Ropes Aligned X Isabel Cordeiro X Gemma Luz Bosch: Unfolding Multitude

Location: Het Motorblok, Zaandam (Oostzijde 381)
Date: 21 December
Times: 20:30

WhyNot welcomes you to the vibrant cultural venue Het Motorblok in Zaandam for the pre-premiere of Unfolding Multitude, a co-creation of vertical dance collective Ropes Aligned, visual artist Isabel Cordeiro and sound artist Gemma Luz Bosch in which visual art, vertical dance and ceramic sounds come together and gravity is being defied.

What’s that mass throbbing and humming in the air? An organism of some sort? A shrub, a sea urchin, a swarm of bees?

A multitude. A suspended entanglement of bodies and ropes. They hold each other knotting limbs and hands and heads and armpits and toes and wrists. Softly grappling, they seek support and offer rest to each other.
In slow descent the entanglement unravels releasing the bodies, one by one. While drawing the connected ropes —the umbilical cord, the tentacle, the kundalini, the life support— bodies reveal their individuated mission, which unfolds in sound, dance and in the engagement with the surrounding materiality. The intelligence of the multitude is articulated.

Credits

Choreography: Ropes Aligned | Isabel Cordeiro Concept/artwork: Isabel Cordeiro
Dancers/performers: Suzanne de Bekker, Natasja Bode, Carlo Camagni, Isabel Cordeiro
Composer/music: Gemma Luz Bosch
Musician: Mees Siderius
End direction: Keren Levi
Artistic advice: Marjolein Vogels
Light: Marco Chardon
Sound: Matthijs Ruijter
Production: Gemma Hauptmeijer, Katerina Vershinina
Catering: Yvette & Rolf
Co producing partners: EKWC, Panama Pictures, Space is the Place (SITP), WhyNot, Motorblok Zaandam Rigger: Tim Halussy, Roan Lo-a-Njoe

Unfolding Multitude is made with the support of AFK, FPK, van Bylandt Stichting, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds NH, Stichting Stokroos, Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie and SITP

THE BODY & ALCHEMY

WhyNot in collaboration with Dr. Esmee Geerken and Embassy of the Free Mind

Date: 14 December 2023
Time: 20:00
Location: Embassy of the Free Mind
Tickets: €15 via embassyofthefreemind.com
Language: English spoken

What makes a body, a collection of 'lifeless' particles, a living, rotating whole? And is the distinction between living and non-living matter actually clear? With The Body & Alchemy in the Embassy of the Free Mind, dance and performance platform WhyNot investigates the origins of living matter in an evening in which art, dance and science come together.

For many years, (Eastern) Alchemy has been searching for 'the life giving juice' - or the 'philosophers stone' - that lies at the base of the conception of the living body, from the womb or the distilling flask. Where Western Alchemy split into Alchemy (the occult) and Chemistry (science), art, dance and science are interwoven again during this evening. Together with natural scientist and artist Dr. Esmee Geerken, we investigate the alchemical perspective, in which life and non-life form one whole. As Cleopatra the Alchemist describes it in her Ouroborus emblem: “One is the Serpent which has its poison according to two compositions, and One is All and through it is All, and by it is All, and if you have not All, All is Nothing.”

Program:

The evening opens with a work by visual artist Jennifer Tee and dancer Miri Lee. Based on the concept 'Soul in Limbo', Tee explores the spiritual, mental and physical space, often together with dance, music and poetry. In 'Concrete Interior' (NY 2012) dancer Miri Lee breathes and moves on a crystal-shaped, octagonal floor piece by Tee, on which the inner psychological space of the dancer is enclosed.

Bonnie van Vugt, art & performance student, enters into a dialogue through Cleopatra the alchemist about how non-living matter turns into living matter and how we can reconnect science to creative and spiritual domains in our world. What if this alchemist from the 3rd century BC could talk to a modern-day scientist, philosopher or artist?

Corey Andrews, junior researcher at the Embassy of the Free Mind, guides us through rare books and manuscripts that explore the connection between the body and the universe.

Cellist Sheng-Chiun Lin and performer Reza Mirabi will end the evening with an embodied journey through time. Through various stones, Mirabi takes you to his grandfather's ritual in the Kurdish valley of Zaman (دره زمان).

