Ariadna GironèsMata + Rob Fordeyn
SO?!WHAT + ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS | BUITENKANT VOET 2024
These two performances are part of three-day festival BUITENKANT VOET 2024, curated by dance collective Voetvolk / Lisbeth Gruwez and Maarten Van Cauwenberghe.
SO?!WHAT
Ariadna Gironès Mata
SO?WHAT is a solo performance that merges choreography, visual, and plastic arts to explore identity and societal expectations. Ariadna transforms her body through various physicalities, using layers that symbolize hidden aspects of the self. The piece questions whether self-rejection stems from personal or societal pressures. It creates a mirror effect, highlighting the tension between the individual and society. Themes of social expectations, gender dynamics, and stereotypes are woven throughout, culminating in a rejected "monster" created by society.
A story of fears, power and taboos.
A woman’s look at a woman’s body.
A dance, a ritual, an outlet.
Conception & performance: Ariadna Gironès Mata • assistant: Alban Ovanessian • light design: Hugues Girard • sound creation: Annalena Fröhlich/JAMES • scenography: Carme Mata & Betty Cau • text: Lluna Gay • punctual external eye: Beatrice Wegnez, Greet Van Poeck, Pieter Ampe, Esse Vanderbruggen and Joseph Rioton • visual artist: Sandra Ordoñez • delegated production to Festival de Liège - Biennale Internationale des Arts de la scène • coproduction: Les Brigittines and Festival de Liège • supported by: FWB, St Gilles Gillis, Vlaanderen, Equal.Brussles • partners: De Grote Post, Le 140, Factory, La Chaufferie Acte 1, Voetvolk/Lisbeth Gruwez & Maarten Van Cauwenberghe, Garage29, La Roseraie, Carpa Revolució, Bolivianow, CCBarceloneta, LadyFest, LookIn'Out Festival, Cocq'Arts Festival, Parhassard festival, Dansvitrine, Game Over Festival, Factory Festival, GC Den Dam, La Maison de la Création.
ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS
Rob Fordeyn
Absolute Beginners is both a mourning ritual and a spun out celebration, in which Fordeyn delves into his sense memory. Through reenactments, he relives, renarrates, and ultimately reformulates past experiences, transforming them into something new.
Absolute Beginners patiently casts a spell, a strange, vulnerable math that follows a soundtrack featuring spiritual jazz by Carlos Nino, laments by William Basinski and Radmila Dimić, experimental pipe organ by Anna von Hausswolff, droning noise by Bennett and finally, a reworked version of Bowie by Civic Grace & Fordeyn. Absolute Beginners uses ways of looking back, letting go, laying to rest, and looking forward, celebrating the fragility of what it is to be.
Concept, video, text, costume: Rob Fordeyn & Darcey Bennett • choreography, performance: Rob Fordeyn • light: Andreas Harder • sound: Rob Fordeyn & Darcey Bennett, Civic Grace (Ashley Wright) • voice: Ashley Wright • mix and Mastering: Ulysse Zangs • dramaturgy: Jette Büchsenschütz, Mateusz Symanòwka • choreographic Support: Yuri Shimaoka