TWOOLS 5

"A pleasant fever reigns in our studios when the annual edition of TWOOLS is created in a few weeks with all thirty dancers", writes Ed Wubbe in his 2003 annual report, looking back on the anniversary edition of TWOOLS. Even this fifth time, the tension of the concept, produced in a short time and assembled into a single performance, without a fixed theme, is palpable.

The 'mixture of carefully made choreographies, short pieces with an instant character and short improvisations' promised in the press release consists of eleven pieces this edition. Work by people from the Scapino's own ranks such as resident choreographer Nanine Linning and dancers Ederson Rodrigues Xavier and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, but also by choreographers who have not worked with the company before: André Gingras and Ruby Edelman. Once again, it is structured around a series of short pieces by Wubbe and the ensemble.

Various makers will add a video component to their TWOOLS piece. Ruby Edelman enters into a dialogue between live film and live dance: in Intimacy Hunters a cameraman shares the stage with a dancer. The filmed images are shown live on a large screen of slats at the front of the stage. For Zip, Zap and Zoef, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa engages videographer Javier Velazquez, and for Ed Wubbe's opening piece Gel Gün, Digital Guerilla is responsible for the video.

In No Artificial Sweetener, Nanine Linning links angular dance by three men to the poetry of Mustafa Stitou. Linning's Double Helix can also be seen. In André Gingras' energetic Holdfast, the dancers thunder across the stage with pirouettes, jumps and lifts performed at high speed. The four dancers' bodies in the more enigmatic Yo-Yo 1 and 2 by Ederson Rodrigues Xavier are like snakes; the three men and one woman begin under nervous tension with jerky twists and work towards a more fluid dance language with longer body lines.

Roos van Put of the Haagsche Courant observes that the risk of the flashy format pays off: "You fly from one climax via a swing or via a moment of contemplation or of aesthetic visual pleasure to the next climax. The result: a wonderful evening with happy faces and a joyful mood afterwards."