Hands do not touch your precious Me
With Hands do not touch your precious Me, Wim Vandekeybus creates a mythical tale of confrontation and transformation, light and darkness, death and rebirth. For this he collaborates with the composer Charo Calvo, eight dancers and – for the first time – with performer and visual artist Olivier de Sagazan. Together they create a world in which bodies balance like living, fleshly sculptures between the utopian and the gruesome, the powerful and the fragile.
The poetic, mysterious title is a verse taken from a hymn by the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna to the goddess Inanna. Of all the myths surrounding the goddess Inanna, her spectacular descent into the underworld is the most intriguing. Innana is the divine embodiment of the paradoxes of human existence, and her deeds are a reflection of the tensions and contradictions that every person is forced to navigate in life. Inscribed on clay tablets in cuneiform over 4,000 years ago, these are some of humankind’s most ancient stories.
Regardless of their different styles, the performances by both Wim Vandekeybus and Olivier de Sagazan balance on the line of what it means to be ‘body’ and ‘man’. Vandekeybus developed his movement language based on impulsive and instinctive reactions when confronted with situations of physical risk and danger. At the core of de Sagazan’s work is the transfiguration of the body and the face with clay and paint into a lump of anonymous flesh. Vandekeybus’ and de Sagazan’s exploration of human limits finds a musical echo in the material and physical texture of Charo Calvo’s electroacoustic music.
30 Oct 2020, Fri
21 Nov 2020, Sat
22 Nov 2020, Sun
24 Nov 2020, Tue
25 Nov 2020, Wed
26 Nov 2020, Thu
27 Nov 2020, Fri
28 Nov 2020, Sat
16 Jan 2021, Sat
20 Jan 2021, Wed
21 Jan 2021, Thu
28 Jan 2021, Thu
31 Jan 2021, Sun
15 Jul 2021, Thu
16 Jul 2021, Fri
17 Jul 2021, Sat
18 Jul 2021, Sun
20 Jul 2021, Tue
21 Jul 2021, Wed
8 Oct 2021, Fri
12 Oct 2021, Tue
13 Oct 2021, Wed
DIRECTION AND CHOREOGRAPHY Wim Vandekeybus
CREATED WITH AND PERFORMED BY Olivier de Sagazan, Lieve Meeussen, Wim Vandekeybus, Maria Kolegova, Mufutau Yusuf, Borna Babić, Maureen Bator, Davide Belotti, Pieter Desmet and Anna Karenina Lambrechts
ARTISTIC CREATION WITH CLAY Olivier de Sagazan
MUSIC COMPOSED AND PRODUCED BY Charo Calvo
ADDITIONAL ORIGINAL MUSIC (RED DANCE) Norbert Pflanzer
LIVE CAMERA Wim Vandekeybus
ARTISTIC ASSISTANT Margherita Scalise
DRAMATURGY Erwin Jans
COSTUME DESIGN Isabelle Lhoas ASSISTED BY Isabelle de Cannière
ACCESSOIRES Cèline de Schepper
TECHNICAL COÖRDINATION AND STAGE MANAGEMENT Thomas Glorieux ASSISTED BY Benjamin Verbrugge
SOUND ENGINEER Schröder
LIGHT DESIGN Wim Vandekeybus and Thomas Glorieux
PRODUCTION Ultima Vez
CO-PRODUCTION KVS Brussel, Teatro Comunale di Ferrara
WITH THE SUPPORT OF Tax Shelter measure of the Belgian Federal Government, Casa Kafka Pictures Tax Shelter empowered by Belfius. Ultima Vez is supported by the Flemish Authorities & the Flemish Community Commission of the Brussels Capital Region