‘Powerful and original’

A new production also means being subjected to the reviewers’ critical gaze. Read the first press reactions to our new production Losers here.

Reviewer Iris Spanbroek of platform Theaterkrant.nl came to watch the premiere on 15 September 2023 at De Nieuwe Vorst (Tilburg), and wrote:

The dancers repeat a routine of falling, sliding and getting up, interspersed with movement and text solos. A range of behaviours is featured: arrogance, conceit, disappointment, insecurity, pretending… There is a lot of playing with the audience’s gaze. After all, being a loser is mostly about whether others judge you to be one. It is all about watching and being watched. The dancers inspect each other, copy each other, turn their backs on each other and then face each other once again.

– Theaterkrant

Indeed, one of the strongest elements of the show is not the awkwardness that comes with shame. Rather, it is the implicitly communicated solution to feeling like a loser. Namely: being able to lean on those around you. Leaning, holding and carrying the other starts, in a literal sense, in the dancers’ movement language. And the more fluid the routine of mutually supporting bodies becomes, the more it enters the performance figuratively as well. Making a blunder is not such a bad thing if you are supported.

– Theaterkrant

▶︎ Read the full Theaterkrant review here (in Dutch)

Cultural editor Joost Goutziers

Critic Joost Goutziers (cultural editor for Brabants Dagblad a.o.) also came to watch the premiere. He wrote the following about the performance:

The movements in Losers are powerful and original, a cocktail of contemporary dance (solo, duet, synchronised group dance), acrobatics and urban dance, but also mime. The mime is especially visible when the dancers celebrate their successes, beating their chests, but also when they face each other, chest cockily against chest.

– Joost Goutziers

▶︎ Read the full review by Joost Goutziers here (Dutch only)