“Snowflakes, leaves, humans, plants, raindrops, stars and molecules all come in communities. The singular cannot really exist”
Paula Gunn Allen
Grandmothers of the Light: A Medicine Woman’s Sourcebook
Inspired by the numerous protests around the world and the need for social solidarity and resistance to state repression, avant-garde Belgian choreographer and performer Jan Martens returns to the Athens Epidaurus Festival, this time in collaboration with the Berlin-based Dance On company. Borrowing its title from a speech delivered by Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, to the Hong Kong protesters in 2019,
any attempt will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones had its premiere at the 2021 Festival d'Avignon. A production meant for a big stage, it incorporates the power of diversity as well as the co-existence of unique individualities into its very form, featuring a
corps de ballet that is heterogeneous in terms of age and body type, consisting of 17 dancers aged 18-71 years old. The performance showcases each dancer’s unique, signature style within an ensemble demonstrating a joint physical and performative energy. Based on the intensely rhythmical
Harpsichord Concerto by contemporary Polish composer Henryk Mikolaj Górecki, the choreography is embellished with pieces of resistance from the 1960s to this day by Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln to Kae Tempest.
Taking the phrase uttered by the Chinese president, translated and broadcast around the world in various ways, as his starting point, Martens observes that language in our times of “post-truth” serves primarily as an “ideological tool”. In addition to dancing, Martens also brings on stage language itself as a performing medium, introducing oral excerpts from Scottish writer Ali Smith’s novel
Spring*, as well as online, written declarations of hatred, fragments of which are projected behind the dancers. The idea of a harmonious social co-existence may ultimately be but a utopia; we must constantly defend the possibility of being different
together against the various reactionary voices.
[*Third part of the
Seasonal Quartet series of novels. The Greek translation by Miltiadis Argyropoulos for Kastaniotis Editions is used in the performance.]
Jan Martens/GRIP & Dance On Ensemble - any attempt will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones from
GRIP artists on
Vimeo.
Choreography Jan Martens
Performed by Abigail Aleksander, Pierre Bastin, Georgia Boddez, Ty Boomershine, Truus Bronkhorst, Camilla Bundel, Jim Buskens, Baptiste Cazaux, Zoë Chungong, Piet Defrancq, Naomi Gibson, Simon Lelievre, Kimmy Ligtvoet, Solal Mariotte, Cherish Menzo, Steven Michel, Gesine Moog, Dan Mussett, Wolf Overmeire, Tim Persent, Courtney May Robertson, Laura Vanborm, Zora Westbroek, Loeka Willems, Lia Witjes-Poole, Maisie Woodford, Paolo Yao
Artistic assistance Anne-Lise Brevers
Lighting design Jan Fedinger (assisted by Vito Walter)
Costume design Cédric Charlier (assisted by Alexandra Sebbag, Thibault Kuhn)
Outside eye Marc Vanrunxt, Renée Copraij, Rudi Meulemans, Siska Baeck
Text Spring by Ali Smith, with the permission of Wylie Agency
Music copyright “Concerto pour Clavecin et Cordes Op 40” Réf Im 108884 Musique de Henryk Mikolaj Górecki © PWM Editions représenté par Alphonse Leduc Editions Musicales, “People’s Faces” written by Kae Tempest and Dan Carey © Published and Administered by Domino Publishing Company Limited (50%) and MANATA LTD Administrated by Warner/Chappell Music Belgium N.V. (50%), “Triptych Prayer/Protest/Peace” written by Maxwell Roach © Published by Milma Publishing Company Administered by Kobalt Music Publishing Limited
Technical manager Michel Spang
Tour technicians Michel Spang, Valentijn Weyn, Nele Verreyken
Photos Phile Deprez
Graphic design Luis Xertu
Teasers and trailers Stanislav Dobak, Jan Fedinger
Production GRIP
In collaboration with Dance On Ensemble
International distribution A Propic / Line Rousseau, Marion Gauvent and Lara van Lookeren
Co-production deSingel (Antwerp), Theater Freiburg, Sadler’s Wells (London), Festival d’Avignon, Julidans (Amsterdam), Le Gymnase – CDCN Roubaix Hauts-de-France, Norrlandsoperan (Umeå), La Bâtie – Festival de Genève και Association pour la danse contemporaine Genève, tanzhaus nrw (Düsseldorf), Le Parvis – Scène national Tarbes-Pyrénées, La Danse en grande forme (Project A-CDCN / ACCN CNDC Angers, Malandain Ballet Biarritz, La Manufacture – CDCN Nouvelle-Aquitaine Bordeaux / La Rochelle, CCN de Caen en Normandie, L’échangeur – CDCN Hauts-de-France, CCN de Nantes, CCN d’Orléans, Atelier de Paris / CDCN, Collectif Fair-e – CCN de Rennes et de Bretagne, Le Gymnase – CDCN Roubaix Hauts-de-France, Pôle Sud – CDCN Strasbourg, La Place de La Danse – CDCN Toulouse Occitanie), Perpodium (Antwerp) • Supported by De Grote Post (Ostend), Charleroi – Danse Centre chorégraphique de Wallonie-Bruxelles, CCN d’Orléans, Théâtre d’Orléans, December Dance – Concertgebouw and CC Brugge (Bruges), Flemish government, City of Antwerp, Tax Shelter of the Federal Government of Belgium, Cronos Invest
Thanks to Wannes Labath, de! Kunsthumaniora, Nadine Scheuer, Mr. Jean Chabert (Stanley/Stella)
