Softcore – A Hardcore Encounter is a dance piece about hardcore techno subgenre ‘Gabber’. At 200 beats per minute this beat has been described as techno on speed: it’s the sound of the uncompromising underdog. It’s rave gone crazy. It places the body in a permanently accelerated state and can be viewed equally as part of both capitalist society and the resistance to it.

The young Belgian Lisa Vereertbrugghen has conducted an extensive examination of this form of club music over several years and explores the term hardcore with regard to the transformation, vulnerability, possibility and unpredictability that is concealed behind its stubborn convulsions and twitches. What if dancing so fast can be a way to appropriate speed not for being more productive, but for the opposite: Speed becomes a way to increase sensations and to elude control.

The audience is asked to sit on the floor, but chairs will be provided for people who prefer that. There is also room for wheelchairs.

Presented in partnership with FABRIC as part of our Flanders Focus.

Concept, choreography and performance: Lisa Vereertbrugghen
Sound: Michael Langeder
Lights: Vera Martins
Artistic advice: Madison Bycroft, Sabine Cmelniski, Nestor Garcia Diaz

Coproduction of CENTRALE FIES within the program of LIVE WORKS PERFORMANCE ACT AWARD, STUK, BUDA and BIT Teatergarasjen
With the support of CAMPO, Tanzfabrik, Workspace Brussels and SZENE Salzburg.
Funded by de Vlaamse Overheid and apap – Performing Europe 2020, co-funded by the Creative Programme of the European Union

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