NOMADICS

ENG

A walk in nature as a prelude to a completely new theatre experience

In Nomadics by Voetvolk, the Flemish dance and music group of Lisbeth Gruwez and Maarten Van Cauwenberghe, walking is elevated to an art of living. Growing stiller with every step, connecting with nature around Amsterdam. With Bellevue Theatre as the finishing point: you walk straight onto the stage to attend the show. How will you experience that, with your new walking state of mind?

In Nomadics, the dancers form a (passing) raging landscape. Sometimes they are trees, sometimes they are grass. Sometimes they are rock, sometimes even human. The constant transformation results in beauty as well as friction: there is tension in the air. But as physics teaches us: friction eventually leads to warmth, slowing down or change. Through the friction, the dancers search for connection, both with nature and with each other.

In this, music is in symbiosis with dance, as always at Voetvolk. Maarten Van Cauwenberghe recorded sounds during preparatory walks - steps, water, wind in the trees, highways... - and brewed them into environmental techno.

Prior to the show, the dancers make a twelve-kilometre hike, the audience is warmly but non-committally invited to walk with them*. The dancers will appear at an agreed place and time and pick them up for a tour, which focuses on looking, experiencing and connecting with the landscape. In fields, along meadows and ditches, with Amsterdam as a vista. The tour ends on the Bellevue stage, where the paths separate again and the performance can begin. But the experience of the tour returns in intensified form.
 
Optional, complimentary hike* starting times:
Friday 14/07 at 17:30
Saturday 15/07 at 16:00
Starting point of the hike: Internationaal Theater Amsterdam

*Closer to Theater Bellevue, there is an opportunity to join and walk the final kilometres with the group. Not walking along at all, but going to the performance is also possible. The walk is not for seasoned hikers only, but does require good walking shoes, appropriate clothing (e.g. in the case of rain), a well-filled water bottle and a fortifying snack for the road. The walking pace will be moderate, and absolute attention will be given to everyone's safety.