New dance performance explores distress of dementia

He was inspired by seeing someone he loved slowly lose their faculties, and the distress this caused, both to that individual and his family. “But rather than imitating people affected by dementia, we tried to find a physical translation of what goes on in their minds,” he explains.

Dehaes and two other dancers use unusual movements and complex patterns to represent the shift between lucidity and confusion in the mind of someone with dementia. “Many movements in DMNT are based on old memories of the dancers,” he adds. “They tried to remember how they moved as kids, what physical memories are still present in their bodies after all those years.”

As the performance progresses, movements are lost or the dance comes to a standstill, before resuming with a feeling close to violence. This represents the brain’s effort to make sense of what is happening. “With our own bodies, which are quite young, we try to experience how it feels to lose control over the body,” Dehaes explains.

Meanwhile a fragment of a glider’s wing slowly revolves above the dancers’ heads, symbolising the ungraspable disease that might await any of us.

Yet as well as dealing with the distress of dementia, Dehaes hopes the performance captures something beautiful. “As dancers, we are very conscious of our bodies and all of their movements. In DMNT we try to forget what we know and start off from a ‘naive’ body. This results in beautiful but unintended movements, based on distant memories.”
12 November to 28 December across Flanders