What was the most demanding part of your training?

Andrej: We all had to wear in-ear monitors, and mine stopped working, so I couldn’t hear the metronome and I had to dance just watching and following the others. We were performing for the camera, and the choreographer, Akram Khan, reminded us that we only had one shot. Then it started raining, as it often does in England. The floor was slippery and we started falling down. We tried different backup plans, plan B, plan C, wondered what to do, which version of the performance to choose, it was all very stressful. But the moment we walked out onto the stadium floor, there were tears. Suddenly you’re standing there, you’re walking out onto the ramp, and that’s when it hits you. You enter the arena and you almost feel like a gladiator. Eighty thousand people are watching you and everything goes quiet. You can only hear the cameras flashing. It was incredibly emotional.

You rehearsed your performance in a secret location. Can you tell us where it was?

Andrej: The whole artistic part of the opening ceremony was rehearsed at 3 Mills Studios, which is three stops away from the Olympic Park in Stratford. They gave us a large studio so that we would get a sense of scale, of how large the stadium was going to be. Afterwards, we began to rehearse with the dust, which we throw up in the air at the start of the performance.

Your performance was four minutes long.

Nikoleta: Some people laughed and asked if we had really spent a month rehearsing a three-minute performance. It’s difficult to explain because we became familiar with the movement structure in the first three, four days.

What did you do in the remaining three weeks?

Nikoleta: Apart from studying the movement structure, we used the first two weeks to get in shape. Then, of course, we had technical rehearsals at the stadium. We had to learn to move in a group, so that we would all be in sync when the pace and the rhythm changed up. Then there were other technical things, like making sure you didn’t lose the monitor. We had to learn to be careful about the slippery floor. There was another performance just before ours, so there were twigs and pebbles on the floor, and we just had to pay attention to so many things at once. The conditions at the stadium were very different to what we were used to from the theatre.

Andrej: There were fifty of us in the group. Everyone had to be in sync and in such form that they looked natural when performing the choreography. Fortunately we’d had enough time to rehearse – we had been rehearsing every day from 9 to 5 with just one hour for lunch.

There were eighteen thousand soldiers present at the ceremony. How did that feel?

Andrej: When I go somewhere I have been before in Slovakia or elsewhere and I forget my card, they usually let me through because they remember me. But at the Olympics, a guy told me, ‘I’ve seen you before, but I just can’t let you through without a card.’ Were that to happen anywhere else, I would be upset, but in London I realised that it was my fault and I really came to appreciate the importance of security.

Nikoleta: Despite the fact that we were under constant supervision, I didn’t feel afraid or nervous. When we first went to the stadium, the soldiers even embraced us. I think they were trying to lighten the situation.

Did you have rehearsals with the director of the whole ceremony, Danny Boyle?

Andrej: No, only with Akram Khan and his assistants. Danny Boyle only came to have a look at the end.

Let us move to the ceremony itself. Did you see any of the other performances?

Nikoleta: We were rehearsing to the last minute, so that we would be prepared. The day before the ceremony we even rehearsed in the car park in front of the stadium.

Andrej: We could see something from where we were waiting to go on stage, but I personally was so nervous that I didn’t really pay attention to the other groups.

The theme which Danny Boyle had selected for your performance was Mortality. How did you work with this theme?

Andrej: That’s why the dust was there – as a symbol. The message of the performance, the continuation of life, was embodied in the small boy who, in the end, raises his hands toward the sun. The English traditional song Abide With Me, which is often sung at funerals, also works well with that theme, and it was playing during our performance.

Nikoleta: The movement structure was given at the beginning, but as part of the theme, we worked with expression, especially because of the camera. Akram Khan wanted us to remember what we were dancing about.

Andrej, you’re a long-time member of the company, and apart from dancing, you also worked as assistant of choreography. Do you think it was difficult to remember the movement structure?

Andrej: I tried to find out what worked and what didn’t. Akram Khan was under great pressure because he wanted to present the company in the best possible light, so he viewed things from a greater perspective spatially. I talked to him about how to make things a little simpler. I’d been working with him for eight years, and I knew that if I had trouble with some parts of the choreography, forty other people who were working with Akram for the first time had to be suffering. He wanted to work on a variety of details in great tempo, but we realised that the eighty thousand people probably weren’t going to appreciate them all, and that they were only going to make our job harder. I advised him in the area of movement purity.

We saw a contemporary dance performance with elements of Indian Kathak, which is Akram Khan’s signature repertoire.

Andrej: Yes, there were the abovementioned details, the quality of speed and precision, rhythmicity. Even the counting in the monitors was in Hindi.

What did you hear in the monitors?

Nikoleta: For the first minute and a half, we danced in silence to pre-recorded rhythm so that we would get in sync. Then came the song, which we heard in the monitors. I basically had no idea that there was nothing playing on the outside in the beginning of the performance. But it must have looked really good, when there was no music but the dancers were nonetheless in sync.

