It all started on an open-air stage with a donkey. The setting was a Renaissance cloister at the Avignon Festival in 2002, where the young Flemish dancer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui was invited to choose the choreographer of his dreams to create a new piece. Cherkaoui chose his compatriot Wim Vandekeybus, artistic director of the ground-breaking Ultima Vez. And the rest is history. Cherkaoui is now, of course, an award-winning choreographer in his own right and recently founded his own company, Eastman.
The original IT 3.0 has been reworked for a modern stage with multimedia technology. Nearly a decade later, the donkey has become part of Vandekeybus' cinematic imagery, but Cherkaoui's protean body still breathes life into the many transformations made by the monk Atlajala, embodying the essence of creatures and ideas alike. His lithe body, with its fluid movements and the ever-circling flow of energy, brings earth and spirit together in an act of pure, corporeal poetry.
Flanders Today is a 
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