Programme 2024

8 dancers, 1 circle… a joyous celebratory dance harvesting the roots and ritual of ancient traditional dance, leading into a full-on uncompromising rave. Powerful and emotionally charged, the seven young dancers channel many layers and ages of social dancing to build a fascinating whirlwind of movement, both sacred and communal. RING is a moving contemporary homage to our dancing ancestors.

This performance, created in 2021 and awarded with the Rudolf Laban award, has its first showing in the Netherlands this year. This choreography by Jenna Jalonen is made in collaboration with SUB.LAB.PRO.

Daring, dazzling and different; People Watching, the new circus sensation from Canada, creates circus and dance sequences that puts forth a surrealist chronicle of the familiar. Set in a universe of domestic trappings and interlocking stories, Play Dead observes the beautiful, twisted and laughable facets of human behaviour. It marvels at the absurdity of the mundane and celebrates life with a pulsing desire for connections and intimacy, the same way people desperately dance to the last song before the party ends.

It’s a family tradition: kidnap and kill a fascist. Once a year, for the past 70 years, a South-Portuguese family has been gathering for a weekend together at their idyllic country house to honour the memory of Catarina Eufémia, a farm worker brutally murdered under dictator Salazar’s regime. While enjoying a festive family lunch, they celebrate their newest addition of revolutionary slayers; one of the youngest, also named Catarina, is about to kill her first fascist.  
  
Paralysed by doubt, Catarina is reluctant to continue the family tradition. What if killing isn’t some brave act, in line with her revolutionary ancestry, but just simply a crime? 

A gastrocentric collection of stories both gently odd and oddly gentle: Serbian director Andrej Nosov and his company Heartefact brings us a heart-wrenchingly soft collection of traumatic childhood memories. In this one-man (or rather one-boy) monodrama, Legendary Dutch actor Simon Versnel from the Belgium dance-company Peeping Tom beautifully carves out questions of guilt, love, sexuality and ultimately taking a place in the world. A Short History of Burgers and Other Stories is a desperate search for understanding reality through memories of food and the significant people who left a bitter taste.  

The love for soul music was with multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Dylan LeBlanc from an early age. He pretty much grew up in the music studio where his father was a session musician for Aretha Franklin, Etta James and The Staple Singers, among others. Later, he developed an intimate connection with country music. All this together makes his music of today: soulful Americana with influences of sixties folk, soul and guitar rock. His new album Coyote is about a man on the run that is partly autobiographical and partly inspired by the real-life Coyote he came face to face with during a mountain climb. How that ended? He might tell you during his show at the free stage in the Noorderplantsoen: Apollo

Arab Strap, the duo consisting of Aidan Moffat and Malcom Middleton, is considered one of the most important and influential Scottish bands of the 1990s. With a strong cocktail of echoing guitars, lo-fi synthesizers, hypnotic drums and, of course, that dark brown whiskey voice, they conquered a lot of hearts all over the world. The success lasted until 2006 and eventually they both went their separate ways. Since their new album in 2021 As Days Get Dark, they are back and probably better than ever.