Guy Windsor
I’m here today with Sarina Wagner, who is a musical actress and dancer who trained at the University of Music and Arts of the City of Vienna, which is probably the best place in the world to do that, and is a historical fencer focusing on Capoferro and Fabris like all the intelligent historical fencers. Okay, so without further ado, Sarina, welcome to the show.
Sarina Wagner
Hi, thank you that I’m here.
Guy Windsor
So whereabouts in the world are you?
Sarina Wagner
Well, you said already, I’m in Vienna now. I’m in Vienna since nearly seven years now, since I started university seven years ago in Vienna, and it’s just the place where I wanted to be all my life. This is why I’m really happy to be here. But Vienna is also a nice place where you can take the airport, and then you can fly away to other several places, and you can see different cultural things and get more impressions about things.
Guy Windsor
It’s kind of in the middle of things, isn’t it?
Sarina Wagner
Yes, yes. It’s like the centre of the world. But it’s also like, you can go to the world.
Guy Windsor
So why did you always want to go there?
Sarina Wagner
to Vienna? Well, look at me, you know.
Guy Windsor
I know you; I’ve met you in person several times. But the listeners don’t know you yet.
Sarina Wagner
Really going back in time when I was a child, I always wanted to do something with music. And with dancing. I started dancing when I was five years old or something like that. And in the age of 10, I was saying, okay, Mum, I want to be an actress. And I always wanted to be in Vienna, because I was listening to stories about Vienna, about Mozart and Beethoven. So these are the persons who have been in Vienna. And I was thinking, okay, if you want to do something with music, you have to go to the city of music. And Vienna is the best place for that. And also, of course, because a lot of cultural things are happening here. So this is the place to be and if you have been in Vienna before, I think you have been…
Guy Windsor
I have never been to Vienna. I know it’s one of those I should have been. I’ve been to lots of other places. I’ve been to similar places. But I have actually not yet been to Vienna, which is a disgraceful lacuna in my travels. You’re quite right.
Sarina Wagner
Oh Guy, this is hurting me a lot. This is a personal attack. No. So you have to come to Vienna. That’s what I’m telling about. Because when you go to Vienna, you have the feeling you’re entering a world, which is back in time. So you’re traveling back 200 years ago, meeting the Emperor and the Empress, for example. So it’s like the feeling you’re going around the corner and maybe there’s somebody walking around in a historical dress, for example. And it would be normal. This is this is the magic of Vienna. And it’s so much music. And yeah, there’s music in the walls and music in the streets. And this is my lovely Vienna. I really love it.
Guy Windsor
Okay, honestly, what this reminds me of a little bit is my younger daughter is a massive Taylor Swift fan. And she tells me that when Taylor was about 10, she agitated with her parents to move to Nashville so she could get into the whole country music scene. And then when she was 17 out comes her first country music album, which then goes and wins an award. So just being in the right place, particularly maybe for musicians, seems to be quite critical.
Sarina Wagner
Yes. And I mean, for my studies, for my special thing, what I wanted to do, if you want to study music, you can do this, really in every place in the world. There are so many universities where you can study music, but I wanted to study musical theatre. So this is really special. And in the German speaking places, so in Germany and Austria and Switzerland, there are only five universities where you can study this. And I said, okay, I will really be happy when I’m allowed to study this, because this is a really hard job. But if I can study this in Vienna, I will be the happiest person on earth. And this was happening. And this is why I’m the happiest person.
Guy Windsor
Yes, so you get to Vienna, and you start studying in musical theatre. You’re actually working in musical theatre now, right?
Sarina Wagner
Kind of, right in this moment, not because after I was finishing my Bachelor studies, 2021, it was in the middle of the Covid thing. It was not so easy to get into jobs. And I was deciding to do my master’s studies directly. First, I wanted to wait to go into my master’s degrees, or studies. But I said, okay, now this is the time, take the chance and do it. And so I was doing this, and this is called the Master of Arts Education. It was also in the same university, but it’s something where you combine different disciplines of music and art. And so I’m working now, in this moment. I’m working in Linz for the Anton Bruckner year, because to this year, it’s the Anton Bruckner anniversary, because Anton Bruckner was born 200 years ago, and he’s one of the greatest Austrian composers. So we have to do a big celebration for him this year. And so this is what I’m doing now in the moment.
Guy Windsor
Most people listening probably have no idea what that actually means, in terms of what are you actually doing for this?
Sarina Wagner
I’m also travelling around but in Upper Austria, not in whole Austria, and specifically in Upper Austria. And I’m giving workshops. We are giving workshops to kids in schools, but also for people who are interested or never heard about Anton Bruckner before, so they never listened to the music. They were hearing Anton Bruckner, but who is Anton Bruckner? And so we’re giving workshops, and the people can just listen to his music and learning something about the music, his life, the time. And we’re giving them a kind of feeling of the time and giving them a perspective of this person.
Guy Windsor
So basically, “why Bruckner is cool and why you should have heard of him” workshops.
Sarina Wagner
Or you can also say, okay, it’s nice that you have been telling me about this Sarina, but I don’t like him. And this is also okay for me.
Guy Windsor
If you listen to the music and decide you don’t like it, that’s fine. You’ve got to listen to the music to make that decision. Dismissing it without listening to it is silly.
Sarina Wagner
Yes, this is the goal. You get the people to listen to the music, and then they can decide if they like the music or not. Or they can say okay, thank you for the music. Thank you for the time, but Anton Bruckner was not that cool guy you’re talking about. So I’m trying to give a picture of this person.
Guy Windsor
And is he a favourite composer of yours?
Sarina Wagner
No. I like his music really much. But he’s not my absolutely favourite composer.
Guy Windsor
So who is?
Sarina Wagner
Oh, this is so hard.
Guy Windsor
Top three, top five?
Sarina Wagner
Oh, Jean Baptiste Lully is one of my favourites. Beethoven. Beethoven was really great. I really love Gluck, because he’s a Bavarian composer.
Guy Windsor
Why is that? You’re Bavarian yourself, right?
Sarina Wagner
Yes, I’m a Bavarian. Gluck, sometimes when I was in my singing lessons in university, I have a big favourite, or I’m really looking for the Baroque time all of my life. And I was going to my singing professor. And I was telling her that I want to sing some Baroque things. And I said, I want to sing something from Gluck. Because I think Gluck and me, we are really good friends, because he’s also from Bavaria. And he came to Vienna, and he had a big career in Vienna, which is what I want to do. This is why I think I like Gluck so much.
Guy Windsor
So you’re modelling your career on his?
Sarina Wagner
No, but his music is really great. I mean, I like his Orfeo ed Euridice. It’s a really nice opera. And he’s really doing good. So not only about the history of Gluck, but it is a kind of special connection.
Guy Windsor
I’m guessing that again, most of the listeners have probably never heard Gluck, or heard of him. Could you send me a link to something I could put in the show notes. So people who want to go, “What is she talking about?” can just go to the show notes and press play.
Sarina Wagner
I will send you I will send you a link.
Guy Windsor
So you’re there in Vienna. How did you get into historical martial arts?
