After a successful first edition of the special project Crossings, the first week of June was again dedicated to meeting up and connecting with each other. 25 young participants from all over the world working intensively together to create a performance with the Grote Kerk in Veere as their backdrop.
Dear viewers,
We are thrilled you are able to join us at home, welcome!
Illuminate is the first NDT 2 programme of the season, where the spotlights are turned onto three exciting emerging choreographers.
We are delighted to introduce a new voice to NDT, Micaela Taylor, choreographer and Artistic Director of her company TL Collective. With Lights, Camera, Dismantled, we are drawn into Taylor’s uniquely expressive and textured choreographic language, which places attention on the themes of power and prominence and their potential destructive consequences for this new work.
After a rich collaboration in 2022 with Up & Coming Choreographers, we have invited Jermaine Spivey to develop an expanded version of his work Code of Conduct. What does participation look, feel, and sound like? How does our perception of time stimulate engagement? In this creation, Spivey attempts to define physicality through choreographic and improvised structures that place the dancers in states of happening, nothing, something.
To close the evening is Bedtime story, a work created in 2021 for NDT 2 by a thrilling new voice, choreographer Nadav Zelner. With this work, Zelner invites us into a world of fantasy that plays on the edges of the imagination. Through its mesmerizing and lightning-fast vocabulary, Bedtime story is a riveting embodiment of the dreamer searching within us all.
A heartfelt thank you to Micaela, Jermaine and Nadav, as well as our inspired collaborators and the fantastic team at NDT for realizing this programme.
We hope to see you again at our (online) performances this coming year!
Emily Molnar
Artistic Director
For more information about casting, watching and other technical questions, we would like to refer you to our FAQ.
On the 29th and 30th of December we are available via the helpdesk in the digital theater between 09:00 and 17:00 (CET). Outside these hours you can reach us via digitaaltheater@ndt.nl and we will do our best to respond to your query within 24 hours.
We wish our viewers at home a wonderful time.
Do share your set-up with snacks and drinks with us and the other viewers via Instagram and facebook.
MUSIC
New composition by TRU
LIGHT
Lisette van der Linden
DECOR & COSTUMES
Micaela Taylor
NDT REHEARSAL DIRECTOR
Lydia Bustinduy
WORLD PREMIERE
November 2, 2023, Danstheater Amare, The Hague
DURATION
25 minutes
Conner Chew, Demi Bawon, Ruth Lee, Ricardo Hartley III, Úrsula Urgeles Gonzales, Casper Mott, Omani Ormskirk, Gabriele Rolle
Lights, Camera, Dismantled centers around the demise of power. Being from Los Angeles, a place known for the Hollywood coined phrase “Lights, Camera, Action” I was intrigued by what could go wrong in an idealized reality. Perhaps the luxury of power, fame, could lead to the destruction of the inner soul.
I would like to thank the whole NDT team and incredible cast for their hard work and dedication to this process, rehearsal director Lydia for bringing her endless help and nuanced experience, last but not least Artistic Director Emily Molnar, for offering the opportunity to create here, fulfilling a lifelong dream.
– Micaela Taylor
“Lights, Camera, Dismantled by Micaela Taylor explores the themes of power, exposure, hunger and desire, and the vulnerability and loss of identity that they can cause.
In this quirky and dynamic piece, eight dancers employ sharp physicality and musicality as a tool to unleash their wildest and most visceral selves.
Personally, I experience this piece as a balancing act between extreme physicality and extreme vulnerability, power and weakness, exposure and erasure.
When I dance Micaela’s work, I wear the red skin of my deepest self –
What am I hungry for, what is my deepest source of desire? And what am I willing to sacrifice for it?”
“Lights, Camera, Dismantled is a physically demanding piece that requires us to go to our maximum at all times. It challenges us to search for our personal limits and then go beyond that. Micaela has an interesting approach to conveying her ideas which are very theatrical and prompt a visceral response in the body. The work is both a challenge and a journey for the dancers. To dance our way through this piece, where each moment informs the next, is a journey where we need our colleagues each step of the way. We are tuned in to each other’s breath, steps and focus which I enjoy very much.
I hope you will enjoy this piece and can appreciate our work and dedication in presenting you this new work.”
MUSIC
New composition by Jermaine Spivey
LIGHT
Yuka Hisamatsu
DECOR & COSTUMES
Jermaine Spivey
NDT REHEARSAL DIRECTOR
Ander Zabala
WORLD PREMIERE
November 2, 2023, Danstheater Amare, The Hague
DURATION
25 minutes
Ricardo Hartley III, Demi Bawon, Casper Mott, Omani Ormskirk, Nicky Daniels, Nova Valkenhoff, Samuel van der Veer, Viola Busi, Rebecca Speroni, Gabriele Rolle
Formal and Shifting
(These are, This one is)
The Questions bring us closer
(Cause what if should you)
The answers Agree and Disagree
(These not Those you can)
See through your ears
(You try now maybe)
Don’t
Listen through your eyes
(Be is how They should)
Leading is Falling
(Try them as they were)
Settlement Underscored by Unsettlement
(Be could be these might)
In all seriousness, Play
(Have This Was Made Is)
How you were is Where you are is What you will Be
(I would still like to)
Do
– Jermaine Spivey
“Everything we do is in relation to other people. We are responsible for our personal journey, within our collective one. We belong by unsettlement. And we like to belong, but without unsettlement there is no settlement.
