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France Benelux

Jan Martens – THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER 2.0

  • September 17th – 19th, 2025 Biennale Danse Lyon, Lyon
  • September 24th – 25th, 2025 Theater Rotterdam, Rotterdam
  • October 12th, 2025 Festival Aperto, Reggio Emilia
  • October 23rd – 24th, 2025 SPAF, Seoul
  • November 7th – 9th, 2025 National Theater NPAC-NTCH, Taipei
  • November 20th – 21st, 2025 La Comédie, Valence
  • November 26th – 27th, 2025 La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand, Clermont-Ferrand
  • December 2nd, 2025 Les Salins, Martigues
  • December 12th – 13th, 2025 TANDEM, Douai
  • January 13th, 2026 Schouwburg Concertzaal, Tilburg
  • January 20th, 2026 Parkstad Limburg Theaters, Heerlen
  • January 21st, 2026 Theater de Veste, Delft
  • January 31st, 2026 Grand Theatre, Groningen
  • February 3rd – 4th, 2026 VIERNULVIER, Ghent
  • February 11th – 12th, 2026 KLAP, Marseille
  • April 2nd – 3rd, 2026 ITA, Amsterdam
  • April 21st, 2026 centre culturel, Hasselt
  • April 22nd, 2026 centre culturel, Sint-Niklaas
  • April 24th – 25th, 2026 De Singel, Antwerp
  • May 5th – 7th, 2026 STUK, Leuven

Duration: unknown

The Dog Days Are Back

© Alwin Poiana

Thanks to its radical choreographic form, THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER revealed the audience’s perception of dancers, choreographers, spectators and the cultural policy at the time. Ten years on, these questions are still very much relevant due to current political and social trends: Where does the thin line between art and entertainment lie? Who are we as an audience when we contemplate the suffering of dancers from the theatre like a bullfight in an arena? Is contemporary dance striptease for the elite? THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER makes the viewer shift in his position: from being merely subjected to the experience to actively reflecting on it.

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Archive

Jan Martens for Carte Blanche – CANCEL BERTHA

May 22nd – 31st, 2025 Carte Blanche Studio, Bergen
September 18th, 2025 Stavanger Concert Hall, Stavanger
October 3rd, 2025 Biennale de Charleroi Danse, Charleroi
October 22nd – 26th, 2025 Dansens Hus, Oslo
November 12th – 13th, 2025 Bora Bora, Århus
75 minutes

Jan Martens’ Debut with Carte Blanche

© Øystein Haara

CANCEL BERTHA moves to its own rhythm- a playful blend of energy, curated chaos, and unexpected creativity. The performance reflects Jan Martens’ signature approach: reimagining dance as a space for individuality, connection, and subtle humor. Scenes flow seamlessly from one moment to the next, blurring the boundaries between moments of ecstatic group energy and sequences of suspended intimacy.

In CANCEL BERTHA, music isn’t always what you hear—it’s what you see and feel. True to Martens’ fascination with rhythm, structure, and music scores, the dancers’ movements become their own soundscape. Silence holds as much weight as motion, and patterns emerge with geometry in delightful ways.

CANCEL BERTHA is bold without being brash, playful, yet precise. It’s a dense dance evening that draws inspiration from polyrhythms and a love for layered storytelling. The Carte Blanche ensemble crafts a performance that balances the poppy, the avant-garde, and the deeply human.

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Archive

Jan Martens – VOICE NOISE

September 24th – 28th, 2024 charleroi danse / la raffinerie, Brussels
October 12th – 13th, 2024 Teatro Argentina, Rome
October 17th – 19th, 2024 mercat de les flors, Barcelona
November 6th, 2024 Theater Rotterdam, Rotterdam
November 19th – 23th, 2024 Théâtre de la Ville, Paris
December 11th, 2024 Concertgebouw Brugge, Bruges
December 14th, 2024 Leietheater, Deinze

90 minutes

The Gender of Sound

© Phile Deprez

On a selection of thirteen tracks by women, his dance spares us the illustration. Instead, it acts as a filter to enhance our listening experience.

Léa Poiré

‘Redundant.’ Or more bluntly: ‘Irritating noise.’ This is how the voice of the woman has often been considered from ancient Greek times to today.

VOICE NOISE is inspired by Anne Carson’s essay ‘The Gender of Sound’ (1992), in which she exposes how patriarchal culture has sought to silence women by ideologically associating women’s sound with monstrosity, disorder and death.

In VOICE NOISE, some innovative, unknown and/or forgotten women’s voices from the past hundred years of music history are given a stage. By doing so, Jan Martens takes another step in his efforts to shape an alternative canon.

Six dancers respond to recordings in which the human voice can be heard in various guises: humming, soothing, shrieking, whispering, singing. Gradually, they discover their own voice.