In 2009 Jan Fabre offered Chantal an artistic residency at his venue Troubleyn / Laboratorium in Antwerpen, belgium.
THIRTY THREE DEGREES (2017)
The complete spectacle is presented in a dramatic way: the webcam images that are collected are projected onto a large screen in space. Le Sacre du Printemps by Russian Igor Stravinsky forms the basis for a daring soundtrack, in which classical and minimalist electronic music is intertwined live by composer Yannick Franck.
Stravinsky was inspired by various primitive rituals in honor of the budding Spring in pagan Russia, crowned by the offering of a young girl. On those same tones, Yzermans sacrifices the privacy of the chatters by making their most private actions visible. Ordinary images and primary needs are made public and, supported by a museological set-up and classical music, sublimated into art.
The visual input is frequently mixed and edited. The room fills with negative prints, framed images and fluorescent surfaces. Yzermans plays with photographic processes; where light is normally converted into image, here image is converted into light. The webcam images dissolve into a fleeting stream of impressions. Yzermans appropriates the bodies, intimate images and sayings of people for the benefit of a larger artistic whole. In this way she exposes the legal elasticity of artistic appropriation in a provocative way.
Concept Video / Performance Chantal Yzermans
Sound Design Video Yves De Mey
Sound Design Live Performance Yannick Franck
Commissioned By Jan Fabre & Joanna De Vos for Het Vlot Oostende / Mu.Zee
Design Platform Samyra Moumouh
Cinematography Guido Verelst/ Joris Ceupens
Production Radical Low
Performance History
Troubleyn Laboratorium 2019, Antwerpen (BE)
Het Vlot_Muzee 2017, Oostende (BE)
Photography Aleksei Kazantsev
NO BOLERO (2016)
Questioning the interpretation of a work of art and where does the originality of a piece stand, the focus is to join into a continuous dialogue with our artistic research and engagement on appropriation, the idea of originality, the relation between power and creativity, technology and art, dreams as intellectual property.
Chantal Yzermans' question puts at stake our own statement regarding an iconic piece of art: what we see through it, or what we are driven to see. In NOBOLERO, Yzermans misappropriates and even challenges the artistic movement as she reduces it to fragments, discharging the choreography from all its references, in order to extract its pure essence. The result of connecting Dance with a Scientific research on sleep and the origins of dreams, brings a hypnotic performance, which leads us to an ancestral ritual. Constantly navigating between reality and imagination, this personal quest drives us into the origins of mankind and our own identity, beyond the intellectual appropriation of a piece of art.
Concept Chantal Yzermans
Original Music Bolero by Maurice Ravel
Lecture Performance Dr. Joelle Adrien
Live Music MADMOIZEL
Costume Design Jean Paul Lespagnard
Light Design Elke Verachtert / Chantal Yzermans
Dramaturgy Mark Geurden / Koen Bollen
Production Radical Low
Co-Production
Jan Fabre/Troubleyn (BE)
Kultuurfaktorij Monty (BE)
Takt Dommelhof (BE)
Residencies
Kunstencentrum Vooruit (BE)
Teatros del Canal (SP)
Performance History
Monty Kunstencentrum, Antwerp (BE)
Centre Pompidou Metz, Metz (FR)
Photography Laetitia Bica
TOTEM 1942 (2014)
During ART International Istanbul 2014, Yzermans was invited to present an intervention based on the appropriation of TOTEM ANCESTOR a solo dance work made and performed by the American choreographer Merce Cunningham in 1942. Cunningham made this solo for himself in 1942, in the spring of his talent as a soloist, on a musical composition made by John Cage.
Transforming the legal restrictions surrounding the intellectual properties of this solo by Merce Cunningham, this solo was danced by Yzermans in a private space in Istanbul while the auditory/breathing interpretation of this performance was shared publicly during the ARTinternational Istanbul and through live streaming.
Concept & Performance Chantal Yzermans
Based on the Solo Performance Totem Ancestor by Merce Cunningham (1942)
Commissioned By ART International Istanbul 2014
Performance History ART International Istanbul, Turkey (TU)
PARTNER / YOU (2013)
The voice you hear during the performance is an instant and direct interaction call from an online sex internet website. Its robotic crude vibrations emerge from the same brutal pulsions on which Stravinsky's Rite of Spring are rooted. From today's sexual web communication back to the archaïc ritual of procreation, there is a continuum link, the link where time and space unfurl into the dance of the universe. During the performance, the dancer is online with a direct messaging website, through which people are connected at random.
This type of game brings a rhythm of gamble, as we never know who will be the chosen partner , at the same time that it designs the rhythm of the whole piece.A triangular relationship is thus created between the two performers, the audience and the anonymous partner/partners. Through this contemporary rite, Chantal Yzermans looks back on the primitive one of Stravinsky's Rite, she finds here a continuity with the pagan ritual, together with the original musical composition of the Madrilene minimal techno artist Substuff.
