Calendar overview
ECD X WhyNot X Connor Schumacher: Because. We Pretend / We should
ECD X WhyNot X Connor Schumacher:
Because. We Pretend /
We should
A collaboration between 3rd year students and choreographer Connor Schumacher, coproduced by WhyNot.
Date: Thu 9 & Fri 10 April
Time: 19:30 - 20:15
Venue: At the artwork of André Volten - Amstel 1, (Waterlooplein)
at the square in front of stadhuis-Muziektheater
Free entrance
70 hours of dancing together. Balancing choreographic and improvisational scores. A comment on energy, togetherness, and position through musicality and lyrical music performed in public space. What is mine? What belongs to me? My productivity, my motives, my morals, the changes in my life? Do they belong to me?
CREDITS
Choreography/Direction: Connor Schumacher
Made in collaboration with ECD3
Design concept: Elsemarijn Bruijs
Video design: Jeisson Drenth
Rehearsal Assistant: Vivianne Rodrigues de Brito
Production: Michael Scerbo (WhyNot), Dorothea Sinnema (ATD)
Venue managers: Juliette Moonen, Camille Pas
Technique at Venue: Anton van Wolfswinkel
Connor Schumacher
Connor Schumacher is founder and artistic leader of Stichting ARK. Connor has developed as a dance artist under the wings of Dansateliers. Here he made The Fool (2015), Asset, Liability and Equity (2016), Exhibition (2017), OK Future (2017), THREESOME (2019) and Funny Soft Happy & The Opposite (2019). Establishing ARK in 2020 he continued producing Pilot PC (2021), Club INC with Theater Babel Rotterdam (2023), and Raging Against Various Elements (2024) which was nominated for most impressive dance production of 2024 by the VSCD jury & Festival Nederlandse Dansdagen.
Connor makes performances and social choreographic works for theaters, museums, festivals, and clubs. All activities are situated in different and overlapping contexts, where the higher goal is to get people moving, physically and mentally.
WhyNot X Bimhuis: Music Meets Dance: 18 December
WhyNot X Bimhuis:
Music Meets Dance
18 December 2025
Miri-Lee dance & Nora Mulder piano
C’Cesirhe Sedney dance & Harald Austbo cello
Ali Zanad dance & Kypski turntables
Elise Richards dance & Jamie Peet drums
Thu 18 December
20:30
Bimhuis
Tickets via Bimhuis.nl
Four duets, each with a dancer and a musician, improvising freely. Almost all of them will perform with one another for the very first time. This could well be the start of wonderful new collaborations. And a compelling experience for the audience. Together with Bimhuis we have linked up these renowned performers. They have all developed their own unique musical and physical language.
Miri-Lee & Nora Mulder Miri Lee
Miri Lee is a performer and choreographer who has left a distinct mark on Amsterdam’s artistic landscape. She’s known for her fearless cross-disciplinary collaborations with leading figures in visual art, music, science, poetry, theater, and film. Now she will team up with pianist Nora Mulder, a renowned performer of contemporary classical and improvised music, and a creator of absurdist sound installations. She was awarded the Willem Breuker Prize in 2019.
C’Cesirhe Sedney & Harald Austbø
C’Cesirhe Sedney is an interdisciplinary artist, choreographer and director at the intersection of dance and theater. His work accumulates dreams and the human psyche with a playful undertone, offering alternative value to their role. Harald Austbø is active in the Amsterdam jazz scene as a cello player and composer. He also works in (music) theatre with renowned companies such as Orkater, De Nwe Tijd and Via Berlin.
Ali Zanad & Kypski Alias
Zanad AKA Dimozi was born Baghdad and moved to The Netherlands at the age of thirteen. Before he became acquainted with dance, he was a footballer and freerunner. Now he has built up experience as an actor and dancer. Ali is one of the artistic directors of the MENSJA Foundation. Turntable expert Kypski became known as a sixfold Dutch scratching DJ champion. He toured all over the world with his previous band C-Mon & Kypski and many other greats. Currently he’s part of Joseph Bowie’s legendary formation Defunkt, among others.
