Into The Open – a new production by Voetvolk / Lisbeth Gruwez & Maarten Van Cauwenberghe – is a dance-meets-concert performance with 3 professional musicians and 4 professional dancers on stage that gets an audience to stand up and move together. Musicians not only make music, they also dance, and dancers not only dance, they also make music, all of them standing as one and forming one band.
The music is inspired by the Krautrock and progressive music of the 1970s, but in a contemporary form, with influences from The Fall, P.I.L., Can, Joy Division, The Chemical Brothers & Daft Punk. The repetitive and exhilarating nature of the genre is ideal for the trance that the band wants to achieve. To pull off hypnotic grooves, rock and electronic instruments are being mixed and rhythms get emphasized through percussion and dancers’ performance.
The movement language, which is based on movements from the festival scene, rock ‘n roll and street life, in a poetic wrapping with a Voetvolk twist, is set to be accessible, universal and recognizable to the public. It will also involve movements for which an audience needs little space in a hall. That way, the audience can actively respond to what is happening on stage.
As usual in Voetvolk’s work, Into The Open in some ways arises from the previous projects. Being in a trance was already a theme in the triptych of the ecstatic body (It’s going to get worse and worse and worse, my friend (2012), AH\HA (2014) & We’re pretty fuckin’ far from okay (2016)), interpreted back then from an individual perspective. It’s about an old love that Voetvolk now revisits with renewed insights. For Into The Open, the ecstasy is extended from the individual to the collective level with the ambition to set the entire audience in motion.
CREDITS
Concept: Lisbeth Gruwez & Maarten Van Cauwenberghe
Choreography: Lisbeth Gruwez & performers
Performance: Wei-Wei Lee, Celine Werkhoven, Artemis Stavridi, Misha Demoustier, Maarten Van Cauwenberghe, Frederik Heuvinck & Elko Blijweert
Music: Dendermonde
Dramaturgy: Bart Meuleman
Repetitor: Francesca Chiodi Latini
Light design: Yann Windey
Costume design: Jean-Paul Lespagnard in collaboration with Muriel Kunkel and Marcelo Chavira
Sound: Bart Van Immerseel
Communication: Sam Ecker
Production: Voetvolk vzw
Co-production: KVS – Royal Flemish Theatre (Brussels, BE), Theater Im Pumpenhaus (Münster, DE) Dansens Hus Oslo (NO), Vooruit Ghent (BE), Ancienne Belgique (Brussels, BE)
Residencies: Troubleyn (Antwerp, BE), KVS (Brussels, BE), NONA (Mechelen, BE), Blikfabriek & Arts centre BUDA (Kortrijk, BE)
With the support of: NONA (Mechelen, BE), the Flemish Community & the Belgian Tax Shelter
Distribution in collaboration with: Key Performance