direction, choreography: Wim Vandekeybus
Wim Vandekeybus and his Flemish dance company in a performance about love with live music by Mauro Pawlowski and vocals by charismatic South African singer Tutu Puoane.
For Wim Vandekeybus love is perhaps the most intangible and capricious of all our inner states of mind: it moves mountains, and creates immeasurable heights and depths. It gives strength, but causes devastating pain when it turns against you. Love inspires poetry: it is exalted and cursed.
Following the captivating soundtrack in nieuwZwart (2009), Wim Vandekeybus is once again collaborating with musician Mauro Pawlowski. This time, classical stories will be the inspiration for songs written by Mauro and his compagnons and performed by the charismatic South African singer Tutu Puoane. Ultima Vez performers and more classically-trained dancers influence one another. Speak low if you speak love … isn’t an opera, nor a musical in the usual sense of the word, but a stirring combination of experimental music and the classical tradition.
It is not Wim Vandekeybus’ intention to provide an all-embracing framework by which to understand love, because the comprehensibility of love does not exist as such, it is weightless. Vandekeybus: “Man gives it meaning and imputes to it a certain connotation. What we are concerned with is the recognition and the emotionality. Love can hardly be captured in words, but music is able to arouse a certain feeling, and is after all able to convey the incredible power of love. Love is a hidden force; it’s in every nook and cranny, it’s everywhere, but you can’t simply disregard it. That’s why it’s ‘Speak low…’
Cutting edge dance.
An overwhelming visual experience.
Gerrit van den Hoven, Brabants Dagblad
In the heart of the performance Vandekeybus loosens the reins allowing musicians Mauro Pawlowski, Jeroen Stevens and Elko Blijweert to play their hearts out, readying the audience, now brought to the edge of their seats, for a virtuoso and sizzling 'vintage Vandekeybus' moment.
Els Van Steenberghe, Knack
Speak low if you speak love … abounds in numerous and wonderfully visual choreographic treasures, the musicians play as if their lives depended on it, equalled only by the tremendous skill the dancers display. So if you would ask me if it’s worth going to, then I’d say unhesitatingly, yes.
Pieter ’t Jonck, Klara
Credits
DIRECTION, CHOREOGRAPHY, SCENOGRAPHY Wim Vandekeybus
CREATED WITH & PERFORMED BY Jamil Attar, Livia Balazova, Chloé Beillevaire, David Ledger, Tomislav English, Nuhacet Guerra Segura, Sandra Geco Mercky, Maria Kolegova
ORIGINAL MUSIC (LIVE) Mauro Pawlowski, Elko Blijweert, Jeroen Stevens, Tutu Puoane
ARTISTIC ASSISTANT & DRAMATURGE Greet Van Poeck
MOVEMENT ASSISTANTS Iñaki Azpillaga, Máté Mészáros
STYLIST Isabelle Lhoas ASSISTED BY Isabelle De Cannière
LIGHTING DESIGN Davy Deschepper, Wim Vandekeybus
SOUND DESIGN Bram Moriau, Antoine Delagoutte
STAGE MANAGER Tom de With
SCENOGRAPHIC ADVICE Isabelle Lhoas, Davy Deschepper
COSTUMES STUDIO Lieve Meeussen
TECHNICAL COORDINATION Davy Deschepper
PRODUCTION Ultima Vez (Brussels, BE)
CO-PRODUCTION KVS (Brussels, BE), Le manège.mons (Mons, BE), Festival de Marseille (Marseille, FR), Foundation Mons 2015 European Capital of Culture
WITH THE SUPPORT FROM desingel internationale Kunstcampus (Antwerp, BE)
ULTIMA VEZ IS SUPPORTED BY the Flemish Authorities & the Flemish Community Commission of the Brussels Capital Region (BE)
World Premiere: July 7th 2015 . Mons (BE)
Ultima Vez
Ultima Vez was founded in 1986 as the company and organisation of choreographer, director and filmmaker Wim Vandekeybus. Since its foundation, Ultima Vez has intensively developed its activities as an international contemporary dance company with a strong base in Brussels and Flanders.
With the support of the CULTURE programme of the European Union.
