Program
Welcome
Origin is the talent development program of Scapino. We think it is important to give young makers the opportunity to create with a large company and to show the work throughout the Netherlands. Within the program we emphasize supporting female talent.
In this edition of Origin we do this in partnership with the Rotterdam Choreographic Competition RIDCC, where new international talent is discovered. In addition, as the first dance company, we also partnered up with Cinedans Filmfestival to bring dance and film closer together. There are beautiful films that deserve a larger audience. This is how the idea arose to bring an evening with four autonomous artworks; two dance pieces and two dance films.
All four works are a reflection on the vulnerability of man and blur the lines between reality and fantasy. The film Fibonacci and the choreographyThe breakable us, before the intermission, focus on the vulnerable person and his personal feelings. After the intermission, Lucid Dreaming and GOATS focus on vulnerability through the absurdism of a society from which people want to escape.
I greatly appreciate that all choreographers and dancers with guts have also pushed their own limits and expose themselves with their own vulnerabilities.
We wish you a very nice performance!
Nanine Linning
Olivia Court Mesa The breakable us
The breakable us is a new work by Olivia Court Mesa for Scapino Ballet Rotterdam, combining athletic physicality with conceptual depth. Court Mesa explores the idea of trauma being a part of our human existence, from which we heal, and become a new version of ourselves. Trauma as a gift for growth.
By merging objects and bodies, the piece weaves an intricate dialogue with space and the materiality that surrounds us, exploring resilience and our ability to repair. Hypnotic in its approach, the work invites audiences to reflect on how we support and challenge each other in shared spaces, delving into the delicate balance between vulnerability and transformation.
Olivia Court Mesa: “I’m interested in the psychological aspect of human behavior and the relationship between the mind and body. When do they intersect and when do they separate? I am inspired by bare physical action, expressing a universal language. I like to observe the body as an object, using it as a blank canvas, where most present is the fact that we carry our own weight. There is mass and constant physical interaction with gravity. The body pushes us to continue asking questions about our presence.
The breakable us explores how we heal from personal and collective trauma and how we turn pain into growth.
Rather than seeing trauma as purely negative, I see it as part of our human experience—something that shapes us, like an injury that heals but leaves a mark. Inspired by Kintsugi, the Japanese art of restoring broken ceramics with gold, I use the body to explore how we can recover and reconnect after trauma. Trauma lingers like a ghost, but connecting with objects helps anchor us in the present. Ultimately, the body tells the story—by bringing broken pieces back together and turning pain into healing.”
Olivia Court Mesa
Creatives
Choreography
Olivia Court Mesa
Assistant
Koen Eye
Music
Yehezkel Raz and Roey Hason
Tracks
Dust, When Everyone Is Asleep, Aridity, Tint, There Is No Time, Lava, Cracks Further door Yehezkel Raz Yair Cohen. Rework door Yehezkel Raz en Yair Cohen
Scenery
Zohar Shoef
Light design
Jan Boiten
Costume design
Olivia Court Mesa in collaboration with Petra Finke
Dramaturgy
Merit Vessies
Tonight's cast
Clemence Perichon, Lucas Donner, Francesco Simeone, Pedro Correia, Sven Guyt
Sarah Baltzinger & Isaiah Wilson GOATS
Sarah Baltzinger & Isaiah Wilson have been making a name for themselves for several years with high-profile and socially engaged pieces. Their new choreography GOATS is an imaginative satire on contemporary times. With powerful images, humorous dance language and absurdism, they comment on existing social systems and power structures. Playfully, they challenge the audience to look at the world with new eyes.
In GOATS, the performers inhabit a surreal world between pastoral satire and bestiary dream. Inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s "becoming animal", the piece explores alienation through hybrid bodies—half-human, half-goat—trapped in a reality where they no longer belong. Their only escape is metamorphosis, a shift toward animality in a desperate search for freedom.
Conceived as an absurd carnival, GOATS collides myths, power structures, and untamed instincts, questioning identity, oppression, and our bond with nature. The goat, a symbol of both reverence and fear throughout history, becomes a vessel for transformation—an icon of rebellion, hybridity, and the unknown.
Between reality and fantasy
This journey takes place within a scenography that blurs the line between reality and fantasy. A surreal landscape of grass dominates the stage, evoking a pastoral kingdom both idyllic and oppressive. It is a space suspended between the sacred and the playful, where the rules of ritual and the discipline of games intersect. Viewers are left to wonder: is this a prison, a human zoo, a stadium, or a fantastical world? This ambiguity underscores the disciplinary nature of the space, which confines the performers within its surreal boundaries while shaping their identities and actions.
