A gloomy light reveals slowly what appears to be a waiting room. Four mysterious figures emerge from the organic background. They are waiting. Waiting for what awaits them behind the doors.
Are they sick? Are they fearing something catastrophic happened? Are they imagining losing their loved ones? Are they projecting or remembering?
In troubled times it feels reassuring to say that we have solid ground under our feet. When you lose that ground from under your feet, the self-image gets out of balance. In Transmute familiar soil suddenly turns into quicksand and we slowly sink into a world unknown.
Unaware that the COVID-19 pandemic was on it’s way, Transmute was made just before it all started. In this new performance by Sandman, choreographer Sabine Molenaar and her four wonderful dancers deconstruct the reality we thought we knew. There where borders start to fade and confusion and chaos reside, one can also create an opening to rewrite oneself. Time, space and role seem interchangeable. To be or become the other. Between dream and quicksand even authenticity seems fluid.
Concept & direction: Sabine Molenaar
Dance & performance: Marcia Liu, Lisa Bless, Janosch Horn, Joséphine Terme
Scenography: Amber Vandenhoeck
Music: Jochem Baelus
Lighting design: Lucas Van Haesbroeck
Animatronix: Gertjan Biasino
Costume: Joke Van de Casteele
Photos: Britt Guns & William van der Voort
Trailer: Tessel Schmidt & Beeldstorm
Production: Sandman Coprodution: DansBrabant Executive producer: Kosmonaut
With the support of: Performing Arts Fund NL - Nieuwe Makers Regeling, ccBe, De Warande, C-Takt, VGC
This initiative was made possible by Grensverleggers, an arrangement to support cultural collaborations between parties in Flanders, the Province of Noord-Brabant, the Province of Limburg and the Province of Zeeland
Sandman/Sabine Molenaar works in a collaboration with DansBrabant & Kosmonaut.
"Sensationelle 75-minütige Performance, Füße stampften zustimmend."
https://volksblatt.at/nur-noch...
in Volksblatt (AT)
"Fazit: Ein Abend wie ein langer, surrealer Traum."
https://www.nachrichten.at/kul...
in Nachrichten (AT)
"But it is certainly not everyday in this setting of the mystical dance performance Transmute, made by Sandman (...) In fact, the painted walls already form a silent harbinger of the surreal tableaus that will take place in this room for an hour."
in Theaterkrant (NL)
Annette Embrechts"Sometimes music in dance performances sets the mood, sometimes it brings cohesion. The musical soundscape Jochem Baelus has made for Transmute by Sandman – seen 11 February at Theater Bellevue – does both."
in Movement Exposed Critical Space
Bregtje Schudel"At this performance by Molenaar, that unpredictability is embodied by three woman and one man. Each has his own style of movement, one silent, the other jerky, the next hyper-flexible."
in het NRC (NL)
Francine van der Wiel"It is precisely this deliberate intangibility that draws the viewer inside in an atmosphere that must have unsolved mystery."
in Het Parool (NL)
Fritz de Jong