Bonn 2019: Erik Machens to use memory of mum to fuel dance
Emotions will be running high when German Para dancer takes to the floor 15 Nov 2019
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Erik Machens will be battling pain and heartache from the moment he hears the first chords of the music he has chosen to perform to in the men’s freestyle at the 2019 World Para Dance Sport Championships that begins 29 November in Bonn, Germany.
Currently, the local favourite has only to think of his song and the tears start to well up.
“It’s from Meatloaf (singer), I will do anything for love,” Machens explained ahead of the Championships which run until 1 December. “It’s very personal and emotional, I bought the CD when I was a teenager because when I was young my mother had breast cancer and my family crashed a bit, broke apart. My mother died and you can hear… it is very tough for me still.”
The 36-year-old performed brilliantly to the song at June’s Mainhatten Cup in Frankfurt, finishing first after comfortably topping the rankings for technical skill, choreography and difficulty levels. He knows in order to achieve a similar result in Bonn, he will have to show similar internal discipline.
“I have the challenge not to let my feelings grow too big and to put too much energy into my dancing because I am an energetic guy anyway, our coach calls me ‘Energising Bunny’,” he said, laughing.
“I have to control it a little bit. It’s not possible to control every emotion and I don’t want to but I have to focus and bring emotional control to the dancefloor.”
Ready to rock and roll
Machens puts emotion into every sentence let alone into every dance move and after a tough past 12 months, he is certainly fired up to produce his very best in front of a home crowd. The dancer had to overcome a succession of personal and professional difficulties in 2018, all of which culminated in a nasty illness that forced him to miss that year’s European Championships in Lomianki, Poland. Thankfully, all that is behind him now.
“This year is a very stressful year too, but not bad but good stress,” he said. “At the moment I feel like I am like a locomotive. From the very early morning to the late evening I am working hard, practising three-five hours per day.
“I have a new coach (one of several I work with) who has given me so many ideas and I am hungry, burning to bring this inspiration to the floor.”
Love at first sight
Right from the beginning, it has been all about love for Machens. As a kid in a wheelchair, he had his whole perspective turned upside down on his first visit to a dancefloor.
“When I was a teenager, I never thought about doing dance sport or even dancing, and then two charming ladies put me on the floor with the words ‘do you like watching people dance?’,” he explained, unable to keep the smile out of his voice.
“This totally changed my life. I found a discotheque, I made it my place. Every weekend I went and had a party there.”
Very little, emotionally-speaking, has changed in the years since.
“Every time I go on the dance floor, whether I am going to the discotheque or onto an international dance floor it is nearly, not exactly but nearly the same feeling. I am just going out there and loving dancing to communicate with the audience,” he said.
“Dance sport is a language and I love this language because it is international. Everybody can understand it. That’s why I love it.”
This month’s World Championships mark 10 years in the sport for Machens and, after solo silvers at both the 2015 and 2017 World Championship editions and two bronzes in 2010 when he danced with a partner, he is ready for an upgrade.
Not that the colour of any medal will ever affect his desire to get out there and do his stuff.
“Sometimes during this very stressful final period of training I think ‘OK, when I win this gold medal I am cancelling my dance sport career’,” he laughed. “But many people will ask me after this competition, and I am sure I will deny these thoughts and will say of course, I will dance and dance and dance, until I die on the floor.”
