Generation XIII

Elke drie jaar doen duizend jonge dansers uit de hele wereld auditie voor PARTS: Anne Teresa De Keersmaekers school voor hedendaagse dans in Brussel. Slechts 40 van hen starten in de Training Cycle. Delphine Hesters’ documentaire podcast Generation XIII schetst een portret van de generatie die er sinds september 2019 studeert. Via interviews, captaties in de dansstudio’s en op hun telefoon ingesproken dagboekfragmenten, volg je de verschillende studenten: Kia uit Nieuw-Zeeland, Eleni uit Griekenland, Marllon uit Brazilië, Zoé uit Frankrijk en Renátó uit Hongarije. De podcast volgt hen drie jaar, doorheen de meest intense en vormende periode van hun leven. Soms in harmonie, soms in contrast, schetsen hun stemmen een beeld over wat het betekent om te leren, te dansen en te creëren, en over wat er gebeurt als een diverse groep jonge mensen van over de hele wereld een gemeenschap vormen in een stad als Brussel.

Generation XIII is een verhaal over dans, maar vooral ook over jong zijn in deze tijd, over het smeden van nieuwe banden ver weg van huis, over worstelen met culturele en sociale verschillen, over keihard werken, heimwee, groeien en plezier maken. Sinds maart 2020 zijn zij helaas ook de coronageneratie, waardoor Generation XIII als een tijdscapsule ook deze buitengewone jaren in kaart brengt.

Episode 1: this school is about the students
September 2019: the 40 students of Generation XIII gather on the school premises with great enthusiasm and nervous giggles for the start of their training program at P.A.R.T.S. In this first episode, we learn what is specific to the school and how classes like ballet, performance analysis and rhythm present each of our five protagonists with their own, different challenges. It’s about the thrill and uncertainties of the start of a new life. How to find your bearings in a new city and within a new community while missing your loved ones back home? How to unlearn what you have previously been taught and start building anew?

Classes and music featured in this Episode: 1. Contemporary, David Hernandez to Havana Rhythm Dance of Auntie Flo ft Andrew Ashong 2. Singing, Lucy Grauman 3. Rhythm, Michel Debrulle 4. Contemporary, Laura Aris to Another White Bird of Wovenhand 5. Music analysis, Mattijs Van Damme to Quatuor VII ‘Opentime’ 21 variations Pour Quatuor à Cordes of Pascal Dusapin, played by Arditti Quartet 6. Ballet, Janet Panetta to live piano by Pieter Smout

Episode 2. Who would have thought that we couldn’t touch anymore?
Halfway into the first school year at P.A.R.T.S., the creation of a solo and the first intense theatre workshop push the students into new territories. The Coronavirus then hits Brussels and forces the school to close its doors. Just when friendships have started to take root, the group is forced to scatter. Some students return to their families in different parts of the world, while others have no choice but to stay in Brussels. How to dance when others have to be kept at a distance? How to move in a bedroom of 8m2? How to learn through a 13” screen and with all your peers far away?    

Classes and music featured in this Episode: 1. Contemporary, Laura Aris to Sleeping Up of David Byrne 2. Theatre workshop, group guided by Eva Schram 3. Ballet, Libby Far to live piano by Pieter Smout 4. Contemporary (online), Diane Madden 5. Artistic Practice (online), Alexander Vantournhout to Meteor Crater Part One of Andrea Belfi 6. Gyro Ballet (online), Libby Far to live piano by Pieter Smout 7. Contemporary (in Dudenpark),  David Hernandez to Let’s Stay of Hector Plimmer

Episode 3. Adapt, adapt, adapt
After more than five months apart, the students of Generation XIII reunite in Brussels - both elated and uncomfortable, due to the mandatory face masks, the 1.5m distance rule and the impossibility of giving spontaneous hugs. At the start of the school year, the mood is defined not only by the Corona pandemic, but also by the Black Lives Matter manifesto that students had addressed to P.A.R.T.S. just before the summer. 
This will be a year of adaptation, bubbles, quarantines and sub-bubbles... and a short escape to La Palma. Living in constant uncertainty, the pressure on the mental wellbeing of these youngsters is high. How to deal with a pandemic, far from home, while keeping your focus on your schoolwork? 