Nikoleta, you and Akram Khan have worked together on others projects with famous performers such as Juliette Binoche, Sylvie Guillen and Kylie Minogue. What made this project special?

Nikoleta: It was completely different. Everyone had to synchronise and adapt to their fellow dancers. It wasn’t about the individual performances and the individual messages – the appeal of the entire choreography was that we were dancing together, as though we had all taken a single breath. It wasn’t about every dancer trying to show off what he or she could do.

How did it feel to dance on such a massive stage before such a large audience?

Nikoleta: The difficult thing was that when we walked out onto the stadium floor, we lost the intimacy of a closed space, where the choreography felt really powerful and we felt like a group. Suddenly we had to put our monitors in and we felt like we were in some sort of chamber, completely isolated. It was as if the stadium siphoned our energy away. That is why things changed, we had to work with levels. To the people the in far-off seats we must have looked like ants.

Andrej: There was a time phrase during which we had to move from one end of the stadium to the other, which I barely managed, and I am a relatively decent runner. The scale of the whole performance was just overwhelming. We could barely appreciate the difference between too much and too little. Despite how much energy I was putting into the performance so that I would be visible, I felt like I was just a grain of coffee.

Did you make any mistakes?

(laughter)

Nikoleta: I didn’t!

Andrej: I was so nervous! Twice during rehearsals my monitor had stopped working. I hoped it wouldn’t happen again on the night of the ceremony, and fortunately, it didn’t.

So everything went well?

Andrej: Eventually Lali, the dancer in the centre up front, lost connection in her monitor.

Nikoleta: We went out on stage and got the cue-in through the monitors. We all started dancing except for Lali. She was in the centre, and the people in the back were supposed to follow her, so there was a moment of panic. But eventually things got on the right track. We had rehearsed for a version where we would count our own rhythm, which we eventually did. We were aware that virtually anything could go wrong, but it was still a terrible feeling. Given the tempo, it was really difficult to get back in sync.

Andrej: It was impossible to make sure that there would be no technical difficulties. At one time, the singer Emeli Sandé had a completely different song playing in her monitor, so she changed the lyrics in the confusion. That was a problem for us because we had our movements locked on to the lyrics. Naturally, there were no marks on the floor, so we just had to depend on ourselves – it was a great experience.

How did Magda, who was new in your team, view the experience?

Nikoleta: We lived together, so we all experienced it together.

Andrej: She did not really speak about it that much, but she did remember that it was really inspiring for her, and she was happy to be returning to Slovakia with the experience.

There was a lot of talk of censorship to do with the Olympics. Were you faced with any?

Nikoleta: We received an email saying that we should never talk about what we saw and did. But that was more about keeping the programme secret so that there would be no leaks before people actually got to see the ceremony.

Did you come into contact with any of the other performers?

Andrej: No. There were 10 500 people involved in the programme. While one group were leaving, another were gathering on the stadium floor. It was beautifully organised in that we would never get in each other’s way.

Nikoleta: Everyone who had finished their performance had a designated exit and had to scurry off stage. But there were many people who came to us afterward and told us that they had really been quite touched.

Did you meet any athletes or artists?

Nikoleta: We didn’t meet any athletes, but we did meet Sir Paul McCartney. We were on our way to a rehearsal – we were supposed to be the only ones rehearsing that day. On approach to the stadium, we could hear Hey Jude echoing in. We were supposed to start rehearsing when McCartney called us to the stage. We danced and he played a private concert for us. That was an especially nice moment.

How did Akram Khan view the fact that your performance was cut from the American broadcast?

Andrej: I had already left London and only saw his response in the media. He was utterly shocked. Also, someone said that the performance was dedicated to the victims of the 7/7 attacks, but it wasn’t, at least as far as we knew.

This was the first time a contemporary dance performance was presented at the opening ceremony and seen by millions of viewers across the world. How did that feel?

Andrej: It was a great honour when, immediately after our performance, they announced that the Akram Khan Company had concluded the ceremony. The whole world got to know who we are and what we do.

Nikoleta: I think that Akram Khan really elevated the programme to another level, that it was not just some parade of pompousness. I liked other ideas in the programme, too. I think it was one of the nicest ceremonies I have ever seen.

Did you enjoy it?

Andrej: Of course, but Oh my, the pressure! I was in the front line!

Nikoleta: I was enjoying it. I was in the centre so I was safe. There was a lot of adrenaline when we were entering the arena like gladiators – one shot, one opportunity. But there is something really exciting about that moment.

Were you fatigued afterward?

Nikoleta: Yes, terribly. I could hardly get out of bed for a week.

Andrej: I was fine because I had been really careful with my diet. With work as physically demanding as this, it’s important that you eat a lot of fat in the morning and replenish it in the evening. I guess it must have worked. Avocadoes, eggs, not too many steaks and a lot of vegetables.

Will you work with Akram Khan again?

Andrej: I will be working with him on another project as assistant of choreography.

Nikoleta: I think this was my last Olympics! (laughter)