Scapino Ballet Rotterdam x RIDCC x Cinedans
Origin
An absurdist satire and search for hope in dark times. Origin is created by three emerging avant-garde dance makers with a socially critical perspective in their work. After winning the world's biggest dance award - the RIDCC XL Production award - Sarah Baltzinger & Isaiah Wilson and Olivia Court Mesa are now making two world premieres at Scapino. Both dance pieces can be seen in one program with two connecting dance films curated by Cinedans film festival around the same theme.
The piece GOATS by French/Luxembourgian duo Sarah Baltzinger & Isaiah Wilson 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 The breakable us, Chilean-Israeli Olivia Court Mesa combines 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.
Their Origin in The Netherlands with Scapino
For Scapino's talent development programme Origin, artistic director Nanine Linning invites promising talent. Under her artistic direction, they will for the first time create a programme for the major theatres that will be presented throughout the Netherlands.
Calendar
| Tuesday 25 February 2025 - 20:00 |
Pre-premiere
Origin |
Theater Rotterdam
Rotterdam |
Tickets |
| Wednesday 26 February 2025 - 20:00 |
Premiere
Origin |
Theater Rotterdam
Rotterdam |
Tickets |
| Thursday 27 February 2025 - 20:00 |
Performance
Origin |
Theater Rotterdam
Rotterdam |
Tickets |
| Friday 28 February 2025 - 20:00 |
Performance
Origin |
Theater Rotterdam
Rotterdam |
Tickets |
| Friday 7 March 2025 - 20:00 |
Performance
Origin |
Internationaal Theater Amsterdam
Amsterdam |
Tickets |
Choreographers
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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.
Credits
Artistic direction
Nanine Linning
Choreography
Sarah Baltzinger & Isaiah Wilson (GOATS)
Olivia Court Mesa (The breakable us)
Music composition
Guillaume Jullien (GOATS)
Yehezkel Raz and Roey Hason (The breakable us)
Light design
Jan Boiten
Costume design
Petra Finke
Set design
Sarah & Isaiah in consultation with Guido Verschoor (GOATS)
Zohar Shoef (The breakable us)
Dramaturgy
Merit Vessies
Lucid dreaming
Direction & choreography: Emma Evelein
Fibonacci
Direction: Tomáš Hubáček
Choreography: Marie Gourdain
A collaboration with
RIDCC
Cinedans
GOATS in co-production with
Theater Bielefeld
Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg
GOATS
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.
The breakable us
The breakable us explores the physical and psychological response to tragedy and chaos. Olivia Court Mesa reflects on collective trauma, survival and the path from darkness to color.
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.
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 (RIDCC) and produced by Scapino. As a partner of the first hour of this unique choreography competition, Scapino is a springboard for choreographic talent worldwide.
RIDCC was founded by two leading dancers at Scapino, Maya Roest and Mischa van Leeuwen. The platform has attracted many internationally emerging dance makers to Rotterdam since 2018.
Cinedans
As a bridge between the two world premieres, we are collaborating with Cinedans and forging dramaturgical lines with two short dance films, curated by Cinedans, around the same theme.
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. The film tells the story of a girl on a train who loses herself in the world of a stranger sitting across from her.
Fibonacci depicts a human flock flowing through wavy fields. 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.
Cinedans is the central venue in Amsterdam, and the only organization in the Netherlands, that has focused entirely on dance film since 2003, bringing together presentation, development and international distribution of the genre.
