Impressions of an experimental set-up

Holding Present… and let go

Ula Sickle & Ictus impress with a very precise performance at the Flexiforum in Kerkrade

by Klaus Dilger

The small town of Kerkrade, just after the Dutch border with Germany, never ceases to surprise with exciting cultural buildings that invite you to discover them.
We have often praised the theatre: with its symbiosis of library, gastronomy, adult education centre and theatre hall, it is one of the most exciting contemporary performance venues that are sorely missed in this country. The fact that this needs to get around even more on the local side of the neighbouring countries is a small drop of melancholy that occasionally arises when the often excellent guest performances of the schrit_tmacher justdance! festival at this venue are not all completely sold out.

Now for another small discovery: the Flexiforum. Originally planned as a school, the building now serves as an exciting experimental platform for the performing arts, among other things.

Ula-Sickle&ICTUS©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

Ideal for Ula Sickle and the ICTUS ensemble, which connoisseurs and friends of contemporary dance have often experienced in their collaboration with the Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (ROSAS).
Here too, this seventy-minute experimental performance would have deserved far more spectators.

‘Holding Present’ explores, according to the programme booklet for schrit_tmacher justdance! 2025 programme, ‘…how a small, individual gesture can develop into an expressive, collective action. A group of eight musicians and dancers work slowly and deliberately towards the moment when individuals merge into a critical mass.’ and further:

‘The ensemble makes use of unusual instruments such as buzzing wood, aluminium pipes, stones, megaphones and a modular synthesizer. Together, the musicians and dancers bring both the music and the choreography to life. ‘Holding Present’ is an invitation to lay the foundations for togetherness.’

The formulated intention is not always, or rather rarely, helpful for the experience of a performance, as is the case here.

Ula-Sickle&ICTUS©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

Based on existing and newly commissioned compositions by Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros, Stellan Veloce and Didem Coskunseven, the performers repeatedly develop exciting and surprising soundscapes that spread out in the octagonal ‘round’ of the audience like the floating of the black flag fabric, which the performers have developed in turn and supporting each other in the entrance situation.
The choreographic and musical scores are supported and developed by everyone. On the one hand, this is fascinating, but despite the professionalism of the execution, it also leads to the dancers appearing underchallenged in the movement passages. Or to put it another way, the desire for a brilliant shared experience seemed too moderated and therefore, according to the subjective feeling, could not be realised.

What will be remembered first and foremost is the joy of discovering the possibilities of making music together with bodies and unusual instruments and the dialogues that arose between dance and composition and individual images of groups and individuals.

This sounds like little, but it is not, because in increasingly ‘assertive worlds’, including in dance, it seems soothing to see how professional artists, following their inner path with great precision, unfold something that can become tangible in the moment without being able to possess it or take it with them.

‘Holding Present’, capturing the moment instead of living it, is bound to fail and that’s a good thing.
Here’s to life!

Concept, choreography Ula Sickle – Concept, musical direction Tom Pauwels (Ictus) – Composers Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros, Stellan Veloce and Didem Coskunseven – New instruments by Gert Aertsen – Design and performance Amanda Barrio Charmelo, Marina Delicado, Marie Goudot, Ruben Martinez Orio, Michael Schmid, Mohamed Toukabri, Tom Pauwels & Ula Sickle – Lighting and sound design Ofer Smilansky – Set design Richard Venlet – Costumes Wang Consulting – Dramaturgical assistance Persis Bekkering – Production Ictus & Outline –
Co-commissioned production of the play by Didem Coskunseven: Ircam-Centre Pompidou and Ictus –
Co-production Ircam/Les Spectacles vivants-Centre Pompidou, Concertgebouw Brugge, KWP (in Pianofabriek), Perpodium

With the support of Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government and with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts