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.

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.

Presented by STUK.

Press

“This partnership [with de Sagazan and Charo Calvo] is dead on target and casts Vandekeybus’ obsession with the body into a unique, new light. It manifests here as a strange and fascinating ‘terra incognita’.” (Pzazz, Pieter T’Jonck)

More info

www.ultimavez.com

direction & choreography Wim Vandekeybus created with & performed by Olivier De Sagazan, Lieve Meeussen, Wim Vandekeybus, Maria Kolegova, Mufutau Yusuf, Borna Babić, Maureen Bator, Davide Belotti, Pieter Desmet, Anna Karenina Lambrechts artistic creation with clay Olivier De Sagazan music composed & 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 Céline De Schepper light design Wim Vandekeybus, Thomas Glorieux sound design Christian Schröder technical coordination & stage management Thomas Glorieux assisted by Benjamin Verbrugge production Ultima Vez coproduction KVS Brussels, Teatro Comunale di Ferrara with the support of Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government, Casa Kafka Pictures Tax Shelter empowered by Belfius Ultima Vez is supported by the Flemish authorities and the Flemish Community Commission of the Brussels Capital Region

photo Danny Willems