Sarina Wagner
One fine day. No. I was all the time interested in fencing. And I wanted to do fencing when I was a teenager. But in my home city in Bavaria, yeah, there was a sport fencing club. But to be honest, there was no time for me to enter this, because I was dancing, I was singing, I was riding and all these things and school, sometimes, yeah, is a kind of thing. So there was no time for me to start fencing. But when I came to Vienna, I was starting my university. And this is why I also wanted to study at this university, because we have one professor who is doing stage combat, but with a big focus on fencing. Not like the typical theatre fencing, really technical, good stage fencing. So he was showing us a lot of technique. And he was explaining this is the source where I’m taking this from and all this, so I had a feeling. And after one year, I was thinking, okay, Sarina, now you’re in the biggest city, you can imagine now, there must be a possibility where you can do the fencing you want to do. And I started research on the internet and was finding several clubs. We have a lot in Vienna. And I was deciding that I wanted to do the rapier, and I wanted to do it in the Italian style.
Guy Windsor
Well, I mean, what other style is there? Really?
Sarina Wagner
Just in the description and a little bit of videos because I was finding Klingenspiel. And they had kind of little videos. And I was like, okay, this, this looks interesting. I want to try that. And if I like it, I will stay there. And if I want to try other things, I will try them. But I came to the first lesson. And I loved it. It was great. I was like, oh my gosh, to feel the sword for the first time and then the movements and the mechanics and I was like, okay, okay, I’m into it. I want to do that. And so I started historical fencing Italian in Capoferro, in Klingenspiel.
Guy Windsor
Klingenspiel? That’s the name of the club?
Sarina Wagner
This was the name of the club, yes.
Guy Windsor
What does that mean in English? Spiel is game.
Sarina Wagner
Klingen is the blades. It is the game of the blades.
Guy Windsor
So ‘Blade play’ basically. Good name for a club. So you trained there for a while?
Sarina Wagner
I tried there for a while. Not so regularly to be honest, because in my studies, I had to do a lot of productions. And my job is usually done in the evenings. Most trainings are in the evenings.
Guy Windsor
Running a school, I was working evenings and weekends. And that’s when all the fun stuff happened. That was when I was at the school. Everyone is busy during the day during the week.
Sarina Wagner
Yeah. And for me, I was also busy during the day. When I have productions. It’s taking everything you have. Yeah. And so there was not so much time for the fencing. But my good thing was Covid. During Covid there was more time for that, when it was allowed. It was a shutdown. But when it was getting warmer, and it was allowed to do something outside and to meet two persons.
Guy Windsor
So historical fencing took off faster than the theatre started.
Sarina Wagner
With the theatre I started half a year later. So really hard. But the fencing, we started again in April. I mean, Covid started in February, March. And in the end of April, we were calling and we were saying, “Hey, come on. It’s getting warmer.” So we can go outside, maybe for one hour for a little bit. Training of techniques. Not sparring.
Guy Windsor
Not getting too close. But yeah, outside. And rapier is quite good for keeping people at a distance. It’s a very clear, safe system.
Sarina Wagner
This was really good. And we have been training here in the Türkenschanzpark. This is a park in Vienna where you have a lot of hills, so this was really good training for good lunges. The balance was really great after that, actually.
Guy Windsor
Alright, So, you’ve been studying Capoferro with these guys. But you’ve also sort of drifted away into the heresies of the Iberian.
Sarina Wagner
Yes. I started with this last year. I mean, 2022, we had Rapier Vienna. And Chris Lee-Becker was there. And he was giving us a workshop and showing a little bit of destreza. And I liked it. I really liked it. And I was, during at my home some of the of the exercises he was showing us because I was like, okay, this is interesting for the body mechanics and the movements. So I try this out for myself. And then again, I saw him in Warsaw, for the International Rapier Seminar, where I also was meeting you. And he asked me if I want to assist him in the in his workshop, because this is it was something about combat fencing and the different types of people who fence different things in a tournament. And so this was really good, because I was doing a Capoferro style. And he was doing the Spanish style. And so this was really interesting for us. And we have been speaking. And it was like, also with you. Sometimes the talks during a cup of coffee are the best.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, honestly, at events, generally, I have found I’ve been going to events for over 20 years now. And the class is fun, and interesting, usually. And that the real value of the event normally is the conversations you have between the classes. Because you go to a class, and that gives you a great idea of maybe something he wants to do at home, but you’re not going to become a master fencer by showing up to one class and enjoying it. But making those connections between the classes, chatting to people, all sorts of serendipitous meetings, which can lead to all sorts of other things. I mean, you know, I used to run my school in Helsinki, we’d have an average of about four guest instructors a year. So that a large part of the reason I went to these events was to watch other people’s classes to find people to bring back to Helsinki. And then when you’ve got them staying in your house for a week and teaching for an entire weekend, then you can actually learn something. The classes are really just an excuse for everyone to get together, I think.
Sarina Wagner
Yes, I think that too. I mean, I really like to go to the events because of this. Because I remember, for example, when you and me we were going to the dinner on Saturday. This was amazing, because we were speaking a lot of fantastic and interesting things where there would be not time in a class, for example.
Guy Windsor
If I remember rightly, it was mostly woodwork and flying. Not much to do with swords at all.
Sarina Wagner
Yeah. But this is also like with Chris, for example, because we’ve been standing together for a cup of coffee. And I started to tell him that I do these crazy things about historical dancing, and about footwork, and about body positions and all this. And he’s he was looking at me and he was like, hey, this is really similar to destreza. Are you interested to find out something more? And so we started the project together, the project is called Cuadratura del Circulo.
Guy Windsor
Squaring the circle.
Sarina Wagner
Right. And it’s about we not only want to find out how is fencing working because fencing is a part of a world. And dancing is also a part of a world but back in time, most people have been learning dancing and fencing and horseback riding. So this was the education of a nobleman. And we’re really looking forward to get the connection. And not only to say the focus on fencing, because if you want to do fencing, you need more.
Guy Windsor
Honestly, if all of my students had a background in dance and riding, my job would be 10 times easier. Actually, the reason I invited you on the show is when I saw you in Warsaw, you were showing somebody I think it was a salute. And you did it twice on one side. And both iterations were identical. If you take a video of the two and overlap them, they were identical, and then you did it on the other side, so left-handed, and it was exactly the same, just mirrored, right? Very, very, very few people in the historical fencing world have that level of precision in their feet. I thought, aha! There is something useful here. It’s also true that, as a podcast host, I’m somewhat self-indulgent, I tend to invite people on just because I want to talk to them. Which is fair enough. Or just maybe it’s kind of catch up with a friend, and why not, it’s my show, I can do what I like. But I do try, particularly if I see something that I think is going to be useful to fans as kind of an extra justification for bringing them on. So given your background in in dance, and theatre and music, how relatively recently you’ve come to historical martial arts, you didn’t get that precision training Capoferro, you got that precision training dance. So the question is, what can historical dance teach historical martial artists?
Sarina Wagner
So much. I just think, where I can start, because it’s a lot.
Guy Windsor
Start with the feet.