Sarah Baltzinger & Isaiah Wilson: "GOATS is conceived as an absurdist satire. In this new piece, we delve into the absurdity of the modern world, crafting a surreal fable where the human and animal collide. We envisioned a space where the grotesque meets the poetic, a carnivalesque satire that explores the absurdity and sometimes cruelty of a modern life. Inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of ‘becoming-animal’, we sought to create a work in which hybrid figures, half-human, half-goat, attempt to escape a system that confines them, through metamorphosis.
These beings, figures for contemporary alienation, embody a desperate attempt to transform—to become other—in order to find a solution to a crushing world.
The stage, covered in grass, transforms into an ambiguous pastoral realm. Neither a prison, a human zoo, nor a sacred space, it blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy. This space, structured as a disciplinary dispositif, organizes bodies, imposes rules, and reflects the dynamics of power that shape the masses. Here, where the sacred and the playful overlap, it becomes an absurd playground where the mechanisms of an alienating system are laid bare.
At the center of this reflection lies the figure of the goat—as a specie, as a demoniac representation and as a toy. This animal has been appropriated, in between sacred and demonized throughout myths and religious narratives: from Pan and satyrs
to the scapegoat of Judeo-Christian tradition, the goat has often been reduced to monstrous projections.With GOATS, we reclaim this animal, offering it a hybrid and critical ode."
Sarah Baltzinger & Isaiah Wilson
Creatives
Choreography
Sarah Baltzinger & Isaiah Wilson
Music composition
Guillaume Jullien
Music arrangement
Isaiah Wilson
Light design
Jan Boiten
Costume design
Petra Finke
Scenery
Sarah Baltzinger & Isaiah Wilson in consultation with Guido Verschoor
Dramaturgy
Merit Vessies
Tonight's cast
Rafaël Belinha, Mathis Deure, Noa Köhler, Ellen Landa, Elaine Meijerink, Linde van Raaij, Adrian Torres
GOATS is a co-production with Theater Bielefeld and Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg
In co-production with RIDCC
Both Baltzinger/Wilson and Court Mesa received the XL Production Award, the world's largest dance prize awarded by Rotterdam International Duet Choreography Competition and produced by Scapino. As a partner of the first hour of this unique choreography competition, Scapino is a springboard for choreographic talent worldwide.
In June, dance talent from all over the world will travel to Rotterdam for the seventh edition of RIDCC (Rotterdam International Duet Choreography Competition). A must for all dance lovers! Sixteen choreographic talents will present versatile, innovative and remarkable duets as they compete for promising prizes.
Maya Roest and Mischa van Leeuwen, founders and artistic directors of RIDCC: ‘Over ten years ago, I [Mischa] choreographed a solo for Maya, with which we participated in the Internationales Solo Tanz Theater Festival Stuttgart competition. We won second prize for choreography, which was of course a great experience, but most of all it made us realise how valuable a competition can be for young creators. We decided to take matters into our own hands and that marked the start of RIDCC. Now, seven years later, RIDCC has put itself on the map as the biggest duet competition in the world!’ Maya continues: ‘With RIDCC, we want to create a community where emerging creators gain experiences and make connections that will be invaluable for their further careers. So RIDCC is much more than a competition with great prizes. It is a total experience, with master classes, workshops and networking events. For the audience, RIDCC offers three wonderful evenings with the finest 16 duets by emerging creators from all over the world. Selected especially for you from over 400 entries!’
Thu 12 June 8:00 pm | Fri 13 June 8:00 pm | Sat 14 June 8:00 pm
Location: Theater Rotterdam Schouwburg
Tickets on tr.nl/ridcc
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Sarah Baltzinger & Isaiah Wilson
Self-made artist, dancer and choreographer Sarah Baltzinger and experimental artist Isaiah Wilson formed an exciting choreographic team since 2022 that has already directed several projects together and won awards, including the RIDCC XL Production Award in 2023. -
Olivia Court Mesa
Chilean-Israeli choreographer, dancer, teacher and researcher Olivia Court Mesa has devoted her life to the arts for 25 years. In her work, she challenges traditional gender roles and explores how one body can contain both male and female power.
Film curated by Cinedans Fibonacci
Fibonacci depicts a human flock flowing through wavy fields. Their movement is in harmony with the landscape, until an unenlightened hunter crosses their path, disrupting the balance.
This environmental dance film serves as an audiovisual meditation on Fibonacci patterns in nature, herd behavior, film structure, and music.
