Dates

18-19 April 2024

Location

Dutch National Opera & Ballet , Studio Boekman

Running time

1:00, no interval

Tickets

na

Venus

Back to the core

Transformation, identity, connection, space and reality. These are important recurring themes in the work of choreographer Sedrig Verwoert. In earlier pieces, he has linked these concepts to bigger social issues, but in his latest work Venus, he takes a different approach to them: within the haze of our ever-changing world, he returns to the core. “And that core”, says Verwoert, “is dance.” In collaboration with designer Bart Hess, Venus will be a multidisciplinary experience, in which the audience plays an integral part.

Back to the core

In his new work, Verwoert and his specially selected group of dancers of different ages, cultures and backgrounds explore what it means to be connected. To a new experimental piece of music by Phantom Wizard (Isha Forster), the dancers enter into a deeper connection with their own human complexity, with one another and with the space around them. In intimate duets, which flow organically into group sections, they show how interconnectedness can transcend individual differences and how we as people are often much more similar at heart than we sometimes think.

World of its own 

“Each work I make has to be a world of its own. The audience should feel like they’re really entering somewhere”, says Verwoert. The world of Venus has been designed as a conversation between light, shadow and space, which adds a new narrative layer to the whole.

Last work as a Young Creative Associate

Venus is the last work Verwoert is creating in the position of Young Creative Associate with Dutch National Ballet. In his four years as Young Creative Associate, he has made the dance film I Feel It Too and the group work Do All Dogs Go To Heaven? for the main company, the duet Promise for the Junior Company, and the solos Renaissance and Slightly Damp in A Misty Street for dancers Daniel Robert Silva and Davi Ramos. In 2021, he was also curator of the Black Achievement Month programme Celebrating Diversity.

Credits

Venus

Choreography  Sedrig Verwoert
Concept  Sedrig Verwoert and Bart Hess
Costume design  Bart Hess
Lighting design  Maarten Heijdra  
Music  Phantom Wizard (Isha Forster)
Assistant choreographer  Reina Trifunovic
Dancers  Aaron Faneyte, Marilou Fortuné, Yuexuan Gui, Rebecca Lillich Krüger, Samuele Ninci, Reina Trifunovic

Sedrig Verwoert

“And that core is dance”

Trailer

Venus
Venus
Venus - DNB - Studio Boekman (2024) | Photo's: Alex Gouliaev
in a row like in a boat
The three of them
Duet

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