Classes and music featured in this Episode: 1. Workshop Rosas repertory Drumming, Taka Shamoto, Ursula Robb, Clinton Stringer and Sue-Yeon Youn to Drumming of Steve Reich, performed by Ictus 2. Contemporary technique, Alesandra Seutin to live music of Zouratié Koné 3. Ballet, Libby Far, to live piano by Pieter Smout 4. Contemporary workshop Trisha Brown technique, Diane Madden 5. Workshop Flying Low, David Zambrano 6. Students practicing on Suena of Ondatrópica

Episode 4. I know myself better, thanks to Corona 
The turn of the year marks a low point in the students’ resilience and morale. The school has lost the sense of home it previously gave them. With little to engage with outside of P.A.R.T.S. and with the diversity of the problems of the students highlighted, tensions can run high. But through this hardship, friendships also become more profound. And the students experience that growing up is first and foremost: learning to live with yourself.

Classes and music featured in this Episode: 1. Rhythm, Michael Schmid 2. Contemporary technique, Laura Aris, to music of Roger Marín 3. Singing, Lucy Grauman, Ach Elslein, Lieber Elslein of Ludwig Senfl 4. Workshop Cunningham technique, Cédric Andrieux, to live piano by Pieter Smout 5. Ballet, Douglas Becker, to live piano of Bart Van Bulck 6. Contemporary technique, Cassiel Gaube 7. Trio presentation of Zoé, Eleni and Macarena, to Joseph Haydn string quartet The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross, live by Ellen Van Neste, Ine Van Dyck, Saar Van Bergen and Emiel Vertongen 8. Rhythm, Kaja Farszky on triangle 9. Contemporary technique, Laura Aris, to music of Samir Kadribašić for Under The Eyelids of Zagreb Dance Company. * We are still waiting for permission to use A Love Supreme by John Coltrane in this Episode. As soon as we get it, a version with this glorious music will be uploaded.

Episode 5. We don’t have a map to follow

The start of the third and final year at P.A.R.T.S.: time to take in everything the school still has to offer. But also to prepare for what is to follow: professional life. Equally exciting as daunting. Although Corona has been consigned to the sidelines and school life is ‘back to normal’, the virus continues to reverberate in the personal struggles and tensions in the school. In addition to Black Lives Matter and mental health, also consent, food habits and gender diversity are on the agenda. At the start of the organization of the graduation student festival, it sounds: "to listen to each other is our biggest challenge."  

Classes, projects and music featured in this Episode: 1. Workshop Renan Martins (in Dudenpark) to Sueño En Paraguay of Chancha Via Circuito 2. Workshop Alain Franco and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker with live piano by Alain Franco: Take Five of Dave Brubeck, Johann Sebastian Bach and America of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim 3. Workshop, Rosas Repertory The Six Brandenburg Concertos, Cynthia Loemij, Thomas Vantuycom, Jason Respilieux to video-recorded live music by B’Rock Orchestra, led by Amandine Beyer 4. Workshop Samantha Van Wissen to Fever of Balthazar 5. Contemporary technique, Alesandra Seutin, singing Blackbird by Nina Simone  6. Contemporary technique, Jamie Scott 7. Ballet, Libby Farr, to live piano by Bart Van Bulck 8. Workshop Mette Ingvartsen, to Spem in alium (the forty PART) of Thomas Tallis, performed by Suzi Digby & ORA singers 9. Workshop Meg Stuart to live music by Douglas Weiss, Lonely woman of Ornette Coleman on double bass 10. Ballet, Libby Farr to live piano by Bart Van Bulck

Episode 6. The resilient generation 

The last straight line to graduation! The regular classes will soon be over. These final months are dedicated to creations with guest choreographers, personal projects and the realization of the students' Exiiit Festival. Throughout the hustle and bustle of the last semester, some personal explorations lead to major revelations. Eleni, Renátó, Marlla and Zoé manage to mark the tracks for their future... and we reunite in Brussels with Kia, for the celebratory ending of Generation XIII!  

