A series of queer procedures, characters and affective conceptions of space. Here love, difficult hope, humour and perversity are all forces for bandaging a world back together after incomprehensible loss.
Jeremy Wade speculates on what he calls ‘(im)possible repair’ in a fluorescently-lit, dark dreamworld of dance, word, props and costumes, with live music by Marc Lohr. The stage transforms from a spacious Berlin night club into an intimate New York cabaret theatre. Here, Wade, playing various characters, depicts how trauma feels and how we can offer each other critical care in response to it, as a universal form of solidarity. In these emotionally complex times, Wade formulates a new mythology that goes beyond the purely rational, in which radical empathy, ecstatic exuberance and hyper-vulnerability play a central role.
Jeremy Wade is an American dancer and choreographer. In the 90s he organised queer club nights in New York, in 2000 he graduated from the School voor Nieuwe Dans Ontwikkeling (SNDO) in Amsterdam, in 2006 he received a Bessie award for his first piece, ‘Glory’, and since then he’s been living and working in Berlin. Here he curated the hit queer performance series ‘Creature Feature’ and the Politics of Ecstasy festival together with Meg Stuart in 2009.
This clubbing aesthetic and Wade’s elusive, erotic physicality create a sense of sensation and a disorientation that seems to call the virtuosity of contemporary dance into question. His work is disconcerting and urges reflection in its exploration of queer and feminist ways of shaping society. In a simultaneously physical and conceptual approach, Wade broaches topics such as the ethics of care-as-love. He brings this approach to ‘The Clearing’, which will get its Belgian premiere here at Beursschouwburg.
Jeremy Wade will also give the opening lecture of our WE LOVE YOU programme under the guise of his alter ego The Battlefield Nurse.
As part of ‘We Love You’, a multidisciplinary programme on love beyond the romantic and the self - sep oct nov dec 2019.
concept, choreography and performance: Jeremy Wade, music: Marc Lohr, set: Rosa Birkedal, costume: Claudia Hill, lighting design: Andreas Harder, author and outside eye: Allison Wiltshire, dramaturgy: Maika Knoblich, artistic collaboration and assistance: Yoav Admoni, choreographical advice and coaching: Vladimir Miller, Michael Rolnick and Maria F. Scaroni, video: Maya SB, artistic advice: Katerina Kokkinos-Kennedy, stage assistance: Daniela Zorrozua, costume assistance: Diane Esnault & Emilia Patrignani, press and production: björn & björn.