Elise Richards & Jamie Peet
Choreographer and dancer Elise Richards has a background in hip-hop culture. In her work she is guided by storytelling and rhythm. Through her company, Osas Company, she aims to inspire and challenge young people. In recent years, Jamie Peet has proven himself as a jazz drummer for the new generation who does not eschew complexity and who embraces the music of his own time, including jazz and hip-hop.
RELATED EVENTS
Elisa Zuppini: Disambiguation
Elisa Zuppini: Disambiguation
An exploration of the ‘post-clubbing’ world
Tue 20 & Wed 21 May
20:30 at Frascati Theater
Coproduced by WhyNot and ATD Expanded Contemporary Dance
Tickets via Frascati
Disambiguation probes the libidinal drive and the sensorial overload linked to the diversified milieus of nocturnal life in its most alluring, enigmatic, and shadowed dimensions. In Disambiguation choreographer and dancer Elisa Zuppini crafts a system where human perception converges with the presence of other-than-human agencies. The sixteen dancers form a pulsing structure in which they extend toward and withdraw from the audience's perceptual field. Like chtonic waves a hybrid circuit of sensation is generated.
The dancers explore an insomniac framework, particularly that of 'post-clubbing' in which the stimulating effects and aftereffects of hedonistic nocturnal life is examined. They perform in a dissociative state of depersonalization, allowing them to resource from something other than conditioned subjectivity. Instead, they take charge of wandering intensities. The identifiable traits of these affects disperse, giving rise to erratic moods across perceptual spectrums. By inhabiting liminal and viscous spaces, the performers explore multiple sensibilities, navigating within the condition of metathreshold (a ceaseless transition, where boundaries dissolve and transformation occurs), where ambiguity itself sculpts tangible states.
Accompanied by deconstructed melodies and industrial rhythms, a haunting gothic trend emerges. Navigating a world erratically attempting to understand itself, Disambiguation reflects on collective agency and how this distributed cognition gives rise to a dramaturgy of affect.
Aftertalks:
Following the performance, researcher and lecturer Zeynep Gündüz will engage in a conversation with choreographer Elisa Zuppini. Drawing on her expertise in media, dance, and performance, Zeynep will delve into Elisa’s research for Disambiguation. The discussion will cover the process of creating a large ensemble piece, as well as the involvement of performers in developing movement and material.
The talk will also touch upon elements of post-clubbing culture and how navigating states of ambiguity can shape different ways of being. These conversations will take place on both evenings and will be held in English.
Credits:
Concept and choreography: Elisa Zuppini | creation in collaboration with the performers: Hannah Badura, Rowan van den Boomen, Tim Brügger, Harvey Burke-Hamilton, Lola Dupriez, Mandisa Gramelsberger, Katrina Gusca, Jieon Ko, Ana Longo Nsame, Maxine van Lishoet, Clémence Masakidi, Esteban Alejandro Obregon Moriano, Envel Serazin, Jentel Schiettekatte, Ditte Toppet | Dramaturgy: Bruno Listopad | Supervisor sound editor: Fabian Reichle featuring original tracks by Lotic and BFRND | Costumes: Elisa Zuppini and Bruno Listopad | Lighting design: Martijn Smolders | Technic and lighting design contribution: Martin Kaffarnik | Producer: Charlot Van Der Meer | Graphic design poster: Bruno Listopad and Tea Teearu | Developed with the support of AFK (Amsterdam Funds for the Arts) co-produced by Expanded Contemporary Dance and WhyNot | Research presentation platforms: Amsterdam University of the Arts (June 2024); FLAM Festival with Museumnacht (November 2024, Amsterdam) | Thanks to the performers, Bruno Listopad, Bojana Bauer, Belle de Wit, Marjolein Vogels, Jacuzzi, Maria Ines Villasmil-Prieto, Gideon Poirier, Rose Akras, Tea Teearu, Zeynep Guntur | Photography: Sjoerd Derine (Amsterdam University of the Arts, June 2024); Thiemi Higashi (FLAM Festival with Museumnacht, November 2024, Amsterdam).