Premiere Festival Escena Contemporanea Madrid February 2013
Concept Chantal Yzermans
Dance Chantal Yzermans
Guest Performer Carlos Aires
Music Sacre du Printemps (Stravinsky)
Original Music Substuff
Designer Jean Paul Lespagnard
With The Support Of
Stad Antwerpen 2013
Festival Escena Contemporanea (Madrid)
Flanders House Madrid
In Collaboration With
Jan Fabre / Troubleyn Antwerpen (BE)
Teatro Danza Canal Madrid (ES)
Kunstencentrum Vooruit Gent (BE)
Monty Kunstencentrum (BE)
Performance History
LOOP City Screen 2018, Barcelona (S)
Festival Casabanchel 2017, Madrid
(S) Cultuurcentrum Grote Post, Oostende (BE)
Coup de Ville 2016, St Niklaas (BE)
Cultureel Centrum, St Niklaas (BE)
Circulo Bellas Artes, Madrid (S)
M_HKA Museum for Contemporary Art Antwerpen, (BE)
December Dans 2015, Brugge (BE)
Le Careau du Temple, Paris (FR)
Troubleyn Jan Fabre, Antwerpen (BE)
Monty Kunstencentrum Februari, Antwerpen (BE)
Bruno Glint Gallery, London (GB)
Festival Escena Contemporanea, Madrid (S)
Top Photo Laetitia Bica
Middle Photo Ronald Stoops
Bottom Photo Video Screen Shot
GUNS / ROSES (2011)
Guns / Roses is a creation based on the sport of athletics, made for one female dancer and one male soprano. Movement is the anchor, the base of it all, in which this work is confided : in its honesty and self-sufficiency. As for the color of this choreography, it is inspired by the inner personality of each performer, dancer Chantal Yzermans versus violinist and male soprano Hans Van Kerckhoven. Spanish fashion designer, Ana Locking, took a sample of her own blood and replicated it onto fabric. What seems like baroque images are but a macro photo of her red and white globules flowing through her blood.
Premiere Casa Encendida Madrid February 2011
Choreography Chantal Yzermans
Scenography Chantal Yzermans
Dance Anastasia Savitsky
Violin / Voice Hans Van Kerckhoven
With The Support Of
Vlaamse Gemeenschap 2011
Stad Antwerpen
Festival Escena Contemporanea, Madrid
Flanders House Madrid
Performance History
Festival Escena Contemporanea Madrid, Madrid (S)
Festival Rencontre Choregraphique Seine Saint Denis, Paris (FR)
Photography Ronald Stoops
ARENA / ACT THREE (2010)
Arena / Act Three is an in situ creation for Jan Fabre / Troubleyn Laboratorium. It was created for two dancers from the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, based on the sport of wrestling. A research between movement in sports and movement in dance, which leads to a deeper look into the nature of performance, with 'movement' as the protagonist. The experiment to introduce the language of sports stimulates to create and sign another sensitivity in the choreographic work.
Choreography / Scenography Chantal Yzermans
Dancers Rashaun Mitchell & Silas Riener
Premiere Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales, Paris, May, 2010
With The Support Of
Jan Fabre / Troubleyn, Antwerpen (BE)
Monty Arts Center-Antwerpen (BE)
Performance History
Amperdans Festival, Antwerpen (BE)
Rencontres Choregraphiques Internationales, Seine Saint Denis, Paris (FR)
Photography Ronald Stoops
AN ANGRY BOY / ACT ONE (2009)
The performance is a contemporary portrait inspired by Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonate Opus 106. The score was created by the composer at the end of his life, during the turning point of Classicism and Romanticism. So it is with An Angry Boy / Act Two, unfolding into two conflictual registers the choreographer finds herself as a creator anno 2008 into a new vacuum : on the threshold of what is established and what is yet to become. Together with the dark and haunting post-punk fashion designer Andrea Cammarosano, they create An Angry Boy / Act Two.
Choreography / Scenography Chantal Yzermans
Dance Chantal Yzermans
Premiere Amperdans Festival 2008 Antwerpen
Live Sculpture Nono Pesoa
Costume Design Andrea Cammarosano
Music Hammerklavier Sonate by Ludwig Van Beethoven
Piano Adriaan Jacobs
With The Support Of
Jan Fabre / Troubleyn Antwerpen (BE)
Monty Kunstencentrum (BE)
The City of Antwerpen (BE)
Performance History
Chez Bushwick, Brooklyn (USA)
Instituto Cervantes, Dancing Roads 2013, Bremen (D)
Monty Kunstencentrum, Antwerpen (BE)
Amperdans Festival, Antwerpen (BE)
Photography Ronald Stoops