Ask Annabel

Springdance Festival Utrecht
Wed 16 – Sat 26 April
Various Venues and Times
More info: www.springdance.com  

From Wed 16 – Sat 26 April, SPRINGDANCE 2008 will take place in Utrecht: an energetic and innovative festival programme offering contemporary dance performances, performance art, debate, and installations by young choreographers as well as more experienced artists from different countries. This edition of SPRINGDANCE will focus on work created by up-and-coming dance artists from the Netherlands, the UK and Romania. Springdance will also present work by established names in contemporary dance such as Deborah Hay’s collaboration with the Forsythe Company (Germany/USA) and Emio Greco | PC (Netherlands). Whether young or mature, each artist offers his or her unique contribution to the development of dance as an art form. Discover something new at SPRINGDANCE 2008 and be surprised by these thought-provoking and innovative performances with which the artists stretch dance to its limits.

Looking forward to seeing you at one of the great events!

Here are some (highly subjective) tips:

Symposium: Friday April 18
Questions of Meaning and Movement - about dance notation, documentation and re-creation. A symposium about the Notation Research Project-in-progress van Bertha Bermudez en Emio Greco l PC & partners. Speakers: Bertha Bermudez, Scott deLahunta, Phil Barnard and Maaike Bleeker.
Plus the presentation of Anatomy Live. Performance and the Operating Theatre, a book by Maaike Bleeker (professor of Theatre Studies at Utrecht University) and Parallax #46: Installing the Body, edited by Maaike Bleeker and Eliza Steinbock (PhD, ASCA, University of Amsterdam). Directly afterwards you can see (visit?) the interactive installation Double Skin / Double Mind by Emio Greco l PC.

Date: Friday 18 April from 13.30 till 17.00
Location: Centraal Museum, de Refter
Entrance: free
Reservations: mail@springdance.nl

God exists, the Mother is present, but they no longer care - Hooman Sharifi
Texts on love and violence feeding into a distinctly physical performance
God exists, the Mother is present, but they no longer care is a performance like a scream, a scream about the violence separating us from a world to which we would love to belong. What are the relationships between love, violence, and language? Various texts from Friedrich Nietzsche, Hannah Arendt, Roland Barthes and Peter Handke feed into this distinctly physical performance. These texts have been absorbed into the movement, but are also projected so the audience can read them. They deal with love and violence, captured in a physical language.

The Making of Doubt - Colette Sadler
Highly visual performance dealing with the gap between fiction and non-fiction
Colette Sadler has developed a highly visual performance vocabulary of her own. At SPRINGDANCE 2008 she will be presenting a preview of her latest piece The Making of Doubt in which she tries to find the rules that govern the creation of representation and how movement vocabulary is made. She questions the gap between the real and the fictional aspects of theatre.

The Map of Thoughts - Maria Baroncea
A powerful and mesmerizing performer, whether she is moving or not
The Map of Thoughts, a solo by Romanian choreographer Maria Baroncea, is like a brain scan from the inside. Maria draws a connection between movements within the brain and the live sounds these movements cause. The solo departs from everyday, sometimes subconscious, movements that are constantly repeated and that can exhaust you. Maria turns against the unspeakable, searching for the thing that leads to intimacy. She is a powerful and mesmerizing performer; whether she is moving or not, she fills the space with her presence. Serene, vulnerable, and abstract.

Man or Fish - Henrietta Hale
A performance in a strange movement vocabulary, full of absurdity, vulnerability and humour
Man or Fish by the British Henrietta Hale is a curious and striking duet that places two men in a range of scientific experiments in order to discover the substance of their dancing. Their movements, physical interaction and reactions are researched / stripped down to their barest essentials. They create a strange kind of movement vocabulary in the process, full of absurdity, vulnerability, and humour. Henrietta’s work arises from a place of experimentation and risk–taking within her processes, embracing a cross-disciplinary approach. The work is characterised by contradictory states and searches to strip down elements to maintain a childlike curiosity of the world.

Belle & James: English play in Utrecht Castle
Sunday 23^rd of March -- Free of Charge
11.00-11.30, 13.30-14.00, 15.30-16.00, 16.45 -17.15 hours
Slot Zuylen, Oud-Zuilen (click HERE for a map!)
http://culturelezondagen.nl/

Boisterous Oyster Playhouse, Utrecht�s English-language theatre company, will present the one act play Belle & James as part of the Culturele Zondagen festivities on Sunday 23 March. The play was written by Alana Gillespie, PhD researcher at Utrecht University�s Research Institute for History and Culture (OGC). It is part of De Kleine Parade, the theme of this month�s Culturele Zondag.

Based on historical events, Belle & James is a comic investigation into the relationship between Utrecht�s own Belle van Zuylen and the Scottish writer James Boswell, as seen through the eyes of Voltaire. With a few post-modern twists and physics experiments, the play takes place in Belle�s chambers at Slot Zuylen in 1761, as the notorious rake Boswell pays a possibly amorous visit to the equally notorious, hard-to-handle author and feminist avant-la-lettre, Belle van Zuylen.

There are four performances at Slot Zuylen (11.00-11.30, 13.30-14.00, 15.30-16.00, 16.45 -17.15 hours); entrance is free. Special bus transport has been organised from Utrecht Central Station by GVU. The play starts in the bus, so be sure to catch it! Bus leaves at 10.15, 12.45 and 14.45 hours (from departure point for Bus 13).

DETAILS:
Belle & James, one act play written by Alana Gillespie (UU)
Sunday 23 March, 11.00-11.30, 13.30-14.00, 15.30-16.00, 16.45 -17.15 hours
Slot Zuylen, Oud-Zuilen (just outside Utrecht), bus leaves from Utrecht Central Station
www.boisterousoyster.com
www.culturelezondagen.nl
playhouse@boisterousoyster.com