Sarina Wagner
But yeah, the feet are the best. Yes, we’ll start with the base. You’ll learn so much about the feet, how you use your feet, you don’t only use your heels or your toes, you’d have to use everything what you have in your feet, because the feet are firstly moving you and you have to keep the balance between them. It’s about the centre. You can change your centre, is your centre in your stomach, something in the in the belly? Or is it upper? Is it more in the chest? Is your centre more on your head? So if you play with this centre, and you’ll always be aware, where’s your centre, your feet will follow naturally. Because you’re just moving a centre, not the whole body, the body’s following.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, that’s one of the ways I teach, for example, Capoferro rapier footwork is yeah, you’re not moving the feet. The idea is you move your centre of gravity in a smooth line in one direction or the other. And the feet do what they need to do to make this happen without sacrificing your ability to lunge.
Sarina Wagner
Yes. And this is the first thing. But if you train a lot of dancing, for example, you mostly work with the feet, because if you ever saw ballet, it’s really, really crazy what they do with their feet. And this is only possible if you work with the whole body. If you only think, okay, I have to move my feet. Not possible.
Guy Windsor
In a swordfight there’s no good reason to move your feet unless you’re moving them to move your body.
Sarina Wagner
Yes, it’s only for helping for an action or something. And this is the same in the dancing. You have a goal, and you want to reach the goal. So this is something for example, dancing can learn from fencing, if you would answer in the other direction. You need a goal. I mean, like today, it’s a really sunny day. It’s just to go outside and walk because walking is nice. But mostly you have a goal to do in this walk.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, you walk to a place, usually.
Sarina Wagner
Yes. And this is the same in dancing. I want to do this movement, so I have to move myself. And this is the same in fencing, I want to do a lunge, okay, I have to move my feet.
Guy Windsor
Generally when fencing, you don’t want to do a lunge, you want to hit the opponent. And the best movement to hit them with in that particular moment may be a lunge, in which case you do that. The goal isn’t to do the lunge. The goal is to hit the person. And the trick is to train that the footwork so that you accomplish your goals automatically using correct mechanics.
Sarina Wagner
And it’s also sometimes when I think in my feet for example, it’s really good if you feel the floor, so you feel but it’s not like heavy steps. It must be really easy. So you can be really fast changing your positions. So you’re not steady in one position or one footwork and just flowy and floaty.
Guy Windsor
As Saviolo says, do not stand as some do, as if nailed to the place.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so back to historical dance and its relationship to fencing.
Sarina Wagner
Yes. So, for me, the interesting thing is, and this is if it’s doing Capoferro if it is doing destreza, or is this the only style I know, a little bit, I mean, I was never doing sabre fencing, so I can only talk about my experience in this. But it’s the movement of the whole body. And it’s music. There’s every time music, so it’s the rhythm. And you have beats, like if we’re speaking, for example, or singing, we have phrases. In dancing, you have also phrases like eight bars, for example. And then it’s repeated, or there’s a new part. This is the same in in fencing, you have the beats, the tempo, and you have the rhythm. So you have to see what is the rhythm my opponent is giving me and what is my reaction to that? So it’s the same, like, for example, I love tango. I mean, this is not historic dancing.
Guy Windsor
It is over 100 years old.
Sarina Wagner
Okay, we’ll call this also historical. I love to dance tango, because if you have a really good tango partner, and I have and I’m really thankful for that. You never know who’s the leading part. Because who’s leading? It’s a kind of fight but it’s a fight together. It’s your fight together. But also the music is leading sometimes. And sometimes the lady is leading, sometimes the man is leading. If somebody is watching a couple who are dancing tango, they will never know who is leader. This is not who’s in charge. Because in waltz, for example, this is really clear the man has to do the steps and the lady has to follow. This is the same for me in fencing because, one is more dominant part and the other one has to react, but it can turn over in one second.
Guy Windsor
One thing we do in fencing is we establish a rhythm and then deliberately break it to trick the person into thinking the rhythm is continuing.
Sarina Wagner
This is the interesting part also in dancing. This is why we have for example, in music we have these special things like accelerando, or ritandando because it’s breaking the tempo. And this is why you can say, oh, this is a nice music. I like how they play or how they sing. Because they do phrases. They do some musically things in this. And it’s not like it is done on the metronome. Like if it will be done in the computer.
Guy Windsor
They did this study on drummers and computers, and you know how you’ve got auto tune for singers, they have a thing for drummers that can kind of tidy up their beats for them. And they did this experiment where they took a really famous drummer, and one of his solos, and then they kind of corrected it. And it just sounded dead. It was useless. It was rubbish.
Sarina Wagner
And this is the interesting thing I was reading two days ago that somebody was writing that there was a study or something. There will never be the point where live music will die. Because this will never happen. Because there’s so many differences when you listen to live music in your emotional things, what computer music never can reach.
Guy Windsor
The first music people ever hear, usually, is a parent singing to children. I don’t sing at all, except when my children were little, I sang to them all the time. It’s fundamental and natural, and it’s just a natural way of communicating. And it’s too fundamentally human forever to go away.
Sarina Wagner
I mean, also speaking is music. Because if you speak the words, you have a kind of melody in the words. But because if you would read like paper, it would be sounding like paper.
Guy Windsor
Which is why AI narration is dreadful. It’s perfectly all right. For some, if you just want the information, and you can’t be bothered to read it and you want to get it in through your ears instead, then it’s fine. To have a story read to you even the best AI narration these days is terrible. Just sounds wrong.
Sarina Wagner
It does. Totally. And this is why I really like the combination of fencing and dancing, because I mean, in the end, somebody will die. But the way till then, it’s a kind of dance.
Guy Windsor
Many moons ago, about 20 years ago, when I was single, I went to a tango class, because I thought I would meet girls there. And I didn’t, they were all over 50. And I was like, 27, or something. So it wasn’t going to work. But the tango was great. And I stuck around for the tango. And the breakthrough moment for me, in my second class, was when I realised that the person that I was dancing with was actually cooperative. And I didn’t have to sweep them into a dip, I could just indicate that a dip was required. And they would do it. Okay, so this is much more like riding a horse than it is like wrestling. No one had explained it to me. All of my previous experience in that sort of like, you’re with a person in a class in a physical situation, had all been martial arts before then. And so it took a bit of a brain switch to get me into, oh, right, she’ll cooperate. If I want to turn around or do the spin or whatever, I just give the signal and she does it? Wow. It’s amazing.
Sarina Wagner
Yeah. But this is the fun part about dancing, and if you have a good band, for example, a live music band, a tango band, for example. They see this, and they will immediately change the music. And this is also like, if we will talk about the historical dancing back in time, like in the Renaissance. It’s quite the same because the music sometimes in the beginning, was following the dancers. Now we’re at the point where the dancers are following the music because we have CD recordings.
Guy Windsor
I hadn’t thought of that. So I guess also, if you think about it, in terms of status, you have nobleman and noblewomen dancing, and you have commoners and peasants playing the musical instruments, most of the time. They’re professionals. They’re not nobility. And so of course, it’s the noble people in charge. I never thought of that.
Sarina Wagner
And some days ago, I was reading kind of a diary of a man who was living in a time of Mozart. And he was saying about the length of the dances. He was saying, oh this was a quite short dance, it was only about 20 minutes.