We are constantly questioning. Answering. Connecting. Relating. Seeing. Hearing. Agreeing. Disagreeing. To belong. Together. We are in it together. We do, together. Without each other there is no individualism.
Working together with Jermaine has been nothing but a pleasure. He creates a space where we can feel totally free, while staying within the codes of conduct. We are challenged, pushed and completely trusted at the same time. This process will never end. Even on stage we are working, processing, living it.”
“In a conventional rehearsal process, we receive what we dancers refer to as ‘corrections’. They are details pertaining to the choreography, dramaturgy, efficiency, timing, spacing, etc. They help me form an as intricate and detailed understanding of a choreography as possible.
Unconventionally, in Codes Of Conduct, we are improvising. Meaning that none of the choreography or ‘material’, (another dancer’s term) is really fixed. It’s difficult to correct something that doesn’t exist but is instead constantly existing and reiterating.
Learning how to function within this has been an ongoing struggle for me personally. I’m going through a cycle of feeling like I am forming that understanding, only to question everything all over again the very next moment.
Luckily in my quest for understanding, I am joined by nine of my wonderful colleagues. Who, to some extent, are all moving through that same cycle. And in my current understanding of the piece; that’s the piece. Belonging to this collective of individuals, all existing and searching under the same codes of conduct.”
MUSIC
Rouaida Atia: Min Nazra.
Andre Hajj & Ensemble: Mir.
Ez-zouhour: Sidi Mansour / Baba Bahri.
Courtesy of ARC Music Productions Int. Ltd.
Al Ajaleh: Batsheva Music.
Mohammed Abdu: Allah Alaiha, Al Rasayel, Mahma Ygolon. Courtesy of Rotana Music.
LIGHT
Tom Visser
COSTUMES
Maor Zabar
SOUND EDITOR
Matan Onyameh
NDT REHEARSAL DIRECTORS
Lydia Bustinduy, Ander Zabala
WORLD PREMIERE
November 4, 2021, Danstheater Amare, The Hague
DURATION
22 minutes
CAST A
Viola Busi, Demi Bawon, Nova Valkenhoff, Omani Ormskirk, Rebecca Speroni, Ruth Lee, Conner Chew, Nicky Daniels, Samuel van der Veer, Gabriele Rolle, Ricardo Hartley III, Casper Mott, Nathaniel Belnavis-Wright
CAST B
Viola Busi, Demi Bawon, Úrsula Urgeles Gonzales, Nova Valkenhoff, Maša Anić, Ruth Lee, Conner Chew, Nathanaël Plantier, Samuel van der Veer, Gabriele Rolle, Ricardo Hartley III, Casper Mott, Nathaniel Belnavis-Wright
“The small, secret moment between sleep and consciousness is the moment in which I make my dreams come true.
Recently, I return to the dreams I once had.
As a kid, I used to dream about snakes. Every morning I was surprised that I remembered them in great detail, though I did not understand why these snakes visited me in my dreams.
Even though I am afraid of snakes, every time we met in a dream they did not threaten me, I was never afraid.
Today I understand that these snakes are me facing the world and facing myself. I am confronting my fears and following my beliefs.
Instead of running away from memory, I decided to explore it and chose to use it as an element on the dancers’ pajamas.
Music lies at the beginning of every work I create. Given the fact that I have Tunisian roots, the choice of Northern-African music was natural.
When I hear it, I feel like I am in a dream full of freedom and hope.
In this work it was important for me to give my dreams a stage, and to give the dreaming child that I once was a tangible expression.
As we get older, we tend to abandon our dreams.
We should get reacquainted with the child in us. The one who is not afraid to fall, the one who experiences life and is intrigued to discover. The one who knows that all dreams can come true.
The child in us holds the power to laugh, to get excited, and to fulfill all that its desire.”
– Nadav Zelner
Viola Busi about Bedtime story:
“Bedtime story for me is one of those pieces that have the untameable power of lifting everyone’s mood, on stage and in the audience. Since the beginning I felt completely taken by this raw quality of movement, we dance because we’re telling stories and there’s an incredible amount of details in every single one.
This is one of the first pieces I learned when I first joined the company, I was taught by some of my colleagues and the learning process was so fun already because each step exists for the purpose of telling a very specific story. Although when Nadav came back recently to refresh the piece and clarify some moments everything made so much more sense. His vibrant, exuberant and sensitive personality is translated into movement and is visible all over the piece. What I really appreciated is the fact that he pushed us to make the stories and the movement personal to us, so that every time we dance we can indulge in different details with a different attitude and new ways of telling the same story. We dive deep into the storytelling with our whole body, face and feelings and I love the freedom to take it to the extreme.
For me the music itself embraces you with this exuberant energy and Nadav’s musicality and precision in hitting every accent is one of the aspects that makes dancing this piece incredibly fun.”
Curious how we create and film our online performances, who is behind the camera and what choices are made during recording?
Take a look behind the scenes and read our interview with Mink Pinster, film director behind NDT’s recordings and live streams.
View more photos in the gallery
