The dangerous innocence of Ultima Vez

But there’s no past without future. So, it was time for something new: Talk to the Demon. The familiar fear and danger are all over the choreography, which tackles “the social and public media, particularly how they manipulate and misuse children’s emotions and thoughts”. 

The one thing that is atypical for Vandekeybus is that, unlike most of his other work, music plays no leading role here, making Talk to the Demon perhaps one of his most naked pieces. In the past, Vandekeybus has worked with A-list musicians such as David “Eugene” Edwards, Mauro Pawlowski and Roland Van Campenhout, balancing the movements of his dancers with sound.

Last year’s December Dance world premiere of Spiritual Unity, a synthesis of the last five years of Ultima Vez, was clearly a reminder of that. 

In Talk to the Demon, though it’s a piece for adults, Vandekeybus says, a child is the “architect” of what is happening, and adults are just acting around it. The demon he describes is an inner demon, one we create ourselves to fight the conflicts in our head. “And the child sends out a demonic innocence, making us adults look like weirdoes or clowns.”

It’s this utterly instinctive and impulsive child – not limited by rules and conventions, open to and at ease with its internal demons – that Vandekeybus gives centre stage among six of his dancers, because it’s only by talking to our demons and accepting them, giving the danger a place in our heads and our lives, that we will survive. “The good doesn’t exist without the bad. It’s a matter of balance.”

6-10 May at deSingel International Arts Campus, Antwerp
www.desingel.be

Photo by Danny Willems