DANSAND! is a weekend full of dance in, on and beside the beach of Oostende. The biennial open-air festival takes place from June 30 to July 2 and treats the audience to site specific – and weather proof – work by Belgian and international choreographers, dancers and performers. DANSAND! has existed for 15 years and has meanwhile grown into a solid festival with quite a few leading choreographers. "We want to set Oostende, its residents and visitors literally in motion and at the same time trigger a mental movement among choreographers and artists that allows them to break out of the black box," says programmer Merel Vercoutere. DANSAND!'s crystal anniversary is celebrated with an unmissable edition in which the public space takes even more center stage. This year also receives ample attention to how we deal with our colonial past.
DANSAND! 2023 promises to be a stageless edition: anyone expecting a fixed dance floor will have a hard time finding one here. Art centre KAAP, as curator of the festival, is more than ever committed to choreographic work that enters into dialogue with public space and seeks interaction with passers-by and the audience. TheFirst Date between singer Trixie Whitley and choreographer Kayla Farrish takes place, for example, on the sports beach and the day after on the old swimming pool site. Gaëtan Rusquets sound performance 'En reconnaissance' occupies the old swimming pool site and the project 'Birdwatching 4x4' by Benjamin Vandewalle in collaboration with P.A.R.T.S. makes the dike unsafe. "The sea, the beach, a dike, go-cars, tourists, … they are all specific characteristics of an open-air festival by the sea. Those existing elements of the different sites are sought out even more explicitly this year. And 'Birdwatching 4x4' returns after 10 years. It's a kind of cherry on top of the cake of the 15-year anniversary...," says Vercoutere.
Not by chance, KAAP publishes the book'Rethink & Replace' later this year, a collection of texts by artists reflecting on the role of visual art in public space. How can we re-activate this space through art and imagination and find new connection with today's stories? When you apply that thought exercise specifically to Oostende, you cannot ignore our colonial past. During DANSAND!, dealing with this past therefore receives considerable attention.
For example, there is the long-term artistic intervention 'SOKL': a wooden copy of the pedestal that supports the statue of King Leopold II in Brussels gets a place in Oostende for three weeks and becomes the stage for no fewer than 10 artists who each want to tell a new story. "Although the festival starts on June 30, Congo Independence Day, we are not only looking for links with our Belgian past in Congo. We are opening it up and want to create space for new perspectives and new, broader narratives. I notice that quite a few artists are searching with curiosity for their own choreographic roots and those of their dancers. There is also increasing attention to subcultural dance forms that are not 'classical'," says Vercoutere.
Norwegian Ingri Fiksdal is also looking for a dance language inspired by subcultural traditions and jazz techniques. Together with her company, she brings the Belgian premiere of the dynamic choreography 'The Syncopators' to various places in the city. In line with this, Fiksdal developed specially for DANSAND! 'Swarmy Swarm', a choreography for 24 PARTS students moving from the dike to the sports beach. Furthermore, collective memories are tested for their validity (Rona Kennedy – 'Unreliable archives') but space is also made for stories we have never heard before (Jolie Ngemi – 'Nkisi', Soa Ratsifandrihana and Joël Rabesolo…).
"We are increasingly profiling ourselves as a movement festival," says Vercoutere. "The work we show moves away from the classical theater hall. Our artists move elegantly between different art forms. We move our audience but the audience itself also moves!" During 'Follow me', a project that was invited thanks to the city of Oostende's participatory process around colonial references in the street scene, spectators move around, beside and under the urban acrobat duo Be flat. In a tumbling journey through Oostende, facades serve as scenery, cobblestones as dance carpet, traffic as soundtrack and colonial statues as scenographic elements.
In 'Holders' by Francesca Chiodi Latini too, the audience moves along, and in search of ways to physically represent 'memory', Latini knits with bodies. workspacebrussels takes the audience along the dike and through the city and shows three projects in a surprising route. The weather, finally, is always a 'moving factor' for DANSAND! for both dancers and spectators and crew.
The beating heart of the festival this year is the dike at the height of KAAP - also known as 'the three Gapers'. Fervent dance visitors and casual passersby, Oostenders and day tourists are all welcome. Legendary and unforgettable are the moments when audience and dancers move together thanks to the dj sets at the meeting point. Catering this year is provided by Jan Wydooghe who is working with newcomers to create delicious dishes tailored for those with a festival appetite between dancing.