She danced at the highest level of the contemporary dance world for years. Now she’s in the studio with IAB’s third-year Contemporary Dance students – and she’s brought a pair of red rain boots with her.
Fay van Baar is a Dutch-British freelance choreographer and performer, born and raised in The Hague. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Dance from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and began her professional journey with Nederlands Dans Theater. Over her nine-year tenure with NDT, she contributed to the creation of more than 20 new works in collaboration with choreographers including Crystal Pite, Hofesh Shechter, Sharon Eyal, Marco Goecke, Damien Jalet, and Simon McBurney, among others.
Early in her career, she was recognised with the Dansersfonds prize – the jury praising her “adult, unforced presentation, her subtle musicality and her obvious affinity with the atmosphere and energy that the choreographer wants to portray.“
Since transitioning into choreography, Fay has created works for stage and film within and outside NDT, for Korzo Theater, Rise Dance Festival Seoul, and other platforms. She is now based in the Netherlands, working as a freelance creator and she joined the IAB as guest choreographer for the Contemporary Dance programme, creating an original piece with the third-year students.
We sat down with her to talk about joy, instinct, and what she wishes someone had told her when she was graduating.
A Piece Born from Reflection
The piece was originally conceived under the title Play Is the Most Serious Thing in Life – though since this interview was recorded, the title has evolved into something even more direct: Joy! Is the Most Serious Thing in Life.
The concept came from a deeply personal place. “When I got this opportunity to make a piece here, I was really reflecting on my time as a student and looking at my professional career, trying to understand what I would tell my younger self graduating from school,” Fay explains. What kept coming back to her was joy and how easy it is to lose touch with it, and how much it matters when you find it again.
“Every time I would lose touch with it and then find it again, it would make not just the dancing more enjoyable but in a way also easier,” she says. Long hours, injuries, self-criticism – Fay sees joy not as a luxury but as an antidote to all of it.
The concept also suited the practical reality of the project: five days, eighteen dancers, one new piece. “It was very helpful to use the concept of the joy of moving, the joy of being together, of going with first instincts and trusting,” she says.
The Story Behind the Red Rain Boots
Every piece Fay makes involves a set piece or a prop – it is one of her signatures. For this one, the prop is a pair of red rain boots. The story of how they got there is one of the most charming moments of our conversation.
“I spent my days looking around and understanding for myself what brings me instant joy, what immediately makes me happy,” she recalls. Then she saw it: a group of young children playing in a puddle with their wellies on. “There was something about that. Everyone connects to joy when they see rain boots – I think also from memories from childhood.” She pauses, then adds with a laugh: “I’ve always wanted a pair of red rain boots. I still want a pair.“
It is the kind of image that says everything the piece needs to say before a single dancer takes the stage.
Shaped by the Netherlands Dance Theatre
For Fay, her time at NDT was formative in the fullest sense of the word. It wasn’t just the choreographers – though she is quick to acknowledge how extraordinary they were – but the entire ecosystem: the technical team, the rehearsal directors, the colleagues she worked alongside every day.
“My professional career in a dance company has really defined who I am now,” she says. “That’s my introduction to how I like to work in a studio, how I like to use sound and set.” It is a foundation she carries into every project, including this one.
A Cinematic Signature Still Taking Shape
Ask Fay what someone would recognise in her work without knowing who made it, and she is refreshingly honest: she is still developing her signature, still discovering what her work truly is. But some things are already clear.
She describes her aesthetic as cinematic. She uses sound to set a mood rather than as a rhythm to follow. And she always works with a set piece or a prop: the red rain boots being the perfect example.
“I like to look at the scenography,” she says. “Sound, set, the visual world of the piece – those things matter a lot to me.“
On Stepping Back from the Spotlight
It might seem like a loss – stepping back from the stage after years at the centre of it. But for Fay, the shift towards choreography has felt more like a discovery than a sacrifice.
“What I really enjoy about choreographing is that I’m using more aspects of my own creative mind,” she says. “There’s a little bit more creative agency.” And as for the spotlight itself – she is surprisingly candid. “For someone who’s been in dance for so long, I don’t really love having the spotlight on me, actually.“
The stage, she says, is a magical place. But she finds something equally compelling about standing to the side, watching the work land on an audience. “I quite like being the one who’s behind the work,” she says.
Her advice for students about to enter the industry is immediate and specific: look beyond dance.
“I think there’s a lot of inspiration we can get from life,” she says. “Go see other art. Go travel to another city to see your friend. Call your family.” The bubble of the dance world is real, and she values it – but she also sees its limits. Contemporary dance should reflect society and humanity, she believes. If dancers only expose themselves to other dance, she questions whether they can actually tell the stories that matter.
“Expand and be curious also in other avenues of life,” she says. It is advice that sounds simple and turns out, like most simple advice, to be harder to follow than it seems.
Fay van Baar is a Dutch freelance choreographer and performer, formerly of the Netherlands Dance Theatre. She is currently working with IAB’s third-year Contemporary Dance students on her original piece, Joy! Is the Most Serious Thing in Life.
Interview by Zeb Díaz
Article by Sara Barbieri
Videography by Roger Bayerri
Photography by Nicole Guarino