With The Body & Alchemy, WhyNot presents the second part of its “The Body & …” research series, with this year's overarching theme being 'Revolving Bodies'. During The Body & Atoms, the first evening in this series that took place in De Waag, we investigated the origins of matter and the smallest particles in relation to the body.

WHYNOT x BIMHUIS

Music meets Dance
WARELIS X ZUKAUSKAITE | MCCALL X SOMUAH | POLENCE X GROOTENS | MOOR X KUSUDA

Location: Bimhuis, Amsterdam
Date: 1 November 2023
Times: 20:30

Tickets via Bimhuis

On 1 November, WhyNot and BIMHUIS will be back with a special mix of innovative music and dance. Just like previous editions in which dance and music came together, this evening promises to be unforgettable. Eight renowned and emerging musicians and dance artists embark on an adventure together in four fully improvised duets. The artists are (almost) all working together for the first time, but along the way they have developed their own powerful language and show us the art of 'being in the moment'. The duos improvise and co-create at the cutting edge to surprise each other and all of us.

Goda Žukauskaitė (dance) X Marta Warelis (piano)
Goda Žukauskaitė is active in renowned Dutch dance companies such as Schweigman& and Kalpanarts. The Lithuanian-born dancer is also making name with performances that can last for hours. Now she will interact with Polish keyboard improvisor Marta Warelis, who will explore the timbral possibilities of the acoustic piano.

Faizah Grootens (dance) X Laura Polence (vocals/piano)
As a choreographer, Faizah Grootens has built an impressive resumé working with, among others, Nederlands Dans Theater and Holland Dance Festival. Her personal language of movement is related to her Creole heritage and her birthplace Curacao. Latvian vocalist Laura Polence has been active in the Amsterdam jazz and improvised music scene for over fifteen years.

Liam McCall (dance) X Peter Somuah (trumpet/electronics)
Liam McCall, born and raised in Utrecht, came up as a dancer in the urban underground. With his background as a b-boy or breakdancer he developed his own intuitive signature. Now he will form a duo with Rotterdam-based trumpeter Peter Somuah, who received an Edison Jazz Award for his album Outer Space on which he collaborated with rappers.

Kenzo Kasuda (dance) X Andy Moor (guitar)
Coming from Tokyo, Kenzo Kasuda came to fruition as a dancer and choreographer working with, among others, Korzo Productions in The Hague. He made a big impression as a solo dancer alongside musicians such as Oene van Geel and Spinvis. Andy Moor has a background in the British post punk of the 1980s, and since 1990 he’s mainly known as the guitarist of Dutch band The Ex.

WHYNOT x DE RUIMTE: Ditdit-Dada-Ditdit

Location: De Ruimte, Distelweg 83, Amsterdam Noord
Date: Fr 13 October 2023
Times:
Doors open: 19:00
Start dinner: 19.30

€21,50 for three courses and 12,50 for all the performances
Reserve via ditditdadaditdit@cafederuimte.nl
Read more about Ditdit-Dada-Ditdit

As you might know, WhyNot holds office at De Ruimte in Amsterdam Noord. And we always spice up their diner event Ditdit-Dada-Ditdit with some dance & performance art! Next up, on Friday 13 October, we have invited Goda Zukauskaite to present her performance research "Bones". In a collection of traces, the moving body meets the material which lasts after the movement stops. The past becomes present and a new life arises. In this work-in-progress, Goda is collecting, constructing and dancing as the tribute to everyone and everything that was present before us.

Previously, this performance has been presented as a durational installation at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Art Chapel, Platform Nexus, Het Huis Utrecht, Festival “Give-a-Dans!”, Festival “Volume Up!” / Grace Exhibition Space (New York, USA) etc.

WhyNot x Waag: The Body & Atoms

Date: 31 Augustus 2023
Times: 20:00

Entrance €10
Tickets via waag.org

The first evening of The Body & series, The Body & Atoms is taking place in the Anatomical Theater of Waag and begins at the beginning:
We will travel back into the early universe, and explore the nature of matter. How and when did matter emerge after the big bang? What are the smallest particles like? What makes a body a body? What is matter, actually? When zooming in into the quantum scale, can we still phantom the odd behaviors of the sub-atomic particles that make up our own spinning and dancing bodies? Join us for an exciting night, with different angles of bodies of matter, provided by our guests:

Particle physicist Osama Karkout will enlighten us on quantum entanglements, his favorite quark flavors, and the quest for interacting Higgs bosons with the CERN Large Hadron Collider.