Guy Windsor
That’s a very long track, if you think of it as a track. But it’s not a track, it’s a dance.
Sarina Wagner
It’s really different. Last week, I was giving a class for historical dance. And I had the great honour to have live music. I had a pianist who was playing the music. And this was amazing. Because in this moment, she was seeing what I was teaching, and she was seeing if the people are getting it or not, and she can take the tempo to what I’m talking now. And if she’s seeing, okay, they are getting better so I can do it faster. And this was so fantastic. And she was seeing okay, they know it now a bit better, okay, we will do a turn more, and we will join it to more. So this is how it’s getting to 20 minutes.
Guy Windsor
Because why would you stop?
Sarina Wagner
Yeah, because if it’s fun.
Guy Windsor
You do sometimes see that in rock concerts, for example, where the crowd is totally into what’s going on. And they take a song on the album that is like three and a half minutes. And they do like a nine-minute version of it. Just spontaneously in the moment, because the crowd isn’t to it. So why would you? Why would you stop?
Sarina Wagner
And I mean, this was also the point where people come together, we they had no radio, they had no Spotify or YouTube or something like that, TV or any of that stuff. So the only thing was coming together and someone who was playing. If we talk about the Baroque time playing the harpsichord, someone who was playing the violin, and somebody was playing a flute, and then you were like, okay, we are a band now. So let’s play together. Let’s do something. And then there are, I don’t know, maybe four people and say, oh, yeah, okay, we can dance to this. We do this now. And so this is how a party is starting, you know?
Guy Windsor
Yeah. You do see that in pubs these days. Certainly in Britain. If you go to the right pub, they have people just rock up with instruments, and they start just doing stuff together.
Sarina Wagner
Yes, and then you started dancing. I mean, it’s a different dancing now. But it’s the same idea.
Guy Windsor
All right. So most people listening are not historical dancers. They are going to be historical martial artists, primarily, I would imagine. I’ve never done a survey of the listeners and there’s no way to do it actually. The podcast the goes out into the world, but I don’t get to see who downloads it.
Sarina Wagner
You have to do a quiz, Guy. We have to do it. Are you doing martial arts? Yes. No. What are you doing? You really want to do that?
Guy Windsor
We could, but honestly, I don’t think it really matters. People are listening and enjoy it, that’s fine. But so where would you send people who don’t live in Vienna to get an idea as to maybe how they could start looking at historical dance, how they could take up historical dance, what kind of resources are there available people who maybe want to do it at home? Any ideas?
Sarina Wagner
Let me think.
Guy Windsor
Obviously, move to Vienna as option one.
Sarina Wagner
I mean, this is option one. Option two is invite me to a workshop.
Guy Windsor
Nicely done. Hire Sarina to do a historical dance workshop for you. Absolutely. And if you do, let me know and I might come if I can.
Sarina Wagner
I was telling you we have a nice airport.
Guy Windsor
Do we have books?
Sarina Wagner
There are several books. For example, I can show you okay, this is this is what I’m reading the most in the moment. It’s a Courtly Dance of the Renaissance of Fabritio Caroso.
Guy Windsor
Fabritio Caroso wrote it, it is called Courtly Dance of the Renaissance.
Sarina Wagner
I really like it. It’s in English. So it’s about the book of Nobiltà di Dame. This is original book of 1600. I really like it because it’s kind of summary of the dances of the Renaissance. I really can say YouTube is a good friend too. This was how I started with the historical dance when I was 13 years old.
Guy Windsor
I’m sure existed when you were 13? How old are you now?
Sarina Wagner
29
Guy Windsor
Still a child. I was in my 30s when YouTube came out.
Sarina Wagner
So yeah, I mean, it was the beginning of the YouTube things. So it was really the beginning. But I was interested and I wanted to see and I can’t remember the moment the channel, but I will find out and I will send you. But this was my beginning because they were showing different types of historical dances. And maybe sometimes, if there’s not a possibility to do historical dance, I would recommend everybody should do a dancing class. And if it’s only three lessons, it’s only about to feel how is your body moving when music is playing? And I have to do steps and not improvising.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, some kind of like choreographical dance class.
Sarina Wagner
But also ballroom dances like standard waltz, for example. Because really, the waltz is easy, you have 1 2 3, 1 2 3, it’s not that hard. But you have to move your body in this music. And then you have these tiny little steps in between. And this is why your body is moving around the room. So I would say I would prefer more this first, because you have also a person you can hold on, you will not fall over.
Guy Windsor
And it’s very easy to find a dance studio pretty much everywhere. It doesn’t really matter which dance you start with so long as you are taught it in a way that requires you to actually do it in a particular way, rather than just going to a rave and having a tap and going nuts for a few hours and then going back again.
Sarina Wagner
Because as you said, for example, like the Tango is also historical dance. Waltz, also. We are already into this. So I would start with this. Because if you start with ballet…
Guy Windsor
Don’t start with ballet, unless you’re six years old.
Sarina Wagner
But I mean, it would be good if everybody would do a little bit of ballet.
Guy Windsor
Maybe.
Sarina Wagner
Because it’s good for your body positions.
Guy Windsor
It’s very hard.
Sarina Wagner
Yeah, it is. It is, but fencing is also really hard.
Guy Windsor
This is true. And again, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for people to do a few years of ballet to augment their historical fencing. Absolutely. It would do their turnout wonders, and they’d actually be able to hold a proper Capoferro a guard position. Absolutely. But I think if somebody listening to this goes, All right. Yeah, I’ll do it. And then they start with ballet they’re probably going to hurt themselves.
Sarina Wagner
If they have not a good teacher, yes.
Guy Windsor
Best to ease people into these things.
Sarina Wagner
This is why I would say like, for me, really, when somebody is saying, okay, for example, they want to go to a ball here in Vienna, for example, in the palace or something, I would say, Okay, we will do Waltz, because this is the most easiest dance, and this is the most fun when you can do it.
Guy Windsor
So it’s a nice sort of entry level drug.
Sarina Wagner
Yes. And mostly I say to them, drink two beers, and then we start with the dancing.
Guy Windsor
Okay. That’s a very German approach. Yes.
Sarina Wagner
I mean, you can also take wine if you want to. I don’t care about the drinks. But it’s mostly that the people that have kind of fear when it’s about dancing.
Guy Windsor
I think they’re frightened of looking stupid and being judged for it.
Sarina Wagner
But when there’s a person who’s judging this person should do it better.
Guy Windsor
We see the same thing with people start the historical martial arts in a beginners’ class or whatever. And a common fear for people beginning is they know they don’t know this. They know they’re going to screw it up in the beginning, they know they’re going to make lots of mistakes, and they’re frightened of being judged for the mistakes. And the thing is, the sort of person who would look at a beginner struggling along, doing their best and go you’re fucking crap at that. You’d have to be just such a knob head to think that way. They’re working really hard. That’s cool.
Sarina Wagner
They didn’t remember you started also some days ago. So we all have been at this stage. So this is the same in dancing and I think some people are afraid or have this fear in their head, that they look stupid, or they can’t manage it because they say no, I don’t feel the rhythm or something. And then I look them how they’re listening to, I don’t know, a rock song or something, and I see how they’re vibing to the song. I was like, hey, you feel the rhythm, you feel the beat. This is kind of the same if you’re listening to classical music, or to dancing music. And, for example, Baroque music is really easy to hear the beat. Because it’s really clear. It’s not like in the 19th century, where you have the big orchestra and all this.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, so it’s a bit more like the beat is sort of obscured by the sound.