Fibonacci is a sequence of numbers that creates spiraling patterns, closely related to the golden ratio—an aesthetic harmony found throughout the natural world.
Produced in Czechia, the film brings together an international creative team, including French choreographer Marie Gourdain and performers from Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, and Russia. Through this collaborative effort, the film weaves together the beauty of the landscape, the precision of movement, and the underlying mathematical order of the Fibonacci sequence.
Credits
Peformers: Aneta Bočková, Silvie Kudelová, Adéla Petáková, Eliška Benešová, Tereza Stachová, Daniela Kolková, Anastasia Efimova, Katarzyna Kamecka, Ekaterina Plechkova, Matěj Šumbera, Tomáš Wortner, Matouš Adam, Michal Nagy, Juro Mitro, Miroslav Kumhala
Direction, Editing, Music: Tomáš Hubáček
DOP: Alan Soural
Choreography: Marie Gourdain
Landscape Designer: Tereza Havlová
Producer: Jan Macola
© Mimesis Film 2020
The production was supported by the Czech Film Fund and South Moravian Film Fund.
Film curated by Cinedans Lucid Dreaming
Lucid Dreaming tells the story of a girl on a train who loses herself in the world of a stranger sitting across from her. As she becomes increasingly immersed in his world, the train itself and the other passengers gradually become a more intense part of her experience.
During this non-verbal encounter between strangers, she experiences how both imagination and empathy can be powerful and vulnerable at the same time.
Lucid Dreaming is a Dutch short dance film from 2023, directed by filmmaker-choreographer Emma Evelein. The film won the Golden Calf for "Best Short Film" at the Netherlands Film Festival 2023.
Credits
Peformers: Marie Lou Lagrange, Jinko Wu Adams, Djinti Sullivan, Remy Tilburg, Enzo Boffa, Sara de Greef, Chris-Pascal Englund Braun, Roberta Riontino, Alice Godfrey, Toon Lobach, Finn Xiao Xiao van Drenth, Dale Ratcliff
Director, writer, and choreography: Emma Evelein
Producers: Thomas Mataheru, Jolijn van Rinsum
Director of Photography: Christiaan van Leeuwen
Production Design: Farhad Vilkiji
Set Construction: Niels de Witt
Editor: Carlos Font Clos
Sound Design: Max van den Oever
Composer: Yellowbloom
Costume Design: Lissa Brandon
Make-up artist: Sanne Schoofs
Rehearsal director/Movement assistant: Sara Europaeus
Presented by Blanc Film in collaboration with Dotink Cinema, Sugar Rush Film, Everstory Productions, Stichting Emma Evelein Dance
The Origin of Scapino
Scapino's origins lie in 1945. After five years of war, our founders wanted to bring fun and imagination back into lives, especially those of children. Dance as social medicine. Scapino became the world's first professional dance company for children. An audience that had to be built up, school by school, generation after generation.
From the urge to make something happen with dance, Scapino kept reinventing itself. We changed from a youth dance company to a company for everyone. And when we moved to Rotterdam, things changed again. It was time for a new, contemporary repertoire with productions that let people experience something about the world we live in.
What remained was the need to connect. To connect with others through imagination, beauty and dialogue. With programmes on talent development, community art, cultural education, inclusion and diversity, we inspire children, young people and adults. We develop the talent of choreographers and young dancers, professionals and amateurs. As Rotterdam's city dance company, we are committed to meeting Rotterdammers and getting them moving in neighbourhood projects. Dance as a social binding agent and social bridge to a brighter future. Just as it all began.
Credits
Artistic director
Nanine Linning
Ballet masters
Débora Soto
Bonnie Doets
Atelier
Petra Finke
Gretha Geerds (dresser)
Claudia Pellegrini (dresser)
Production
Manon Paap
Hanna Laber
Tjeu Schellekens
Technical production
Guido Verschoor
Head of technique
Bjørn van Doesburg
Guido Verschoor
Sound
Rimmert Van Lummel
Marcel Wijngaards
Light
Geert Vriens
Frank de Mönnik
Tommy Everts
Inspection
Behrooz Vasseghi
Transport & inspection
Evert Achthoven
Scene photography
Bart Grietens
Portrait photos
Khalid Amakran
Campaign image
Stef Nagel
A collaboration with
Rotterdam Choreography International Duet Competition (RIDCC)
Cinedans Film Festival
Subsidies
Ministry of Education, Culture & Science
Municipality of Rotterdam
Sponsors
Brighter World
STOER
Preferred suppliers
De Jong Tours
Peitsman licht & geluid BV
Winter Audio Service
Wonderland & Geschikt
