L.A.V.A.

Dance as lava: tension, friction and underground flow
L.A.V.A. is a performance you do not only watch, but almost physically feel. On stage, a landscape of bodies, light and sound emerges, charged with pressure. Dancers approach one another, collide, pulse, harden and break open again. Like lava simmering beneath the surface, this performance slowly builds pressure until movement can no longer be contained.

Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten of ICK Dans Amsterdam and Roberto Zappalà of Compagnia Zappalà Danza bring their worlds together in an international co-production. Not as a neat blend or separate programme, but as a confrontation. ICK’s impulsive, physical language meets Zappalà’s rhythmic, collective energy. It is precisely the differences that create fire: new movement emerges from friction, proximity and clashing energies.

Dancers with a voice of their own
What makes L.A.V.A. stand out is that the dancers do not form a uniform company in which everyone looks the same. Each body brings its own rhythm, background and presence. The cast moves as a group, yet the individuality of the dancers remains visible. This makes the performance vivid, human and direct.

Salvador Breed’s soundscape is a driving force in its own right. Electronic textures, deep resonances and seismic vibrations put the space under pressure. The sound does not merely support the dance, but challenges it and at times even works against it. Combined with the lighting, this creates a performance that is raw, layered and compelling.

Major names in European dance
ICK Dans Amsterdam is led by Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten, who have worked together since 1995 and built an internationally recognised body of work spanning dance, opera, theatre, music and film. In 2021, they received the VSCD Golden Swan lifetime achievement award, the most important dance award in the Netherlands, for their contribution to Dutch dance. Roberto Zappalà is the artistic director of Compagnia Zappalà Danza in Sicily, has created more than 85 works and received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024.

With L.A.V.A., these makers ask an urgent question: can we bear difference and even see it as fertile ground? The performance shows how life force does not arise from smooth harmony, but from friction. Not from distance, but from the courage to stay close.

Want to see more of ICK Dans Amsterdam?
On 21 November, ICK Dans Amsterdam will perform a prologue from HELL at Amare’s dance festival Everybody Dance Now. Read more about the festival here.