Sarina Wagner
Yeah. Sometimes.
Guy Windsor
All right. So any old dance will do for our historical fencers. Understood. And I have met quite a few people who do both, like, tango and historical fencing or ballroom dancing and historical fencing or whatever. They always say that the one complements the other.
Sarina Wagner
Yes, yes. And I mean, sometimes I do it when I do my trainings, for example, not historical dance, but also fencing. If I’m alone, I mostly put on some music, because the music is giving me some feeling. And I tried to find out in the rhythm of the music, what I can do – technical things, and I play around.
Guy Windsor
I do the same.
Sarina Wagner
Yeah, this is helping people a lot. I mean, a lot of people are listening to music when they do their workout in the gym. So why not do it in fencing?
Guy Windsor
Yeah. I wouldn’t want the music on when I’m actually fencing a person. Because then the rhythm of the music can interfere with the rhythm that you’re trying to create inside the other person. It changes things a bit. But certainly, when doing solo training, I always have music.
Sarina Wagner
I mean, yes, in a sparring I wouldn’t do too. But I mean, in training, when you do some technical stuff, or you just want to kick off every thought you have in your head. Music is really helpful for that.
Guy Windsor
So what is the best track for that?
Sarina Wagner
Every track of Lully. Every opera.
Guy Windsor
All right, send me a couple of recommendations. I’ll put links in the show notes.
Sarina Wagner
I will do. Because I mean, this is the interesting part. Why you asked me, for example, why I like Lully so much. He’s the man who was turning over the opera in a new style. Because in this time, it was popular to listen in the Italian style, and Lully is obviously an Italian who came to France. But as we all know, or probably not know, Louis XIV was really attracted to dance. So Lully had to do some dancing music for him. And so he was adding dance music, ballet music, into the operas. So you have the classical style of opera, you have the recitatives, you have the aria, but you also have several parts of dancing in the opera. And this is why you have a lot of instrumental tracks in an opera from Lully.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so he sort of pioneered the inclusion of dance in opera, I did not know that.
Sarina Wagner
This is why we are speaking here.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so yeah, send us a recommendation. I’ll stick it in the show notes so people can do their training to Lully if they wish.
Sarina Wagner
I will send you all of my playlists.
Guy Windsor
All right, do that perfect. Yeah, okay. Now, in the course of doing some preparation for this interview, I came across Don Herkules. Who or what is Don Herkules?
Sarina Wagner
He’s sitting next to me. He’s sitting there on my couch. He’s watching me now. He’s my best friend. He’s my best friend by heart. Don Herkules? You never saw Don Herkules? Wait one second. I have to show him, I have to introduce you. Give me one second.
Guy Windsor
I have met Don Herkules.
Sarina Wagner
This is Don Herkules. He’s like, my, my best friend, my travel buddy.
Guy Windsor
And for the listeners, he is actually a teddy bear. We will put a photograph of Don Herkules in the show notes so that people can absorb his magnificence.
Sarina Wagner
He’s not only a teddy bear, he has character. He’s alive. No, Don Herkules was a president of a friend of mine. We had been together to the museum in Vienna, there was an exhibition called Iron Man. They were showing several armouries of Vienna. And we went outside of the museum. And then I was seeing this teddy bear. And I was laughing a lot. Because I was saying, like, no, they didn’t really do that. They were not putting armour on this teddy bear. And I turned around and was forgetting this. And later, we came out of the museum, and he was giving me this, as a present. So Don Herkules, this is why his name is Don Herkules. Because it’s the Herkules armoury.
Guy Windsor
I wouldn’t normally invite guests to display their soft toys on the show. But Don Herkules is actually resplendent in magnificent armour.
Sarina Wagner
And we liked it because we were like saying, this is a teddy bear with armour. So he needs also a sword, and he has to go to the events.
Guy Windsor
And learn how to use the sword.
Sarina Wagner
He has my dagger. So for him, it’s a longsword, man, you know. So this is how it started with Don Herkules. The first event was Rapier Vienna, and I was sitting with him on the side, and he was only holding my dagger. So he hadn’t to do much. It was only like sitting and holding my dagger. And the people were walking around, and people were like, oh, my gosh, this is a bear in armour with a dagger in their head. And so this is how it started. And I take him to all of the events. And last time it was an event in Vienna. And some people came to me and were like, where is Don Herkules? Why is he not here? And I was like, yeah, it’s the dinner. So he’s not here. At the dinners he is not there. No. So this is why it started.
Guy Windsor
Okay. Yeah, we’ll need a photograph of him with his dagger for the show notes. Excellent. All right. I have some questions that I asked all my guests, most of them. And the first is what is the best idea you haven’t acted on yet?
Sarina Wagner
I’m planning now several things. And I hope I will have the time to do it. Of course, I want to read all the books I can find first, but I want to find the connection for specifically descriptions. Like, for example, I was finding in the dancing books, the “reference”. And it’s also like in some Spanish books, in fencing books, it’s “referencia”. I want to find the connection. They have one word, but its meaning something different. Maybe I can find out if there’s a combination, or is there one thing which combines this but really what I want to do is I want that the people have more the feeling and this is also why I’m now a member of academia, because it’s what the academia is thinking of is like, we have to find the truth.
Guy Windsor
A member of which academia?
Sarina Wagner
and Academia da Espada, the club of Ton Puey in Coruña, and they are not only interested in the fencing, they’re interested in in the cultural aspects and also the time and of the world. And not only in one fencing book, and I want to make this world bigger. There are so many people who are really, really good in their stuff. But nobody knows of them. And I want to get them together. So we have a big combination of every specific art.
Guy Windsor
I’m not seeing the project clear in my head. Because it seems like there’s at least two or three things going on there. Like, one is, like creating an academic resource, like a book, or a dictionary or something like that, where you take words which exist in, for example, music and fencing, such as, for instance, tempo, or largo, or, you know, there are words which appear in both, and analysing the meanings in those different domains and seeing how they overlap. So that’s like, one bit of it, and the other bit of it was getting people who are well versed in aspects of things that relate, sort of like the words. So like finding someone from historical dance, someone from historical music, someone who has studied the Military History of the time, someone who studied the fashion history of the time, how the clothes are made, that kind of thing, like social history and anthropological studies of these periods and cultures from which these arts are coming to get a more rounded picture of the art itself.
Sarina Wagner
Yes.
Guy Windsor
Is that two things? Or is that one thing?
Sarina Wagner
Now is it sounds like two things? Yes. But in the perfect world it would be one. If you have one book where everything is getting together, for example.
Guy Windsor
Is a book the right thing for that? I mean, because one of them sounds like a conference where you’ve got lots of different experts all together. And the other one sounds like a reference book where you can look up a term that you found in a historical fencing book and see how it is used elsewhere.