Filmmaker Ruben van Leer was the first one to be allowed to film within CERN. During the evening, fragments of his Sci-Fi Opera film Symmetry will allow us to travel inside the particle Collider, following a physicist in search of the smallest primordial particle, to find love without end..

Dancer Yoko Haverman is a contemporary dancer, choreographer, and photographer with a background in martial arts, physical theater, floor work, and partnering. During the years, she has been working as a freelancer (inter)nationally with renowned choreographers, production houses, filmmakers, and musicians. For instance, De Dansers, Dansateliers, iET & Davide Bellotta, and Zuhause Productions.

Artist and Earth Scientist Esmee Geerken will moderate the evening, trying to connect the dots between all perspectives on the nature of particles of matter, revolving bodies.

The Body & Atoms is supported by Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst

Drawing Vertically

An image essay by landscape architect Anna Fink as a part of 'Unfolding Multitude'

On 30 august 2023, the performance 'Unfolding Multitude', a WhyNot production by Isabel Cordeiro and Ropes Aligned premiered at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam. In parallel, landscape architect Anna Fink, conducted a research inspired by their process. This film is the result of that research... Drawing Verticality.

Credits:

A production by Festival WhyNot, Director and editor Angela Lidderdale, Drawings by Ernst Haeckel, Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, Joseph Campbell, Thomas C. Wang, Charles Darwin, Steven Holl, Le Corbusier, Ogwa, Lore Kutschera, Santiago Ramon y Cajal, Peter Apian, PTB

WhyNot x Bimhuis: Meral Polat Trio, Ropes Aligned

An innovative evening with exciting encounters between music, dance and audience.

Location: Bimhuis, Amsterdam
Date: 30 Augustus 2023

Entrance: €18-€21
Tickets via Bimhuis.nl

Dancers hanging with ropes on the ceiling and circling dervishes: this evening at BIMHUIS promises to be again breathtaking. The vertical dance collective Ropes Aligned welcomes you to the foyer of Het Muziekgebouw with Unfolding Multitudeand leads you upstairs to BIMHUIS for Ez Kî Me, in which a Kurdish and Iranian dancer immerse themselves in the rituals of their ancestors, inspired by Meral Polat and her trio. The source of inspiration is the Alevi Semah, a dance in circles that can be compared to a whirling dervish dance. Innovative music is linked to adventurous dance and sound, body and space merge into a physically tangible experience.

Credits

Meral Polat Trio
Vocals: Meral Polat
Piano: Chris Doyle
Drums: Jens Bouttery
Dancers: t.b.a.c

Ropes Aligned
Choreography: Ropes Aligned | Isabel Cordeiro
Composer/music: Gemma Luz Bosch
Musician: Mees Siderius
Artistic advice: Keren Levi, Marjolein Vogels
Choreographic advice: Keren Levi
Light: Theun Mosk
Co producing partners: EKWC, Panama Pictures, Space is the Place, WhyNot, Motorblok Zaandam
Rigger: Tim Halussy, Roan Lo-a-Njoe

Unfolding Multitude is made with the support of AFK, FPK, van Bylandt Stichting, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds NH, Stichting Stokroos, Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie, SITP

Schweigman& and DOX: Eros

WhyNot x BIMHUIS

Location: Bimhuis, Amsterdam
Date: 31 May 2023
Times: 20:30

Tickets: €18 - €21
Get your tickets here

A thrilling musical experience as a celebration of femininity in all its facets, in which the female dancers are supported by drums and percussion by Frank Rosaly and Katherina Bornefeld (The EX). DJ Superinca will wrap up the evening with a set in the cafe.

In Eros, a group of women go in search of the power and pleasure of their sensuality. In a contemporary ritual, the brakes are released, all social taboos and cliches are thrown overboard and a powerful feminine energy is unleashed.

Eros is the god of love and passion. Theater maker Boukje Schweigman found that women often look at their own bodies with too little love, certainly when it comes to sensuality and sexuality. Every human being is sensual. Old, young, big or thin, man, woman or non-binary: we all have a body full of energy and sensations. But shame and doubts often color how we see our own bodies. Am I healthy, do I look good? While there is so much more. Our bodies are insane! Powerful, fascinating, sensational. Eros invites you to embrace this in its entirety, in an infectious, energetic performance that goes far beyond everyday life.

