Due to Coronavirus and closing of theaters in Serbia, the show of the Voetvolk group from Antwerp that was scheduled for 1st April 2020. at Belgrade Drama Theatre is rescheduled for 21st September 2020. All tickets are valid for the new term.
It’s going to get worse and worse and worse, my friend
concept, choreography, performance: Lisbeth Gruwez
composition, sound design: Maarten Van Cauwenberghe
styling: Veronique Branquinho
artistic advisor: Bart Meuleman
lighting design: Harry Cole, Caroline Mathieu
technical director: Gilles Roosen
production manager: Anita Boels
duration: 50’
premiere: 2012, Tanz im August, Berlin
production: Voetvolk vzw
co-production: Grand Theater Groningen, Troubleyn / Jan Fabre, Theater Im Pumpenhaus & AndWhatBeside(s)Death
With the support of: the Province of West Flanders, the Province of Antwerp, the Flemish Community and Arcadi Île-de-France/Dispositif d’accompagnements
A speech can be a mighty weapon. Throughout the centuries it has enthused countless masses and galvanized them into action, for better or for worse. It has unleashed revolutions and fueled wars. Just by the power of words. But a speech does not only enthuse the hearers, often it also transposes the speaker into a state of trance. Then he loses himself in a stream of words, in an obsessive, ecstatic way of speaking. The power of a speech often depends on the trance of the speaker. In this piece, Lisbeth Gruwez dances the trance of that ecstatic speechifying. In the process, she takes advantage of fragments from a speech by the ultraconservative American televangelist Jimmy Swaggart… Initially the parlance is friendly and pacifying, but from his compulsive desire to persuade transpires growing despair. Eventually it exposes its deepest nature: violence.
Belgian dancer and choreographer Lisbeth Gruwez started practicing ballet at the age of 6 and studied at the Stedelijk Ballet Institute in Antwerp, combining high school with a professional dance education. Once graduated, she joined P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels to study contemporary dance. In 1999 she started working with Jan Fabre, being part of his guerriers de la beauté. Having performed in “As long as the world needs a warrior’s soul” (2000) and “Je suis sang” (2001) she rose to international fame because of “Quando l’uomo principale è una donna” (2004), the solo Jan Fabre created specifically with and for her. Apart from working with Fabre, she also collaborated with Ultima Vez, Needcompany , Grace Ellen Barkey, Riina Saastamoinen and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.In 2007 she founded Voetvolk, together with Maarten Van Cauwenberghe. Apart from establishing her own choreographies with Voetvolk, Gruwez has danced in numerous films, videoclips and tv spots.She is also one of the “KVS faces”, the open ensemble of artists and thinkers associated with the Royal Flemish Theatre of Brussels.
Voetvolk (Dutch for “infantry”) is a Belgian contemporary dance and performance company, founded in 2007 by dancer/choreographer Lisbeth Gruwez and musician/composer Maarten Van Cauwenberghe, who got to know each other in the laboratory of Jan Fabre. Their work is an ongoing conversation between corporal and auditive movement: Gruwez and Van Cauwenberghe direct each other in order to achieve an organic symbiosis within a fixed frame. This brings in the element of performance that identifies every production: the connection between the aural and the visual/physical is always (a)live. So far, the company has produced 10 shows that have traveled around the world. Their work has been shown at the Avignon Festival and the Venice Biennale, amongst others. Voetvolk is allied to Troubleyn | Jan Fabre and the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp as company-in-residence.
Control is what it is all about. Form is the key. And the power with which Lisbeth Gruwez affirms dance with bravura. End of babbling. End of modesty. From now on it will get worse, friends. Let it come down.
© Ballet Tanz