Sarina Wagner
I mean, the second one would suit me better. Because I think this is much easier to use than only to talk about theatrical stuff. But what I think about is, yes, it’s interesting for people who are already doing historical dance or historic fencing, but I think there are much more people who could be also interested in that. So also to increase or to show them to other people. Because for example, if I tell people I do historical dance, they don’t have an idea of what I’m doing. Or if I’m saying yes, I’m fencing, they only think in, in Olympic sport fencing. So I wish, if I have a wish, I want a lot of people to know of that. And that they can say, okay, I learn also something for me. And that doesn’t mean that they have to do to train this, but also only to know about that, and maybe to learn something for their daily life.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so I tend to think in terms of products. This idea is a book, this idea is an online course, this idea is an event, this idea is a kind of tournament, I tend to think in those terms. Not least because I make my living from products. So what sort of product, just to put into terms that I can get my head around. What sort of products are we talking about? What is the idea to do? What was the thing you want to create?
Sarina Wagner
A combination of online course, and events. In your terms. I don’t know if it’s still time for books. Because I think dancing. Look, I was spending a lot of time to read these books, and to understand what they want to tell, and they have a special type of writing. So you have to learn this special writing to understand what they say, but a video or a course you can attend. And then you see.
Guy Windsor
Like most people can’t read music. Whereas, if you can’t read music, if you play it, they can hear the tune. So it makes perfect sense that you would present the dancing side of things as a vehicle. So are you thinking of actually creating an online course something along the lines of, hey, here’s what I think. Here’s not what I think you should do. Here’s a product that I would like to see. Put it in those terms, a product I would like to see would be an online course, which is introduction to historical dance for historical fencers.
Sarina Wagner
Yes. And this is a perfect summary for that what I have in my head.
Guy Windsor
Okay. Well, why don’t you do it then?
Sarina Wagner
Because I don’t have time. Anton Bruckner is calling me at the moment.
Guy Windsor
You don’t like Anton Bruckner very much.
Sarina Wagner
Yeah, but, I mean, he was a composer and I should honour him. I didn’t say that I don’t like him. I only said that he was not my favourite composer. No, but after his anniversary, there is time for other projects. So this is what I’m doing. I mean, I don’t sleep so much when I’m planning, but okay. It needs time.
Guy Windsor
It needs time, it needs planning. Depending on how you approach it, you either start by planning the whole thing out, and then shooting the video and recording the music and all that sort of thing. Or it can be a bit more organic, where you have an idea of something that should be in it and create that. And that will give you an idea of what else needs to be in it. And so you go and create that. So it doesn’t have to be get the whole thing planned out perfectly.
Sarina Wagner
No, no, it’s not, but at the moment, it’s like, I don’t know, I simply don’t know when. I’m really happy that people are interested in the historical dance. And I’m really happy that I’m giving the courses and that I’m invited to giving courses, because I have the feeling that people like it. And they didn’t know before that they could like dancing. And so this is this is what I’m really happy about at the moment, but it’s not so easy to do it now. Next to Bruckner at the moment.
Guy Windsor
Okay, but I mean, nothing worth doing, or very few things that are worth doing are easy in the moment.
Sarina Wagner
I’m an actress, firstly. I’m a singer. So I have to do my concerts. But I’m also a teacher. So I’m giving singing lessons and all this. Everything needs time.
Guy Windsor
Yeah. Okay. So I think the people listening, a certain subsection of them, like me, this sounds like a great course. I’d like to go buy that. So I think it’s definitely worth doing.
Sarina Wagner
And really, I have it high on my to do list, it is really high. It is really. To be honest, I was speaking with my mother two days ago. I was like, okay, we have to start this and this and this and this, and then I will do it. So it’s already in the planning, in the doing, because it’s not only an idea.
Guy Windsor
Well, I’m very glad to hear it. I’ve made loads of online courses. So if you need any help in the technical side of things, or how to launch it, whatever? Absolutely. And of course, the moment it is actually available, you come back on the show to tell everybody about it.
Sarina Wagner
So then it’s like, hey, everybody has to buy my course. Absolutely. You have to invite me for workshops.
Guy Windsor
Well, here’s the funny thing. I bet you will find this. Once there’s a product, like a course or a book or whatever out. People find it. When they find it, they like it. And when they like it, they go, you know, what, wouldn’t it be great if? They’re more likely to book you for seminars, it would seem like they’ve already got the information in the course so they don’t need you. But actually, the courses and the books, if they’re good, are really effective calling cards for getting like paid seminars and things.
Sarina Wagner
Yes. I mean, you see me I’m really, really motivated. And I really want to do it, I come back from every event and I was like, I have to do it.
Guy Windsor
I have another thought for you. As an actress and a singer. And also as a teacher, you’re dependent on your health. Yes, an accident or a bad cold or whatever can really mess things up, which can massively mess up your income streams. Something like an online course. People can buy it while you’re asleep. People can buy it while you’ve taken a month off to go and train with a particular singing teacher and you just don’t want to be bothered with any paid work at the time. Because you’re busy learning this amazing singing teacher, people will still be buying the course. So having products like that, that people can buy that do not depend on you showing up in person are absolute game changers when it comes to developing your own art, and also as a safety net if you get sick.
Sarina Wagner
Yeah, this is really good. I will come back to that.
Guy Windsor
Okay. All right. I will be very, very pleased to see you actually do this. Because, honestly, there’s also to my mind, there’s an ethical component to it. Because I mean, these days, most of my income comes from books and courses. 90% of it. And because of that, and that’s enough to live on and feed the kids or wherever, more money would always be welcomed. But it means that no one can put pressure on me to do something I don’t want to do in this regard. No one can fire me. People buy the books, they can stop buying the books, they can stop buying the courses. So they can fire me one at a time. But because there are hundreds of people buying the books and the courses. They can only fire me one at a time. So it’s relatively secure, it’s relatively stable. It’s not like having one employer who can decide that the economy is changing and so you’re fired today. And particularly for like actors. I mean, how many times you’re halfway through a rehearsal run, somebody gets fired? That happens all the time. So what was going to be three months or six months of income suddenly just disappears? So splitting up that so that instead of having all of your money coming from one place but having it coming from lots and lots of different people, it’s much more secure. I could go on and on and on and on about this. Another time. I don’t want to put any pressure on you. All right. Okay. My last question. Somebody gives you a million euros or some imaginary large sum of money to spend improving historical martial arts worldwide? Or historical dance? Either one. How would you spend it other than using the money to make an incredibly beautifully produced online course? Other than that, how would you spend the money?
Sarina Wagner
So not for me, not for my courses? Not for my life? I will take it and I would make holidays in the Bahamas. No, no, no. Really, as we were talking about, we have been meeting on an event. I think the events are the places where you have to be, and there should be more because we can learn so much from every person we meet in life. And there should be the possibility that everybody can go to this. So it’s not like they have to fly around the world to be one person for one course, for example. So if there’s really not one place, but if there are several places where you can meet often, and you can really keep in touch. I mean, the internet is helping a lot. But sometimes it’s easier to sit around together and speak about stuff.
Guy Windsor
And swords and dance are always better done in person.
Sarina Wagner
Yes, I was seeing this, because during Covid, for example, we had also ballet classes online. Really, I’m not kidding. And it’s so hard for the teacher also for us as students to correct.
