CROWD

Dance and exhilarating violence

According to Gisèle Vienne, the theatre stage is a microcosm where you can study individual and collective emotions, in order to acquire a better understanding of human behaviour. In CROWD, she focuses on violence. Contrary to the discourse that labels all violence as barbaric, she looks for manifestations of violence that do play a valuable, positive role in society. Starting with rituals and celebrations – from the archaic to the contemporary – she brings a group of 15 youngsters together who dance to techno music. They dance to a DJ set by Peter Rehberg that combines the electronic beats of the 90s with a more intimate composition by the ground-breaking duo KTL (Peter Rehberg and Stephen O’Malley). 

These sounds have been stimulating our senses for the past thirty years. They have found their way from the underground into the mainstream and contribute to determining the relationship between our bodies and our movements. Vienne’s choreography is inspired by the many different ways in which bodies are represented nowadays, but also by these musical influences. The short, fitful movements – which continuously interrupt one another to go in different directions – show similarities with contemporary film editing and special effects. At the same time, you will discover the blissful and potentially liberating aspects of violence in all its forms in this choppy flow.