The progressive Flemish dance company Ultima Vez returns to the stage of Prague’s Archa Theater as part of the final season “Fundamentals of the Future” with TRACES choreography by the world-renowned director and choreographer Wim Vandekeybus. Archa will provide viewers with a powerful artistic experience four times in a row from May 25 to 28. Tickets for the show are already on sale in the GoOut.cz network.
In the production TRACES, director and choreographer Wim Vandekeybus sets out in his own footsteps. He looks back at his feelings, which influenced him at the beginning of his artistic search, at the drama of impulses and instincts, at the play of energies and intensities. Inspired by a stay in the stunning Romanian nature with the last European forests, Vandekeybus searches for traces that are older than humanity and its memory.
“Wim Vandekeybus searches and investigates in each of his projects. This time, he is looking for a story that unfolds outside of language, and that can only be told in the clash of dance and music,” describes Archa director Ondřej Hrab.
It is a search for traces of nature that the body has forgotten or repressed. How much nature still lives in the human race? How many animals are there in the human body? What happens when we are in danger or in danger, when we have to make intuitive decisions to survive?
“TRACES is a choreography aimed at exploring human nature through dance, which reaches the absolute limit of physical possibilities,” adds Hrab.
Ten dancers will perform in the production, some of them we know from previous guest appearances at Arš, the rest were selected through a strict audition from a huge number of applicants from all over the world. Music, which always plays an important role at Vandekeybus, was created by American-Belgian alternative rock star Trixie Whitley and top American musicians Shahzad Ismaily, Ben Perowski and Daniel Mintseris, and special guest Tom Waits guitarist Marc Ribot.
Ultima Vez by Wim Vandekeybus has been a regular guest at Arš since 1995, since then Czech audiences have had the opportunity to watch the work of one of the world’s most important choreographers. His work is characterized by a radical movement vocabulary full of confrontations, emotions, unrestrained energy and visual effects.
Ultima Vez – TRACES: May 25 to 28, 2023, always from 8 p.m
Advance ticket sales: https://goout.net/cs/ultima-vez/pzcxhlg/
Direction, dramaturgical concept and choreography: Wim Vandekeybus
Performers: Alexandros Anastasiadis, Borna Babić, Maureen Bator, Davide Belotti, Pieter Desmet, Maria Kolegova, Kit King, Anna Karenina Lambrechts, Magdalena Oettl and Mufutau Yusuf
Music by Marc Ribot, Trixie Whitley, Shahzad Ismaily, Ben Perowski and Daniel Mintseris