Guy Windsor
I ran classes online during the pandemic, that was hard work.
Sarina Wagner
This is so hard because you’re standing in your tiny kitchen, for example, because you need a chair where you can say okay, this is my bar I hold on now. And the teacher has to correct using a camera, which is flat of your movements and everything. So if she says Sarina, don’t take your hand too high, it’s only looking from her perspective. Originally, I wouldn’t take the hand too high, you know, so you have to be there. And it’s as we say, with the live music, it’s quite the same. You learn mostly when you are face to face and we speak together.
Guy Windsor
It’s easier.
Sarina Wagner
Because you have the other senses too it’s not only listening.
Guy Windsor
That was the really hard thing about doing a group class online on Zoom. Normally, whatever student you’re looking at starts to fuck up, that’s normal. So the student you’re looking at is not the student you’re paying attention to. And so you’re using your peripheral vision to see how people are moving. And most importantly, you can hear the level of activity in the class. And when the feet get quieter, and the voices get louder, you know something’s gone wrong. Or when the, the clash of blades gets quieter, but the talking gets louder. And that can just tell you when to move them on, whether it’s, this was a bit too hard so they need something a bit easier, or whether this was a bit too easy, they need to be moved on to the next thing. You get all of that just from the sound of the class. And it’s so easy and instinctive and automatic. Takes almost no energy. But figuring that out by watching these little video screens. Ah, I used to finish a 90-minute class dead. Like I just had to go and lie down. Because I was just absolutely shattered.
Sarina Wagner
It was because we were doing the same program like we would do in university, but online. It was so hard every day starting at eight in the morning or something. And till six o’clock in the night. You’re getting crazy.
Guy Windsor
It’s horrible. So you’d use that money to create these events. Spaces for events to occur.
Sarina Wagner
So that we really have places where we can meet up and that everybody can attend so that we not only say okay, it’s only in Germany, for example, only in France. So really, that everybody can travel around.
Guy Windsor
Okay. 20 odd years ago, there were about four events for historical martial arts in the world, in a year. Now, there are usually, on any given weekend in the year, except possibly New Year’s Eve. Pretty much any given weekend, there is an event somewhere. And many weekends, there’s more than one event to the point that nowadays, when I’m planning seminars, the people who are planning the seminar in, wherever it is America or Australia or wherever they have to take into account the local event schedule, so as not to clash. Which simply that wasn’t the case 10 years ago. So now there are lots and lots of events. So what are you going to do differently?
Sarina Wagner
What I want to do is, for example, I understand art, because we are also speaking about martial arts. So for me, fencing is an art. I want that there is a combination of the arts, like this is not only for fencing, it’s also for historical dancing, also for music, also for literature, or paintings or something so that you really create, I mean, it mustn’t be on every weekend, because of course, you need the time to prepare, and to understand what you have been learning on these events. But maybe every three months, for example. So you have four times in a year, a big, not an event, like a conference. So you really are together with a lot of people who have a lot of knowledge, and they have the time to speak about what they found out in the last months. And take this knowledge home and try something new. So we develop together.
Guy Windsor
Yeah. So you’d see these all happening in the same place, or they happen in different places in the world.
Sarina Wagner
I would say different places.
Guy Windsor
Like the spring event is in Vienna, and the summer event is in Chicago and autumn event is in London, and there’s an event maybe in Australia, and yeah, don’t put the Australian event in December. That’s too bloody hot.
Sarina Wagner
It’s too hot. Okay, then we can do it in Vienna, because then it’s really cold.
Guy Windsor
But something like that. So you have a, like a conference circuit. Or a series of events that is designed to bring together the historical arts generally.
Sarina Wagner
Because as I said, and this is this is my thinking, you’re not only studying the fencing, you’re studying the culture behind the fencing. And so you also need time to understand that.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, I mean, it’s historical, and it’s martial and it’s art. And the historical stuff is huge. And I mean, in a narrow sense it’s a historical martial art if what you’re doing, the actions you’re practicing, come from a historical source. But there’s just this gigantic sea of history that you could be dealing with. And then you’ve got the martial stuff, which is, does it actually work? And how do we train it? And then you’ve got the artistry stuff, which is, how is this representing your inner self to the world? If I was a painter, I’d be painting. Or if I was a musician, I’d be playing an instrument. My instrument’s a sword, and I play my instrument when I’m fencing somebody else. There’s a lot there.
Sarina Wagner
Yeah, but my point is, for example, how I work mostly, I’m always looking for inspiration. Because people inspire me a lot, because how they’re thinking or anything, but also when I go to the museum, for example, and watching paintings, or sculptures. This inspires me, because they are telling a history. And this is what we need. We need this inspiration, not only for fencing, we need this in life. And if we want to understand how the people are thinking in this time, why are they fencing like their fencing, what they are writing down, you have to understand all of this background. And so we have to recreate this so that we understand this is not a fantasy world, what we are creating, we have something what was really happening? This is not a fantasy.
Guy Windsor
Yeah. Okay. So you’ll be using the money to create these events.
Sarina Wagner
Yes, and the possibility that there everybody has the chance to come, you know.
Guy Windsor
Okay, so how do you use the money to make sure everyone has a chance to come?
Sarina Wagner
I mean, I’m not a banker or something.
Guy Windsor
Are talking about travel stipends?
Sarina Wagner
Maybe something like this. I mean, the event doesn’t have to be in a palace or something. So it mustn’t be like, “Wow.”
Guy Windsor
It should be affordable.
Sarina Wagner
If there’s somebody interested and they say, okay, I love fencing, and I want to, I want to improve my fencing. And these are the places where I have to go to learn more, and not only in my little space at home, but this person should also have the ability to go there, the possibility to go there.
Guy Windsor
I absolutely agree. And I think it’s a great idea. And if I had the money, I’ll give it to you. The one major hurdle that I see in this sort of multidisciplinary event is that what usually happens 99 times out of 100 is somebody shows up to do fencing, and they just do fencing. Someone shows up because they’re interested in painting, they go to the painting stuff. Someone who is interested in the music goes to the music stuff, and actually getting people to leave their comfortable little silos and start interacting. That’s hard, because going to an event is sort of socially scary. And so you make that easier by just sticking to your lane. And if the whole point of the event is to get people to broaden their lane, or to go and have a play in somebody else’s lane for a bit, how would you approach that aspect of it?
Sarina Wagner
I mean, I don’t want to play kindergarten or something, because I think we’re all adults, and everybody has to do what they want to do. So I’m not forcing anyone. But maybe I would do something like a system where you get a card in the beginning and you say okay, when you go for fencing workshop, you get a point in red or something okay, this is the fencing colour. And you also if you go to the painting, it’s yellow and so for the different disciplines, you have the different colours, but you have the obligation to have one from each colour, and if you’re not, you’re not allowed to come anymore.
