Creations inspired by dance and circus
Circus? Dance? Alexander Vantournhout chose not to choose. And he was right: in just a few years, the 30-something-year-old has become the contemporary scene’s new sensation. Vantournhout trained in single wheel, acrobatics and juggling at the Ecole Supérieure des Arts du Cirque in Brussels, where he was born, before attending P.A.R.T.S, choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s emblematic dance school, and studying improvisation in the United States.
In a perfect balancing act, he combines all three disciplines and breathes new life into the art of performance.His creations put the bodies of his performers, including himself, through strenuous physical paces or bring them into relationships with unlikely objects in order to "explore the creative and kinetic potential of physical limits".
After the solos ANECKXANDER (2014), Raphaël (2016) and the quartet Red Haired Men (2018), Screws, created in 2019, guides you along a 10-sequence route that plays with the notions of counterweight and gravity, but also with offbeat props such as a bowling ball or rock-climbing shoes with crampons, proving that original choreography can go hand in hand with humour and poetry!
Mozart, electro, soul: music at the heart of Alexander Vantournhout’s creations
Associate artist at the Centquatre in Paris, Vantournhout is also supported by several circuses and festivals in Belgium and France (PERPLX in Kortrijk, Circa in Auch, Spring in Normandy, etc.). And he isn’t short of an audience: in the 2019-2020 season alone, his last two works have been performed over 80 times in around 20 countries.
Highly inspired by music from Mozart to electro, Vantournhout is currently rehearsing a new piece with his company, not standing, called Through the Grapevine, which title refers to the eponymous song by the king of soul, Marvin Gaye.
The premiere will take place at the Friche de la Belle de Mai in Marseille on October 3, 2020.
