Another Kind of Blue (revival)

Another Kind of Blue, under the artistic direction of choreographer David Middendorp, creates performances in which contemporary dance and technology merge into a new art form. Technology is not used merely as a visual experiment, but as a way to reflect on the role it plays in our lives. In this revival of Silent Gestures, Middendorp explores our most natural form of communication: the body. Hands that speak, bodies that tell stories, gestures that appear before words do. Audience favourites return in a new form, alongside brand-new creations that further stretch the boundary between the physical and the digital.

From unicycle to drones and VR
The evening unfolds through different worlds, each with its own character. The Search opens the performance with an electric unicycle, physical precision and poetic imagination: a search for balance, both literally and figuratively. In HandsON and its spin-off Handbreak, hand gestures become a fast, playful exchange between body, image and rhythm. Arms brings a hypnotic duet between dancers and drones, while Flyland evokes an emotional fantasy in which lovers seem to fall through light, shadow and projection. For part of the audience, the experience goes even further through VR: a parallel universe in which virtual hands and bodies appear to take on a life of their own.

Human, machine and imagination
A striking element in Silent Gestures is the presence of top breakdancers. Their explosive street dance energy is not simply added to the performance, but opens it up and brings a new vocabulary into dialogue with the digital worlds on stage. Middendorp also invites other makers, including choreographer Daniel Barkan, to create their own interpretations using the innovative technologies from the studio of Another Kind of Blue. The result is a rare encounter between dance and digital art, between human and machine. A performance that does not shout, but whispers, and resonates all the more because of it.

“The boundary between the digital and the biological does not just blur, but collapses into a conversation that is as unsettling as it is beautiful.”
— Artstalk Magazine