Recent Artists in Residence
Astero Styliani Lamprinou is a Greek choreographer, dancer, performer and filmmaker based in Brussels. She studied at the London Contemporary Dance School, among others, and also trained at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels.
In her own work, she combines contemporary dance with film, visual arts and architecture. She is particularly interested in exploring how bodies relate to spaces and images. Projects such as Secret City, Stones and WALLPAPER clearly reflect this interest. In her artistic vision, she describes dance as a form of “living architecture”.
dOFt plays with time in new production POR
The collective dOFt — pronounced ‘d of t’ — makes its audience wonder with every performance: is this dance or theatre? Their latest creation, POR, is no exception. Once again, the production promises to deliver an impressive piece of dance theatre for a young audience.
It is not the first time Piet Van Dycke, Jonas Vermeulen and Sam Cunningham have come to Destelheide as Artists in Residence. “We keep coming back because it is such an inspiring place,” says Piet Van Dycke. “The peace and greenery around us help us focus. We also stay here overnight, which allows us to remain completely in our own bubble — exactly what we need at this stage of the creative process.”
From experiment to performance
At the moment, the company is still fully immersed in the experimental phase. “We are exploring how we want to approach this project,” Van Dycke explains. “Will we use text, mime? That is what I find so fascinating about the creative process. You arrive with a complete script, but it is only when you hear and see it that you discover what really works. Some ideas look fantastic on paper but turn out not to work in practice. Then you have to cut things, however painful that may be for the person who wrote them,” he laughs.
For Van Dycke, every stage of the creative process has its own appeal. “I enjoy the beginning and the end most. At the start, you determine the form: what should the puzzle look like? Then comes the phase where you create the puzzle pieces, which I find a little less exciting. But eventually everything comes together and falls into place — and that moment is magical.”
A rotating platform as a metaphor for time
Time is at the heart of POR. On stage, a rotating platform appears with two rooms on it. In one room lives a woman who is stuck in the past, surrounded by nostalgia and memories. In the other is a young man who looks only towards the future and everything that is yet to come. “The performance is really an ode to the present,” says Van Dycke. “Gradually, the characters grow closer and closer to one another.”
The production is aimed at a young audience, while also being accessible to older people. “It is an intergenerational story: both a younger and an older generation are represented on stage. How wonderful would it be if that were reflected in the audience too? For example, young people and residents of care homes coming to see the performance together.”
The rotating platform not only creates a strong visual effect, but also allows the company to play with time. “We can make scenes run in reverse or speed everything up, like a kind of fast-forward.”
A collective of three different time thinkers
The inspiration for POR did not come out of nowhere. “Within our collective, each of us has a different relationship with time,” Van Dycke explains. “I am always thinking about the future: planning, tours, what needs to happen next year. Sam lives in the present and takes care of whatever needs to be done right now. And Jonas? He mainly looks back, dealing with invoices and administration from things that have already happened. We found that dynamic so interesting that we wanted to create a performance around it.”
Van Dycke himself likes looking ahead, but he realises that this can also be a pitfall. “Sometimes I think: shouldn’t I have enjoyed the moment itself a bit more? I want to make a more conscious effort to embrace what is happening now.”