Fabula

Fabula is ECCE's first collaboration with Unusual Symptoms – the company of Theatre Bremen – the Belgian band Zwerm, and drummer Karen Willems. Faced by the current state of the world, seven dancers and five musicians explore conflicting emotions in a polyphony of voices. Anger and despair, joy and lust come together in a choreography of powerful sounds and images, oscillating between rock concert and opera. The prog-rock and psychedelia-influenced sound on Zwerm's current album Great Expectations engages with figures from Greek mythology and lyrics by Italian writer Cesare Pavese. Claire Croizé contrasts everything with the dancers' individual language of movement. 

• ECCE was founded in 2016 by choreographers Claire Croizé and Etienne Guilloteau. The two both studied at P.A.R.T.S. and were subsequently supported by WP Zimmer. ECCE refers to Etienne-Claire, Claire-Etienne. The name ECCE reflects the fact that they see themselves as two individual choreographers, each with their own artistic dance language but doing so from a shared expertise and philosophy. A cohesive unit with opposite but complementary ways of working.  

• The quirky artistic musical quartet Zwerm consists of four electric guitarists Toon Callier, Johannes Westendorp, Bruno Nelissen and Kobe van Cauwenberghe and was founded in 2007. They are always looking for new frontiers in music from contemporary composed music to electronics to Renaissance music or visual music theatre with Benjamin Verdonck. Their work is musically never one-sided but always driven by an insatiable curiosity about several genres and forms of music.  

• Drummer and percussionist Karen Willems is known for her restless nature that endlessly searches for something new in music. She studied jazz and light music in Ghent and Knokke and eventually joined The Saint Michael's Big Band as a drummer. In 2012, she formed her own band Inwolves. She has already shared the stage with artists like Novastar, Zita Swoon Group and Arno. In her collaborations, she encounters the most diverse genres and the appeal of exploration and improvisation are an essential factor.