Classes, projects and music featured in this Episode: 1. Ballet, Lise Vachon, to live piano by Wannes Vanderhoeven 2. Contemporary technique, David Hernandez to CCMYK1 of Henrik Schwarz & Alma Quartet 3. Contemporary technique, Rakesh Shukesh to Les Filles de Illighadad of Eghass Malan 4. Ballet, Lise Vachon to live piano by Wannes Vanderhoeven 5. Creation A LOT A PART A BODY by Philipp Gehmacher to music of Peter Kutin 6. Contemporary technique, Diane Madden 7. Ballet, Douglas Becker to live piano by Bart Van Bulck 8. Creation Offering for a monster by Tamara Cubas 9. Creation Routes of Marlla Araújo & Luyd Carvalho 10. Creation FLIES of Renátó Miskolczi (at WIELS Art Center) 11. Creation You Wonder What I See of Eleni Roberts and Solal Mariotte to live music by Hippolyte Massini 11. Creation Where The Fuck Am I? of Per Anders Solli and Zoé Lakhnati 12. Students singing a spontaneous Generation 13 song at the graduation party

Epilogue. Looking back and forward, a conversation

Three years of training at P.A.R.T.S. are over. Three years captured in the six Episodes of this podcast. In the Epilogue, we look back one more time. On a sunny Sunday in June 2022, Eleni, Renátó, Marlla and Zoé gathered around Delphine’s living room table of for a dinner and a conversation in four chapters, touching upon the different layers of this podcast: P.A.R.T.S. as a contemporary dance school / A generation of youngsters growing up in times of a global pandemic, debates on decolonisation, consent and gender diversity, climate crisis and war / Young artists carving out a path for themselves, while witnessing and supporting one another. And we hear how the students experienced being part of this podcast project, documenting their lives for three intense years.

Meet Kia Jewell from New Zealand
Kia was born in Johannesburg, South-Africa to a father of English descent and a mother of Indian-Angolan-Portuguese origin. When Kia was 8, they moved to New Zealand, away from the violence of her hometown. Kia breathes dance. She started at an early age with tap and jazz later learning ballet and contemporary dance. By the age of 15 she’d started professional dance training, while finishing her high school studies by correspondence.

Meet Marllon Araújo from Brazil
Marllon grew up in favela da Maré, in Rio De Janeiro, experiencing the hardship of life defined by the lack of means and the poor health of his parents. As a teenager, Marllon started dancing to the songs of Beyoncé and Rihanna in a small room at home with his friends and in the clubs of Rio. Eventually he followed dance and theatre classes in a school in his favela, which led the way to contemporary dance. Marllon is drag queen Havenna Beck.

Find out the background story of Zoé Lakhnati from France
Zoé was born in the South of France and grew up alone with her single mother, surrounded by their artistic family. Zoé finished a professional ballet training before she realised that ballet-company life was not for her, as she prefers to explore her own artistic voice.

Meet Renátó Miskolczi from Hungary
Renátó grew up in a small town on the outskirts of the Hungarian capital Budapest. Renátó started ballroom dancing after his basketball team folded. He started contemporary dance classes as he believed they would improve his ballroom skills, but eventually decided to pursue his training in contemporary dance. He considers himself first and foremost an artist, with dance as one of his many possible tools.

Meet Eleni Roberts from Greece
Eleni grew up in the heart of Athens, the daughter of a choreographer and an architect. Even though as a toddler she spent days in a dance studio with her mother, she first focused on her athletics track and field training and piano courses. Eventually she found her way back into the dance studio.