Youth these days mostly evokes the thought of danger. Society suffers from a distorted ideal image that leaves real children little room to play. Eventually, therefore, they rebel in Enfant. But until then, the very young performers still mainly have the role of adjunct or capstone, complement or extension of the nine adult dancers. The new...
Tight-lipped. Freshly cut. And with a beatific, apt voice, The Speaker - played by director Sulayman Al-Bassam - looks like a slick public relations man. Or better: a civilised Arab dictator with an Oxford degree. One of those who is supported by the West and deeply hated by his own people. He steps behind a lectern and narrates. Once upon a time,...
In his Requiem for tenor, narrator and ensemble, Micha Hamel makes the most of the space of Amsterdam's De Duif church. Musicians play on the altar, from the balconies, mingle among the audience and push out a piano. - But what does Hamel really want to say? In front of a sold-out house, Micha Hamel's Requiem premiered last night. He ...
Antony Hegarty gives away the layered and emotionally charged show Cut the World with his pianist and the Metropole Orchestra. He shows that it need not be an issue to present more of the same. Meanwhile, the audience imagines itself in the fairytale forest, eating out of his hand. It is not the first time the androgynous child-man Antony has...
They can do quite a bit, at Fitzroy. Always fun to attend presentations, as the Amsterdam-based marketing agency showed at the Performing Arts Congress on 29 and 30 May 2012.
At two-thirds, the lump shoots in to not go out until the end. It happens at every Alain Platèl performance. Heartfelt sobs from the audience, lots of swallowing around you and the inevitable tears welling up like a natural disaster. To call the Flemish choreographer's work predictable because of this is going too far. What he and his company Les...
In about a year's time, the Strut choir and the Irish folk band The Henry Girls on one stage. Artistic director Donna Risa: "I expect a wonderful interplay.''
For the second time during Springdance, artists and audience share the stage of Utrecht's Stadsschouwburg. REDUX ORCHESTRA, conducted by composer Ari Benjamin Meyers, plays his Symphony X, a pulsating, up-beat (120 p/m) minimal work. Spectators, conductor and musicians - can you just call them musicians? - merge into one big, extremely subtle, participatory choreography of...
Springdance closes with a remarkable dance concert on 28 April. Visual artist and choreographer Tino Sehgal created a movement piece to music by composer Ari Benjamin Meyers, which will be performed among the listening audience. Tino Sehgal's work is a well-kept secret. In any case, hardly any recordings of it are known. During the interview, Meyers says the following about it
Kat Válastur claimed that it is almost impossible to describe the dynamics of her performance with words. She is right. It is rare skill how with only two dancers in one place, so much can be depicted and the audience is sucked into a maelstrom. In the small hall of Theatre Kikker, mechanical thuds sound and two giants appear in the middle of the stage. They turn out to be dancers:...
Every festival begs for volunteers, and in the early days of Springdance, there were not even any paid staff at all. That's also saying something. As Springdance merges with Festival aan de Werf after 30 years, the theme of this latest edition is 'scupltured bodies & body sculptures'. At SYLPHIDES, this aptly applies. "How people move doesn't interest me, I want...
"We've been working on some songs and dances," says visual artist Martin Creed, assisted by his five-piece band and five ballet dancers. In his fragmentary performance, Creed explores the relationships between the five basic positions from classical ballet, the bouncy off-beat rhythms of his post-rock band, and Creed's own video art. This is his first choreography and it shows. "Works No....
A little tent allowed to play for sea anemone on dry land, its four legs perky in the air. Actors having a cup of tea and a game of cards. It all looks very innocent. What begins as a wonderful picture novel gradually grows into a rebus of considerable length. "My private Himalaya" is akin to a walking exhibition, with a wind machine....
You have those performances that remarkably simply and unobtrusively drag you into a world completely your own. Performances in which everything is recognisable. Words, movement, scenery. Everything equally familiar and homely. But then there is a tap against it. Patterns blur. Language is at odds. Everything rattles and drifts. And yet it makes sense. To your eyes and ears...
What is gravity? What is air? What is breath? In Untried Untested by choreographer Kate McIntosh, four women explore the magical workings of nature using simple means. They are armed with dozens of black balloons, a tangle of ship's rope, a handful of feathers, a few bags of potatoes, wind machines and fluorescent lights, a playground made of wrapping paper. And their own bodies. Unfortunately, that wonder remains...
No festival without a debate, and on Sunday 22 April it was. In English and led by Dodo reporter Daniel Bertina, it was about festival themes and marketing, and audiences. We have listed some highlights for you.
Europe in Motion is a travelling talent development programme and acts as a battleground and meeting place for young choreographers. What is urgent in dance is discussed for a week to encourage dance makers in their artistic development. This second edition, with partners Dance4 (Nottingham), iDans (Istanbul) and Imagetanz (Vienna), ends in Utrecht. Springdance previously featured dance from high-tech laboratories in Israel (Batsheva Dance...
Maniacally, she gallops across the stage, stomping like Michael Flatley on crack. Gravely thin and bare-chested, Marlene Monteiro Freitas tap-dances around. She squeezes her tits and pulls handfuls of (fake) hair from her scalp. "My name is Mimosa Ferrara," she panted menacingly, as her black leggings sag off her ass and linger just above the pubic area....
With two performances, "The Toxic Exotic Disappearance Act" and "House", Batsheva Dance Company shows impressive, sublime dance mastery and fresh dynamics. But also restlessness, searching and confusion. The era of happy, harmonious dance is over. A lecture on dance, prior to the performance, emphasises that contemporary dance need not compulsively oppose other dance movements. This artistic...
As a performer, Ivo Dimchev is so fast and ferocious in his shifts between blunt bravado, childish fun, erotic impertinence and cutting loneliness that as a spectator, you normally can't get between them. Once Dimchev has his audience in his clutches, they can only follow him in bewilderment. "I-on" is again a seemingly loose collection of actions. Everything takes place around a...
It may be a crisis and the cultural winds may also be blowing from the wrong right corner, but that doesn't stop The Dodo from flying. The festival day newspaper we launched two years ago as a new commercial product is ready for another 10 days of Springdance. We're going to review a lot of performances, and compare even more. And we're going to make a journal. It...
"What the fuck should I do with this?" was choreographer and performance artist Ivo Dimchev's (1976) first thought when confronted with the artworks of Austrian artist Franz West. After Dimchev's solo performance Some Faves (2010) in Vienna, West, a multi-awarded creator of bizarre sculptures and objects, sought contact with the choreographer. He asked him to make an improvised video based on his...
Tonight the queen may officially open the new home of the EYE Film Institute Netherlands, last night director Sandra den Hamer did it herself in advance at an opening party for relations. In doing so, she spoke of a historic moment for film culture in the Netherlands. Seen from a distance, the building, conveniently referred to as "the new film museum", is most reminiscent of a...
Hein Janssen (Volkskrant) wrote a column in response to a couple of performances with BN stars in the subsidised circuit in which he argued that subsidy was not meant for that. The association for actors thought this was reason enough for a debate. We made a short film to go with it. We formatted it in storify, a feature that allows you to put tweets and other social media messages together and...
Art subsidies are better abolished if artists have to reach large audiences. Because then, after all, you distort the market. Logical. You could also decide to subsidise everyone. And that sounds stranger than
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