photo copyright by Thijs Huizer
This weekend on Saturday 14th December the Belgian première of the modern dance performance “Out of the Blue” will be staged at De Warandepoort Theatre in Tervuren, by the dynamic young dance team “Strange Strangers”. You will be hearing a lot more about these creative performers in the months to come, as they are taking their performance on tour internationally in 2020.
‘Strange Strangers’ is a Belgian dance collective founded by Danielle Huyghe and Alexandra Verschuuren last year. Their collective stems from a close friendship as highschool students at De Kunsthumaniora Hedendaagse Dans, in Antwerp. They are both due to graduate next year with their first Bachelor of Arts degrees in dance and choreography at ArtEZ Hogeschool voor de kunsten, Arnhem. As students they have already worked with renowned modern dance artists and performed at various international festivals.
I asked Alexandra to explain what they are seeking to portray through the dance, ‘Out of the blue’. “It revolves around the reality of dreams,” she said, “Danielle and I explore this by using the anxiety which people feel within a dream as an entry point for this creation.”
“We have been researching the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep patterns and how this stage of sleeping affects peoples’ movement and their state of being,” she went on to say.
“During the piece, we transmit the uncertainty and difficulty people have in facing the unknown. We want our audience to join us in our journey of intensity and rest, by letting themselves absorb the unconscious. By conveying this experience we hope to bring awareness about how people deal with confronting the realities they face.”
Last year Alexandra and Danielle created their first dance piece entitled ‘Under, stand’ which they performed in Holland. In 2019, they decided to collaborate with a Spanish composer and musician, Guillem Gongora Moral, who studied classical composition in Barcelona, and has since incorporated electronic music into his compositions.
Strange Strangers are residents at Dansateliers where they created ‘Out of the blue’. Tickets for the première this Saturday are still available at De Warandepoort.
