Wed Sept 2 - Fri Oct 17: Residency, Wudangshan, Beijing
Sun Oct 4, 19:00, Performance, Crossings Festival, Beijing
Boukje Schweigman belongs to a talented Dutch generation of theatre artists balancing in between mime and physical theatre, along with Jetse Batelaan, Bambi, Lotte Van den Berg and others. She graduated in 2003 from the mime department from the Theatreschool of Amsterdam.
During a six-week residency in China with TIM, Boukje looks into the use of the body within Chinese rituals. How do the Chinese make use of their body in order to transcend reality? During the last three weeks, she has done an intensive training in a traditional temple in the mountains of Wudangshan, where Taoism has originated. She has now returned to Beijing to explore its traces and leftovers in China's ever-changing mega-cities. Do people create new rituals, recover the old ones, or do they not pay any attention anymore?
She collaborates with Ibelisse Guardia, a Bolivian artist living and working in the Netherlands, with whom she has worked before.
While in Beijing, Boukje Schweigman will also perform her solo Whirl during the Crossings Festival in Living Dance Studio's Caochangdi Workstation. For Whirl, Schweigman drew inspiration from the Derwisj dances that she learned from Sufi refugees from Iran. In a scenography by Theun Mosk with a sound curtain by Paul Koek, she delivers an impressive solo performance, turning her body endlessly. There doesn’t seem to be a way out. She can only go back to the centre. She slows down, she keeps on turning. A far away sound. Fade out.
This residency is made possible thanks to the HUB residency project of Theatre in Motion and the Dutch Theatre Institute, supported by the Netherlands China Arts Foundation. For more information on the HUB residencies in China, mail hub@theatreinmotion.org.
The Crossings festival is organized by Living Dance Studio in the Caochangdi (CCD) Workstation, in collaboration with Beijing Storm and Borneoco/cultureXpress. For more information on the program and directions to the venue, check www.ccdworkstation.com or www.culture360.org/inform/events/event/itemid/events_20090925_131643.aspx
http://www.boukjeschweigman.nl