Our Times

‘Thinking does not play well in an image-based culture. There is not much to see in it. It is not a performing art. – Neil Postman, ‘Amusing ourselves to death’

What role is allotted to thinking in our time? Every day, we are inundated with images and fragments of text. Absorbing all this information is a time-consuming business and reduces our thinking to storage and processing. In this storm of impressions, Michiel Vandevelde pauses to think about the state of thinking.

Our times takes as its starting point a discussion between the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy and the curator Daniel Tyradillis, as well as dance material from popular video clips. With this contrasting material, three dancers seek out the conflict between profundity and superficiality. This not only serves as a critique of our time, but is also an attempt to create new ways of thinking. In an exuberant choreography with reappropriated dance, fragments of text and bizarre music, Vandevelde creates space and time that go beyond the imagination.

credits

Concept & choreography: Michiel Vandevelde
Performers: Nestor Garcia Diaz, Jara Vlaeminckx, Michiel Vandevelde
Set & light: Michiel Vandevelde, Tom Bruwier
Feedback: Dries Douibi, Esther Severi, Kristof van Baarle
Technique: Tom Bruwier
Graphic design publication: Ward Heirwegh
Proof reading: Bryana Fritz, Katie Vickers, Antoon Vandevelde, Tom Bruwier
Production: Disagree vzw
Co-production: STUK, Kaaitheater, Vooruit (in the frame of DNA co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union), wpZimmer
Residencies: Bains Connective, STUK, Vooruit, Kaaitheater, wpZimmer
With the support of the Flemish Authorities
International distribution: Something Great
Financial management: Klein Verzet vzw
Special thanks to Alina L. Popa and all the great people that have given feedback along the way