AH | HA [2014]
Five bodies meet at a locale without a name, perhaps even in the middle of the night. On the rhythm of the circumstances they slowly grow towards one another, the way trash sometimes gathers in a deserted street. But their synergy confers unexpected power on them. They coalesce in one of the most expressive manifestations of humankind: laughter. Resulting in an encounter that becomes a dangerous feast of shared ecstacy.
With AH/HA, Voetvolk moves on to the cutting edge of its investigation of the ecstatic body. The performance explores the wealth of plastic variations of the laughing body, making its physical and psychic impact tangible for the viewer.
AH/HA is the first group performance of Voetvolk.
PRESS CUTTINGS
AH/HA is a stunning expierience. **** 1/2*
by Pieter Tjonck, deMorgen
In AH/HA Lisbeth Gruwez and Maarten Van Cauwenberghe - together Voetvolk - investigate laughter, discovering the engine of society in a performance that absorbs you as the most beautiful sundown imaginable. (...)
AH/HA is after the solo "It's going to get worse and worse and worse my friend" yet another gem of a masterpiece by the duo Gruwez & Van Cauwenberghe. This creation, too, impresses with the sizzling dialogue between the dancers and the sound artist. First, you experience the dialogue like you watch a sunset. You gaze, you see and hear more and more, while concurrently being wrapped up by the intoxicating soundscape, together with the dancers. Until the dancers laugh you out of that trance. Then this liberating AH/HA, brilliantly danced with brutal movements, reveals itself as a portrait, built up by pieces of laughter, of the human being grabbing, searching, dancing, fucking, wounding and laughing until the existential void is turned into love. ****
by Els Van Steenberghe, Knack
Gruwez triggers. While others remain stuck in a concept or a gimmick, she manages to drive home a simple and clear idea to the extreme, lifting it up to the point where you do not recognize it anymore as such, but evoking free-floating associations. (...) And her feeling for timing is unequalled: not one single scene, not one second too many or too few. The same holds true for the ingenious soundscape which, like the movements, knows subtle variations and follows the pattern of building up, climax and silence. AH/HA is the perfet symbiosis of soundscape and movement. A performance about loss of control that shows perfect command.
By Lene Van Langenhove, Etcetera
AH/HA, a truly choreographic trip, leads its actors into hypersensitive and precarious spaces. This piece amounts to nothing less than a fierce and deeply affecting saga.
By Wilson Le Personnic, Paris Dans
Simultaneously funny, intelligent, delicious in its most minute detail, AH/HA is a meditation on the body, driven and affected by a transcending energy.
In other words, it’s exactly the opposite of what a dance performance “should be”, regardless of its style, and a radical departure from the dancer’s viewpoint.
The tour de force of this piece, without a shadow of a doubt, is the “double bind” which requires absolute mastery of motion, in order to emphasize that which the body cannot control.
Magnificent!
By Agnès Izrine, Dansercanalhistorique
The quality and fluidity that allow the emotions and sensations to merge seamlessly throughout this piece owe as much to the presence of the dancers as to the musical accompaniment, which is equally infused by the tone and its multitude of hues. Laughter, the main character in this piece, if shared, is after all the creator of a jubilant dance, which vacillates between the barely perceptible and the grossly exaggerated. A brilliant success…
By Louise Duterte, Umoove.fr
Concept & choreography
Lisbeth Gruwez
Composition, sounddesign & assistance
Maarten Van Cauwenberghe
Dance
Mercedes Dassy, Anne-Charlotte Bisoux, Vicente Arlandis, Lisbeth Gruwez, Lucius Romeo-Fromm
Styling
Catherine Van Bree
Artistic advisor
Bart Meuleman
Light design
Harry Cole & Caroline Mathieu
Technical director
Thomas Glorieux
Production
Voetvolk vzw
Coproduction
Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis, Next Festival, Theater Im Pumpenhaus, Théâtre d'Arras / Tandem Arras-Douai, Dampfzentrale, Le Triangle - Cité de la danse de Rennes, Théâtre La Bastille, Les Brigittines, AndWhatBeside(s)Death, MA scène nationale - Pays de Montbéliard and Troubleyn | Jan Fabre.
Supported by
NONA, the Flemish Community, the Province of Antwerp & Arcadi Île-de-France/Dispositif d’accompagnements
Diffusion
Key Performance
Pictures
Videos
Press
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Jun 16 2014 Magistral ! |
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Jun 17 2014 Souriez vous êtes dansés |
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Jun 25 2014 Une épopée intense et bouleversante |
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Jul 5 2014 Gestileerde analyse van het lachen |
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Sep 15 2014 Het Lachende Lijf |
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Oct 1 2014 Tanz Magazine |
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Oct 12 2014 Rire jusqu’à l’épuisement |
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Oct 15 2014 Oltre i confini della risata/ danza dell’estasi e del dolore |
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Oct 14 2014 Lisbeth Gruwez esplora la risata 'contagiosa |
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Oct 16 2014 Lisbeth Gruwez : AH/HA |
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Oct 20 2014 Lisbeth Gruwez gibt dem Tanz neue Impulse |
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Oct 19 2014 Lachen bewegt |
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Nov 30 2014 Lachen tot de leegte liefde wordt |
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Nov 25 2014 "We diepen de euforie uit" |
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Dec 3 2014 Sentire. Muovere. Ridere. |
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Feb 11 2015 Sublieme voorstelling |
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Jan 30 2015 Le rire en tandem avec le corps! |
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Jan 31 2015 Ah/Ha, les montagnes russes émotionnelles |
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Jan 22 2015 Lisbeth Gruwez's Ah Ha moment |
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Sep 1 2015 Dansende kwibussen |
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Sep 10 2015 Onze voorstellingen zijn werkwoorden |
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Sep 11 2015 AH/HA is eigenlijk niet grappig |
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Oct 27 2015 A review of AH/HA |
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Oct 26 2015 Review AH/HA at The Place |
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Jun 12 2015 Keuze theaterfestival 2015 |
Technical rider
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