The first development phase of this work took place at Expanded Contemporary Dance, Amsterdam University of the Arts, in May and June 2024, together with more performer from the original cast Efua-Maria Raknerud Aikins, Kofi Boanyah, Federica Lovato, Mia Malencia, Bo Nijssen, May van Leeuwen, Maren Weertman, Hope Landu and the assistance of Tamara Beudeker and Bruno Listopad. This phase was made possible through the invitation of the then artistic director of Expanded Contemporary Dance, Bojana Bauer.
Club Mountain
Club Mountain
Date: 17 April at 17:00 & 18:30
Location: Club Raum, Humberweg 3, 1043 AC Amsterdam
For centuries, people have used rituals to attune themselves to their environment, nature and the ecosystem in which they live. Planting is enhanced with rituals of hope, the good harvest is exuberantly celebrated and people connect with each other through dance and music.
In our own modern ecosystem of the city, many people meet in nightclubs, where they dance, move and celebrate life together. When they merge together into the music and the flow of the night, the sense of space and time disappears. The group then transforms into a collective and together they recreate the world on the dance floor.
Club Mountain is an interdisciplinary project in which elements of ancient ritual and the modern nightclub come together. The project reflects, investigates and poses open questions about how rituals and modern technologies can serve as a medium to travel between worlds and tap into the collective memory that is stored in our bodies and comes to life on the underground rhythm of the city by night.
Credits:
This project is part of an ongoing interdisciplinary research about ritual technologies with guest artists choreographer and director Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti (BO/BRA) and Light artist Zalán Szakács (RO/HU) with repetitor Matteus Moreira de Oliveria (BRA) and dance students (third year) from Expanded Contemporary Dance (ATD): Sarah Mary Bittar, Tim Brügger, Aleyna Demir, Lola Dupriez, Mélie Favre, Mandisa Gramelsberger, Sem Houmes, Naomi Katthagen, Pei Kuo, Hope Landu, Sára Mezei, Lucija Miletić, Elise Richards, Ditte Toppet, Rowan van den Boomen, San Wolteche
Production support: Dorothea Sinnema. Initiated by WhyNot Festival under the Ancient Future project, in collaboration with ECD - ATD, Club Raum and FIBER Festival.
OURSPACE: Future Love
OURSPACE
Friday Next: Future Love by Next Nature
Vrijdag 14 februari 2025, 17:00 - 22:00
Next Nature Museum, Eindhoven
Tickets €10 / €5 via Next Nature
We are proud to present our social performance bot OurSpace at Future Love, invited by Next Nature on Valentine's Day! It's a special night about the future of love, with performances, music and speeddates.
OurSpace is an initiative and production of Klasien van de Zandschulp, WhyNot, and James Bryan Graves. OurSpace is a participatory performance that zooms in on the virtual and the physical space between people, their online and offline identity and social encounters.
It is a quirky social experiment and performance that choreographs the bodies of participants using a chatbot in WhatsApp. The performance tests the boundaries of space in our hyperconnected world. It’s a productive way to reflect on the seemingly normalized things we do in virtual social networks like following, zooming and liking -- and to highlight the embodied experience of these media practices.
The audience is guided by an artificial chatbot on WhatsApp. This artificial companion is sharing stories and responding with assignments that translates online social habits into physical movements. These storylines can vary from simple actions “If you think somebody looks interesting, tap this person on the shoulder” to more intimate actions “Observe your new friend closely: smell them, feel them”.
