NAC Dance is thrilled to open its new season in the NAC Studio on October 6 with the explosive Flemish choreographer/dancer Lisbeth Gruwez's piece AH/HA. With four other dancers joining her on stage, Gruwez investigates the mechanics and the experience of laughter in all its facets and complexity, to illustrate its physical and spiritual impacts.

Lisbeth Gruwez initially attracted attention as a dancer in works by well-known Belgian choreographers Wim Vandekeybus and Jan Fabre. She performed at the NAC in May 2003 in Foi, choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, who also returns to the NAC this season.

AH/HA, which was created in 2014, is the first group work produced by Voetvolk, the company founded in 2007 by Lisbeth Gruwez and her creative partner, musician and composer Maarten Van Cauwenberhe. She chose laughter as a theme because she was looking for an excuse to study group dynamics.

"How to control the uncontrollable" became the central focus of her artistic practice. The choreographer and her dancers experimented with all kinds of exercises, including the yoga of laughter, as a way of properly understanding all the subtlety of bodies in ecstasy. As a result, Lisbeth was able to stage the various types of behaviour people can adopt when they laugh, and to demonstrate that while laughter in a social setting can sometimes bring people closer together, it can also divide them.

The piece, a veritable explosion of emotions, will be presented from October 6 to 8 at 8 p.m. in the NAC Studio. Tickets are on sale at $31 for adults and $17.50 for students.

ABOUT AH/HA

Five bodies meet at a place without a name, probably in the middle of the night. They slowly progress towards one another to the rhythm of the circumstances, the way trash sometimes gathers in the deserted street. But their synergy provides them with an unexpected power. They coalesce in one

of the most expressive manifestations of humankind: laughter, resulting in an encounter that becomes a dangerous feast of shared ecstasy. With AH/HA, Voetvolk deepens its investigation of the ecstatic body. The performance explores the language of the laughing body, and brings to life its physical and psychic impact for the audience. AH/HA is Voetvolk’s first group piece.

ABOUT VOETVOLK

Voetvolk is a dance/performance group founded around dancer/choreographer Lisbeth Gruwez and composer/musician Maarten Van Cauwenberghe. Since it’s founding in 2007, it has developed its activities as an international contemporary dance and performance company, and has established itself as an intelligent and expressive company, which cuts and pastes music and movement with a sharp street style. Dance anarchy defined by total control. Lisbeth Gruwez and Maarten Van Cauwenberghe are ‘Artists-in-Residence’ at Jan Fabre’s Troubleyn/Laboratorium. To date Voetvolk has produced 8 productions: Forever Overhead (2007), Birth of Prey (2008), HeroNeroZero (2010), L’origine (2011), It’s going to get worse and worse and worse, my friend (2012), AH/HA (2014), Lisbeth Gruwez dances Bob Dylan (2015), and We’re pretty fuckin’ far from okay (2016), a duet with Nicolas Vladyslav. Dancing as a method is no longer sufficient as the sole ingredient of a relevant creation. Contemporary dance cannot be separated anymore from the realm of performance. It’s our belief that to achieve what needs to be said, one has to allow all aspects of physicality into the equation.