Eros was created by Schweigman& in collaboration with Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and co-produced by DOX.

DJ Superinca (aka Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti) will close the night with a sizzling DJ-set in the cafe, that melts and melds dirty beats and hot songs from her Latin American root system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf_QmBPtx1k

Credits

concept: Boukje Schweigman, Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti
makers/ performers:Lysanne van Berlo, Fiona Dekkers, Luana van Eekeren, Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti, Rosanna ter Steege, Goda Zukauskaite
drums and percussion: Frank Rosaly, Katherina Bornefeld
director: Boukje Schweigman
music composition: Frank Rosaly
scenography: Theun Mosk
costume design: Esmée Thomassen

Isabel Cordeiro & Ropes Aligned - And then, it becomes that Produced by WhyNot x ECD

Location: NDSM Wharf, meeting point: entrance NDSM Café (scheepsbouw kade 6)
Date: 26 April 2023
Times: 17:00 & 19:00

Sixteen students from Expanded Contemporary Dance at the Academy of Theater and Dance in Amsterdam defy gravity with vertical dance, together with and building on the research of Ropes Aligned (Suzanne de Bekker and Natasja Bode) and Isabel Cordeiro.

Inspired by the first attempts to grasp gravity dating back to Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) who claimed that the four elements —earth, water, air and fire— gravitated towards the centre of the Universe according to their weight (the centre of the universe being conveniently located underneath his feet) the students, in suspension, defying gravity, establish new relations between their bodies and the elements. Moving away from Aristotle’s geocentric view of the universe they venture into an unknown space rebuilding/redefining this space by subjecting it their own interpretation: “And then, it becomes that.”

On Revolving Bodies:

The different parts of Revolving Bodies focus on the changing relationship of man with our planet and forms of life. Building on previous research into choreography and architecture and the moving landscape, WhyNot explores the natural and cyclical movements of our living environment through the body and dance: from the cosmic movement of planets and the position of the earth, to the microscopic scale of cells, molecules and atoms, and the forces - such as gravity - to which all these 'bodies' are subject.

Credits:

Choreography: Isabel Cordeiro, Ropes Aligned | Suzanne de Bekker & Natasha Bode i.c.w.
the students Performers: Dicko-Andrea Din, Jimi Dormans, Marilou Fortune, Nara Goncalves, Maira Darja Horvath, Peer Jonkers, Wiktoria Kolcon, Amisha Kumra, Ugnė Irene Laurinavičiūtė, Ryan Le-Nguyen, Dengling Levine, Pedro Afonso da Silva Sampaio Soares Machado, Bryan Nurhakim, Tara Pula, Rowan van Sen, Gretė Vosyliūtė, Ina Wojdyła. Production: WhyNot and ECD Rigging: Roan Lo-a Njoe
Special thanks to: Marc Koolen from PickUp Club, NDSM Loods and Roos Oudt

WHYNOT x DE RUIMTE: Ditdit-Dada-Ditdit

Location: De Ruimte, Distelweg 83, Amsterdam Noord
Date: 31 March 2023
Times: Doors open: 19.00
Start dinner: 19.30

€19,50 for three courses and 12,50 for all the performances
Reserve via ditditdadaditdit@cafederuimte.nl
Read more about Ditdit-Dada-Ditdit

As you might know, WhyNot holds office at De Ruimte in Amsterdam Noord. And we always spice up their diner event Ditdit-Dada-Ditdit with some dance & performance art! Next up, on Friday 31 March, we have invited Anne-May de Lijser. She will present THE MELDING BODY, in which two dancers are in an entwined embrace. Extremely slow, constantly melting deeper, moving as one, a transforming form. A form intended to touch the spectator, slow it down, and open the senses to the intimate subtlety of movement. A living visual work of art in which the bodies of the dancers are the material.

The Melting Body is an ongoing investigation into how we can slow down, soften, connect and merge in the macro and microcosmos of ourselves, each other and the world around us. It is a symbolic work, representing softness in times of hardness, love in times of struggle, connection in times of polarisation and touch in times of distance, performed by Eltjo Felix de Graaf and Anne-May de Lijser.