Credits:
Choreography: Marjolein Vogels
Script: Klasien van de Zandschulp, WhyNot (Daisy Benz & Marjolein Vogels)
Technology: James Bryan Graves
Interaction Design: Klasien van de Zandschulp
Music: Mark Meeuwenoord
Graphic Design: Angela Lidderdale
WHYNOT X BIMHUIS: MUSIC MEETS DANCE: 12 December 2024
WHYNOT X BIMHUIS:
MUSIC MEETS DANCE
12 december 2024
TANATE X PAYNE & ARPINI
TRAN X PELSER
DOBYSH X HONG
WESSELS X SINAY
Dancers and musicians express the art of being in the moment, in four performances.
Thursday 12 Dec
Start 20:30
Tickets €16 - €19
Get your tickets here
After last year's success, WhyNot x Bimhuis are back on Thursday, 12 December with an evening filled with exciting and unexpected duets!
Four performances, each featuring a dancer and one or two musicians, improvising freely. This could well be the start of wonderful new collaborations. And a compelling experience for the audience. Together with Bimhuis, we have linked up these renowned performers: dancers Jefta Tanate, Tuan Tran, Alesya Dobysh, Lucinda Wessels and musicians Alistair Payne, Marta Arpini, Yanna Pelser, Sun-Mi Hong and Rafael Devánte Sinay.
We can't wait to see what they will bring to the stage ????.
After the performances, DJ Stijn van Beek will play some soulful tracks in the Bimhuis café.
Jefta Tanate X Alistair Payne & Marta Arpini
Jefta Tanate is a prize-winning dancer. Soon after his internship at Scapino Ballet he created several solo performances, followed by his first productions Even Onions Don’t Make Me Cry and DOMELESS. Now he will interact with the expressive tone and out-of-the-box-attitude of trumpeter Alistair Payne, and the challenging melodies and colorful orchestrations of singer-songwriter Marta Arpini.
Lucinda Wessels x Rafael Devánte Sinay
Lucinda Wessels has danced in major productions in various genres, from street dance to ballet. She even performed in the opera How ANANSI freed the stories of the world by Nationale Opera & Ballet. Young guitarist Rafael Devánte Sinay is making a name for himself in the jazz world with his band SMANDEM. with which he performed at international festivals such as North Sea Jazz.
Tuan Tran x Yanna Pelser
Dancer Tuan Tran has his origins in hip-hop and is always curious for more. He danced works by renowned choreographers such as Conny Janssen and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Yanna Pelser is a classically trained violist who also uses her voice. She played viola in various ensembles, including in pop and jazz, and recorded tracks for major stars like David Guetta and will.i.am.
Alesya Dobysh X Sun-Mi Hong
Alesya Dobysh combines her background in street, house and en battle dance scenes with performance art, theatre, visual art and sound art. Through experimenting with various forms she develops her own choreographies. In the work of drummer Sun-Mi Hong we hear catchy melodies and dramatic outbursts, alongside impressionistic patterns and irregular time signatures.
Tuan Tran dance, Yanna Pelser viola Alesya Dobysh dance, Sun-Mi Hong drums Lucinda Wessels dance, Rafael Devánte Sinay guitar Jefta Tanate dance, Marta Arpini vocals, Alistair Payne trumpet
Unfolding Multitude X Museumnacht
Unfolding Multitude X Museumnacht
02 november 2024
Saturday 2 November
Unfolding Multitude Flam Festival @ Museumnacht
Arti et Amicitiae
More info & tickets >>
On November 2nd, Museum Night will once again light up Amsterdam, and WhyNot is exited to be part of it this year! We are teaming up with FLAM to close their festival during Museum Night at Arti et Amicitiae with our captivating WhyNot-production Unfolding Multitude: a co-creation by vertical dance collective Ropes Aligned, visual artist Isabel Cordeiro, and sound artist Gemma Luz Bosch.
This special collaboration kicks off outside, with the performers suspended dramatically from the facade of the building. The performance then continues indoors, where tickets are required, and where you can also catch the premiere of Anna Fink's image essay, Drawing Verticality, created alongside Unfolding Multitude.
The FLAM Festival, taking place from 31 Oct - 2 Nov, celebrates live art in all its forms, and we are delighted to collaborate with them. There is lots more to see, so be sure to check out their full program!