to be, but that helped infuse every moment with an intention. Physical work lends itself to emotional work. They kind of go hand-in-hand: I guarantee if you start shaking your body like crazy, you’ll kind of want to cry.''
VF: Did you feel that way?
Lily Rose Depp
''For sure. It’s very vulnerable. I was trying to make myself be there as little as possible and let whatever I was trying to summon overtake me completely. It’s a destabilizing place to be emotionally. That brings up a lot. It was definitely very physically and emotionally draining. Even just breathing really heavily, you’ll exhaust yourself. It was important for me to care for myself.''
''Depp threw herself into rehearsals, training with movement coach Marie-Gabrielle Rotie to nail several episodes of “hysterical” possession. “People are going to be shocked by how incredible she is and how powerful her performance is,” said Eggers.
Godfrey, Alex. In the Blood with Robert Eggers Nosferatu, Empire, January 2025 edition. pp90-95
‘’ (Robert) had Lily work with movement choreographer Marie-Gabrielle Rotie, who as she states on her website, has researched ‘’possession, hysteria, human and animal hybrids and associated research into the occult and witchcraft’’. Rotie worked with Depp for months, significantly on Butoh, a form of Japanese dance theatre; ‘’butoh’’ means ‘dance of darkness’’. ‘’I used butoh with Marie-Gabrielle in the Northman, on the Berserker transformations, an a little bit at the end of The Witch,’’ says Eggers. ‘’ Also Marie-Gabrielle and I looked at [neurologist Jean-martin] Charcot’s study of, quote unquote, ‘hysterical’ poses, ‘hysterical’’ attitudes’’. They gave Depp drawings of them, ‘’ to see what would work in scenes when she’s doing things that the contemporary docs of the day would call hysteria. ’’
Depps work in this sequence, says Eggers, was all performed there and then in camera. ‘’ It was one of the hardest things for Lily to do and she does it wonderfully, without any CG. It’s all just Lily’.
Davidson, Adam, 'Robert Eggers on Directing ‘Nosferatu,’ One of the Year’s Most Anticipated Films', Sharp magazine, November 28th, 2024.
https://sharpmagazine.com/2024/11/28/robert-eggers-interview-nosferatu-2024/
AD: I was really impressed by Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter. What made it such a great physical performance?
Eggers:'' I’m excited for people to see how raw, brave, and sophisticated her performance is. Everything she is doing physically is all real; nothing has been sped up or manipulated. That’s the work she did with the choreographer, Marie-Gabrielle Rotie, to do all of that hysteria and possession stuff. I have not worked with an actor who is as easily emotionally available as Lily. She just goes there without a lot of effort.''
DEADLINE - ANTONIA BLYTH, DECEMBER 2ND 2024
In training for that body work, Eggers brought in Marie-Gabrielle Rotie, a choreographer who specializes in Japanese butoh (originally named ankoku butoh, which translates as “dance of utter darkness.” “Butoh was something that I was familiar with,” Eggers says. “I had worked with Marie-Gabrielle and [choreographer] Denise Fujiwara on The Witch, and so I had a basic understanding of it, and knew that it would have many of the tools to do this stuff. So, some things became more demonic possession, but the starting place was with Marie-Gabrielle Rotie.”