…and there was no more light

Walking and falling, rising and resurrection

Imre and Marne van Opstal’s „VODOO WALTZ“ at the completely sold-out Parkstad Limburg Theatre in Heerlen is heavy fare at the start of the 29th edition of the Schrit_tmacher Festival – but brilliantly performed!

by Melanie Suchy

This year’s Schrittmacher Festival opens with a piece that combines dance with drama and is not designed to make you feel good. „Voodoo Waltz“ from Bochum ticks to a very unlovely beat. Because the production by Imre and Marne van Opstal tells a crazy story. Or no: what remembering and anticipating a bang might feel like.

The acclaimed premiere at Schauspielhaus Bochum was a month ago. It was the Dutch brother and sister van Opstal’s first directorial work with drama. Both were world-class dancers in the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) and the Batsheva Dance Company; they now choreograph as a duo. Their „I’m afraid I forgot your smile“, a sextet with choir created for the Hessisches Staatsballett, was nominated for the FAUST Prize in 2023. The dancer involved at the time, Ramon John, here on loan from the ballet in Wiesbaden/Darmstadt, performs „Voodoo Waltz“ with other dancers, former members of the NDT and actors from Bochum. An incantation.

Nine men and women and people who sometimes look like this and sometimes look like that. This is one of the „fine lines“ that is labelled at the beginning as „I have crossed them“. At one time, even the then new waltz crossed the boundaries of so-called decency. This crossing over, also in the sense of changing, „transformation“, is presented by the actor Pierre Bokma in the opening scene: he is Orfan, he pretends to be a man or a woman, depending on the season, but never wanted an operation. The surname-less man is the central theme of the production, which is set in Amsterdam’s red light district. Sometimes he speaks, sometimes he watches from the side. Wears a suit and glasses, but mostly a pale pink undergarment, pumps and a wig dangling from his hand. In the intermediate stage.

Occasionally, Wilhelm aka the Bible reader Wilhelma, William Cooper, who also hints at a long-haired Jesus, as well as the lawyer Ivana, who is interested in lying faces, and Kinga Xtravaganza, madam of a brothel, both played by the actress Stacyian Jackson, also appear. Plus the six dancing creatures, between human and ghost. But Orfan, a sex worker by profession, stays and goes to the end. The supposed or self-declared orphan takes revenge or gets rid of his past, as he calls it. Takes someone from life to death, across the border. While the biblical quotation speaks of Jesus‘ resurrection. Fathers as a problem. The origin. Faith.

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