Guy Windsor
Here’s a thought. That could be modified to a point where it would start to work. But how about there are no classes that are single topic. So you don’t have historical fencing workshop, you have a historical fencing workshop, run by a dance teacher and a historical fencing teacher that you can look at footwork, how footwork crosses over between Capoferro and Baroque dance. So the Baroque dancers might come and see a bit of fencing and the fencers might come and see a bit of Baroque dancing. And you can sort of move that into all the other areas. So it’s not just like, the painting of the early 17th century, it is how music is represented in paint in this period. So the musicians might be interested in the painting. So if every workshop offered had that kind of multidisciplinary approach that might also help to kind of soften the boundaries between the activities.
Sarina Wagner
Yes, it’s also for example, you have a lot of paintings of fencing scenes. So usually the persons are interested in what is the painting, so you have also the historical background, like about the painter or the technique of the painting, and you are interested, because you look at one noble man on the picture, and you say, oh, this sword is really interesting. What is he doing with the sword? Probably, and this is how you get the attention of a person and you say, okay, now we’re speaking about this special scene on this painting. We’re speaking about the painting itself, and about the fencing.
Guy Windsor
And the big question for most historical fencers would be, like, how accurate a depiction of what they were actually holding, and what they’re actually doing is likely to be and it’s a question that we have to ask ourselves, when we look at the plates in Capoferro, for example. How true to life are they actually? What is following a convention that you may not be aware of that would make perfect sense to somebody who bought the book in 1610 but would not be obvious to someone who’s buying the book in 2010?
Sarina Wagner
This is the funny part for me, because we will never know exactly how it was because we are not people of this time. But to feel like Sherlock Holmes, and to go there and to say, okay, maybe I can find one little piece. And this is giving me a little spy in a door, it is giving me an idea of how it could be where we will never know how it was. We only can say how it could be.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, I mean, if a fencing technique, if it follows the text, and it looks like the pictures. And it makes sense under pressure. It might be right. Yeah, it might be.
Sarina Wagner
It might be. We have a lot of like might and could and should. But this is the only way how we can work? Because if we’re talking about this is how it was. How should we know that? Because I was not there.
Guy Windsor
The people who were there don’t know how it was either. I mean, how many times have people completely misrepresented events that they’ve seen?
Sarina Wagner
Yeah, but I mean, when I’m showing dancing, it’s only like, I think the dancing is working like Sarina of these days knows it. But maybe tomorrow, I will think different. And it would be strange if I would not think different, because this would mean I’m not doing a good work. This would mean I’m not doing good research.
Guy Windsor
Yeah, I mean, up to a point, if your interpretation stays the same for too long, you’re probably stagnant. But I have seen people, and historical martial artists of a certain generation know exactly who I’m talking about. But I won’t say his name, though, who developed a very, very interesting and useful interpretation of a particular manuscript. And he sort of refined it and refined it and refined it and refined it and refined it to the point that it became insanely useless. Because he couldn’t accept that actually, he got it right. Or got it as right as it was ever going to get in this respect. He’s had to keep changing it and ended up making these incredibly tortured analyses of perfectly normal Italian phrases to try and explain how this incredibly complicated and would never ever actually work way of doing a technique actually is following the text because the text doesn’t mean what it says. It means this incredibly abstruse and weird interpretation of what was said. So there’s a balance to be struck between continually re-examining your assumptions. And moving away from problems that have actually been solved.
Sarina Wagner
Yes, I never want to lose the fun part of it, because this has something to do with life. Art has something to do with life. Art is inspired by life. And if, in theatrical things, this is not happening, if I’m sitting here and I would do a little historical dance this is nice for finding out how the figures are working, but this is not really helpful. It’s only helpful if I can adapt this knowledge to the real dancing. And I would find out, for example, we were talking about tango. If I never feel how it is to dance tango, I will never know how I could improve. And if I never start the historical dance with partners, in the beginning, for example, I was thinking “I have to learn my figures, and then it’s the music and I have to do it in this way.” But I’m dancing with a partner and the man also can slightly lead the lady, even if there’s only one single hand and it’s only showing forward. But you feel something. And if you know the background, like touching was not really used in this time, you really pay attention to this, because this was the only moment when I can touch the hand of a man, for example, because I like him. Or I need to because I don’t know the next figure, for example.
Guy Windsor
It just takes a little bit of pressure in the fingers to tell you where to go.
Sarina Wagner
A little bit, yes, because you can lead the lady, yes, she has to go in a kind of turn. You have to do a tour with the hand, so you can slightly put her hand down. And this is why you need more knowledge of the time, because if you know that the lady is wearing a corset, your position is different. So you have to put these puzzles together.
Guy Windsor
It’s analogous to you have this interpretation of how a particular fencing technique works and you try it and your non-cooperative opponent smacks you in the head, you know something has gone wrong.
Sarina Wagner
This is the better thing about fencing, because you know something went wrong because you felt something. This is easier than in dancing. If you do a wrong step, nothing would happen, nobody would judge you. Maybe some would roll their eyes, but you’ll not die.
Guy Windsor
You don’t have that immediate feedback.
Sarina Wagner
So in the dancing it’s more about the lifestyle and the freedom. Dancing has a lot to do with control, but also with freedom. And if I say in fencing, for example, if I have a nice opponent, it’s like the play of blades, the blade play, this is a lot of fun. It’s not so fun if you have one action and then you’re dead. I mean, it’s useful, but.
Guy Windsor
The thing is though, for actually winning swordfights, it is much, much better if no one sees the movement and the opponent just dies. It’s one of the ironies, the best kind of fencing is when there’s the interplay and the back and forth, and eventually there’s some kind of resolution or you split away or whatever. That is the most fun. But it is a terrible way to fight. And again, there is this tension in historical martial arts generally, between fencing and murder. When you are trying to murder somebody, you don’t want the fight to go on for minutes at a time. But if you are displaying your prowess in front of the Duke of Milan, you don’t want to bash the person and they fall down and that’s that. You probably want to put on a display. So this tension, it’s not purely modern, it was there historically as well. It depends on what is the function of this particular fight.
Sarina Wagner
So this is the difference if you see the art or the murder. In dancing it’s the same, because this was how you present yourself in front of society, so if you are a good dancer, maybe you have the better conversations later and maybe also the better bride later.
Guy Windsor
And access to elements of society you didn’t have access to before, and you’re more likely to get hired for this particular job or whatever. Like displays of knightly prowess in the lists.
Sarina Wagner
So this is why you have to train, it’s not only so you can say I’m drunk and I have to dance.
Guy Windsor
This is the modern way.
Sarina Wagner
This is the modern way, but back in time not. Maybe they were drunk because they were not brave enough to dance. But they had to do this because this was a social event. Now all social events are on Facebook or Instagram.
Guy Windsor
Oh no, our social events are theses amazingly well organised historical martial arts and other arts events.
Sarina Wagner
And in the end, you know that on the Saturday we have a big dinner but also with a ball.
Guy Windsor
There has to be a ball, yes. Excellent.
Sarina Wagner
This is the best idea, I think.
Guy Windsor
Yes, fantastic.
Sarina Wagner
What is the goal of everything? We have to find truth for ourselves, I think. What is the truth for us in this fencing? What is the truth in dancing? What is the truth in the art and what does it mean to my personal life?
Guy Windsor
Excellent. Well thank you so much for joining me today, Sarina. It’s been lovely to talk to you.
Sarina Wagner
Thank you very much for the talking, thank you.
