In every_body, choreographer Alexander Vantournhout, alongside collaborator Emmi Väisänen, delves into everyday movements. They elevate simple actions like handshakes and walking into a complex canvas of bodily dynamics. The duo crafts a tapestry of choreography, turning even the subtlest of movements into something remarkable.
The performance is further enriched by the sonic landscape created by composer and guitarist Geoffrey Burton. Fashion designer and scenographer Tom Van der Borght designs both the costumes and the surreal setting where every_body takes place.
Over the last decade, Alexander Vantournhout has built a diverse oeuvre, from ensemble pieces to solos. Every_body (2024) is his fourth duet, following projects like Through the Grapevine (2020). The new creation marks his next step to dissect and reinterpret everyday movements, redefining the limits of human physical expression.
Cowbells were declared an Urgent Heritage Safeguard by UNESCO in 2015. In Terra Cobre, the artists challenge traditional Portuguese iconography and symbolism, placing it in an exploratory and sensory context.
The work consists of a sculptural and sonic installation and a 50-minute performance, performed by Marco and João at the beginning or end of the installation. The installation serves as a backdrop for the performance and contributes to the atmospheric and performative narrative.
Marco and João, collaborating for CARCAÇA , explore concepts of identity, culture and society; reinterpreting ancient cultural heritage and challenging established conventions. They use cowbells to create a sculptural, sonic and physical composition that depicts a landscape full of memories where shepherds and animals come together.
November 8th – 10th, 2024 National Performing Arts Center, Taipei November 15th – 16th, 2024 Rohm Theatre Kyoto, Kyoto November 20th, 2024 The Museum of Art Kochi, Kochi December 10th, 2024 Theater im Pfalzbau, Ludwigshafen December 18th – 19th, 2024 Auditorio de Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife January 25th, 2025 Teatro Municipal da Covilhã, Covilhã February 1st – 2nd, 2025 Sadler’s Well, London February 7th – 9th, 2025 Perth Festival, Perth February 26th – 27th, 2025 Le Quartz, Brest March 4th, 2025 Les Quinconces et L’Espal, Le Mans March 6th – 7th, 2025 CCN de Caen, Caen March 10th – 11th, 2025 Théâtre de Cornouaille, Quimper March 14th, 2025 Cndc Angers, Angers March 28th – 29th, 2025 Tanzmainz Festival, Mainz April 2nd – 4th, 2025 La Comédie de Clermont, Clermont-Ferrand April 8th, 2025 Théâtre de Nîmes, Nîmes April 15th, 2025 Espaces Pluriels, Pau April 30th – May 3rd, 2025 Danse Danse, Montreal May 16th, 2025 Theatro Circo, Braga July 8th – 9th, 2025 Colours International Dance Festival, Stuttgart 75 minutes
Collective identities are sources of belonging and inclusion but when they become mainstream, they can turn the other way around. I can recognise this issue in dance.
In CARCAÇA, ten dancers including Marco da Silva Ferreira and two musicians form an unconventional and joyful corps de ballet. The dancers perform intricate footwork merging folk dances with contemporary urban dance styles from groups such as LGBTQIA+ and communities from ex-colonies. In this choreography, Marco da Silva Ferreira uses dance to investigate communities, the construction of collective identity, memory and cultural crystallization. In other words: what if folk dances had not crystallized, had continued to redefine themselves and had incorporated the present at every moment?
The cast explores their collective identity in a physical, intuitive and unpretentious flow of the body, dance and cultural construction. They start from familiar footwork: clubbing, balls, cypher battles and the studio; they use the physical vocabulary of the contemporary, social, urban context as a lexicon of identity (house, kuduro, Top Rock, hardStyle, etc.). Through a slow construction process they connect these styles with the heritage and memory of dances from the past. These folk dances have remained stagnant without integrating new definitions of bodies, groups and communities, which were considered inferior. For these groups it was necessary to break with the authoritarian, totalitarian and paternalistic past.
In CARCAÇA an exercise is proposed that integrates the past and the present. The performance makes you think: How do you decide what to forget and what to remember? What is the role of individual identities in the construction of a community? What is the driving force of an identity? What world does the individual and collective body traverse? Or, better put, what bodies traverse the world?
October 12th, 2024 Theater Bonn Opera House, Bonn October 16th-19th, 2024 Théâtre de la Ville, Paris October 25th-26th, 2024 Teatro Central, Seville October 30th, 2024 Teatro Ariosto, Reggio Emilia November 5th-6th, 2024 International Theater Amsterdam, Amsterdam November 13th, 2024 Le théâtre de Saint-Nazaire, Saint-Nazaire November 15th-16th, 2024 Théâtre de Cornouaille, Quimper November 21st, 2024 Le Quartz, Brest 75 minutes incl. intermission
TAO Dance Theateris a Chinese dance company based in Beijing. Founded in 2008 by the choreographers Tao Ye, Duan Ni and by the producer Wang Hao, the company has an innovative approach to movement, a body technique known as “Circular Movement System”. At its roots is the idea of pure dance, achieved through the “ritualistic repetition of the body’s natural movements”, invoking the spectators’ capacity to concentrate on the essential nature of the repeated gesture, devoid of any ornament.
TAO Dance Theatre’s choreographic Series of Numbers began in 2008 and has been invited onto the most important stages of the world, from the Lincoln Center Art Festival of New York to Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, as well as the Sydney Opera House and the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. Its minimalist aesthetic further codified Tao Ye and Duan Ni’s method, achieving an exasperated repetition that seeks truth in the body.
13 and 14 explore different themes, respectively involving 13 and 14 dancers on stage following the habitual pattern of the series. 13develops along a three-part scheme, exploring three different ways that bodies relate: in the solo, the duet, the ensemble. Starting from the unity of the ensemble, the choreographer progressively fragments the dancers into different formations between ralenti and sudden accelerations, reflecting the “complexity of the physical world, where one is continuously colliding, coming together and apart, falling and bouncing back” within a choreographic form that is both rigorous and open.
A study of rhythm, 14relies on rapid changes of movement that bring out the full range of possibilities between stasis and movement. As the result of a complex dynamism, 14takes the vocabulary of the “Circular Movement System” to the extreme: Points, lines and planes that intersect in space bring the work back to pure movement, deploying the full range of possibilities”.
