Category Archives: Productions

Reply Project (Working title)

Noa Eshkol / Noé Soulier & Dance On Ensemble

In our ongoing Reply Project concept, the Dance On Ensemble invites contemporary artists to respond to iconic dance works in their own artistic language. In these performances, the artists reflected on classical but radical works that challenged the rules of their time. This creates a vibrant dialogue between dance heritage and contemporary dance creation, as well as between artists of different generations and backgrounds.

In this Reply the Dance On Ensemble will perform a selection of works by acclaimed choreographer Noa Eshkol (1924–2007). Rediscovering her dance constructions and taking a deep dive into the movement notation she developed. French dancer and choreographer Noé Soulier whose work explores choreography and dance in different settings, including the stage, the museum space and theoretical reflection, will create a work in reaction to Noa Eshkol.

Production: DANCE ON / Bureau Ritter
In collaboration with Cndc Angers.

The production is part of DanceMap, funded by Horizon Europe, the European Union’s funding programme for research and innovation.

STEIN

Lucinda Childs & Dance On Ensemble

Choreography & Performance: Lucinda Childs
Performance: Miki Orihara

Artistic Collaboration (set/music/video): Hans Peter Kuhn
Lights: Martin Beeretz, Hans Peter Kuhn
Costumes: werkstattkollektiv
Technical Direction: Martin Beeretz
Sound Technique: Mattef Kuhlmey

Production: DANCE ON / Bureau Ritter. In cooperation with Radialsystem, Berlin.
Coproduction: CCNR Rillieux-la-pape – Yuval Pick, Le Phare – Centre chorégraphique national du Havre Normandie / direction Fouad Boussouf, as part of the Accueil-Studio Programme.
Coproduction to be confirmed: Torino Danza, La Villette Paris, Julidans Amsterdam.

Supported by Hauptstadtkulturfonds.
With the kind support of Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon.
With the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels.

Premiere: July 2025, Radialsystem Berlin

STEIN is the second production in the Dance On series Encounters, where choreographers perform on stage, engaging in a physical encounter with a dancer of the Ensemble who takes on the role of co-author. This time, the choreographer Lucinda Childs and our dancer Miki Orihara will perform together, reflecting on a text by Gertrude Stein.

Lucinda Childs’ works explore the mutability of space and the manipulation of time through pattern recognition, rhythmic accuracy, and surprising changes in physical material. After leaving the Judson Dance Theater, she embraced a new approach, moving away from its principles of spoken word, found objects and pedestrian actions to incorporate text, music, gesture, and dance. In STEIN, Childs reflects on her earlier works through the lens of decades of experience.

Alongside her performes Miki Orihara, a powerful and sensitive dancer with an extensive background in works with Robert Wilson, Broadway productions, and the Martha Graham Company.

The stage is enhanced by video projections from Hans Peter Kuhn’s archive, depicting oceanic surfaces, evoking fluidity, changeability, and the constant state of water.

The Encounters series challenges traditional roles of choreographer and dancer by positioning the dancer as a co-author, exploring shared creative processes and the relationship between choreography and interpretation.

To complete the evening, the Dance On Ensemble will present three works of Lucinda Childs from the 1970’s: Untitled Trio, Radial Courses, Interior Drama.

The revival is funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.

FRANK – THE MONSTROUS AND HORROR (working title)

Cherish Menzo / Dance On Ensemble / GRIP & Theater Utrecht

Concept and Direction: Cherish Menzo
Creation and Performance: Omagbitse Omagbemi (Dance On Ensemble), Malick Cissé, Mulunesh
Sound Design: Maria Muehombo a.k.a. M I M I
Video Design: Andrea Casetti
Sound and Video Engineering: Arthur De Vuyst
Set Design: Morgana Machado Marques
Lighting Design: Ryoya Fudetani
Dramaturgy: Johanne Affricot, Renée Copraij
Make-Up Design: Johanna Cool
Text: Khadija El Kharraz Alami, Cherish Menzo
Technician on Tour: Ryoya Fudetani, Hadrien Jeangette, Arthur De Vuyst
Graphic Design: Nick Mattan

Somewhere between the ritual, the apocalypse, and the carnival, where the flesh can deviate and corrupt to challenge narrated identity until it bursts and becomes unbearable.

FRANK, as in open, honest, direct, and short for Frankenstein, observes that which the speaking being has placed not “in here” but “out there” on the other side of the border. As the quest to distort the familiar continues, Cherish Menzo examines the monster’s figure, its various relations to the idea of humanhood, and the horrors these relations entail. More so than (re)producing a physical or visual portrayal of the monster, Cherish Menzo is interested in how the monstrous is a reification and metaphoric embodiment of the beliefs and narratives that terrify, horrify, and yet also attract us.

Menzo researches the process of bringing the pre-monster stage or horror into a metaphoric embodiment and for that process to be the generator of image-making and the performative, sonic, and text material that plays with the tension of ambivalence, uncanniness, enigma, uncertainty, and corruption.

In continuation of JEZEBEL and ~~DARK~~MATTER, in FRANK, distortion will once again be one of the main ingredients to generate material. In addition, Cherish Menzo will look into the action of decay and how something gradually breaking down and getting less or worse can be another attempt to distort a form or information.

FRANK, is the closing of a trilogy. A trilogy that does not consist of chronological storytelling or a series of events, but maybe more a trifold of spaces, universes, fictions, and conversations that regard Blackness, bringing the Black body to the center and attempting to explore the African Diaspora’s multi-intersections in recognizable, metaphorical, and abstract ways.

Premiere: May 2025

Production: GRIP & Theater Utrecht (Dorothy Blokland, Anne Breure, Owen Cicilia, Kelly de Haan, Sophie de Loos, Hanne Doms, Maurice Dujardin, Seline Gosling, Anneleen Hermans, Tom Hemmer, Myrthe Ligtenberg, Rudi Meulemans, Lize Meynaerts, Klaartje Oerlemans, Jennifer Piasecki, Luisa Redenbacher, Sylvie Svanberg, Ad van Mierlo, Pien Visser, Lenette Vlasman, Vincent Wijlhuizen, Nele Verreyken)

In collaboration with: Dance On Ensemble

International Distribution: A propic – Line Rousseau, Marion Gauvent

Co-Production: Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Carreau du Temple – Etablissement culturel et sportif de la Ville de Paris, Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam, Julidans Amsterdam, PACT Zollverein funded by the Ministry for Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Festival Montpellier Danse 2025, Theater Utrecht, le Centre Chorégraphique National d’Orléans – Direction Maud Le Pladec, Tanzquartier Wien, DDD – Festival Dias da Dança, festival d’Automne à Paris, One Dance Festival, Perpodium

With the support of: Centre nationale de la danse à Pantin, BRONKS, GC Pianofabriek
With the financial support of: the Flemish Government, Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government via Cronos Invest, BNG Bank Theaterprijs, Charlotte Köhler Prijs van het Cultuurfonds

MUSIQUE – In the Spirit of Johann Strauss – The Missing Step

Dance theatre by Mathilde Monnier & Dance On Ensemble

Choreography: Mathilde Monnier & Dance On Ensemble
Music: Johann Strauss & Judit Varga
Lighting Design: Eric Wurtz
Artistic Assistance: Stéphane Bouquet
Costume Design: Laurence Alquier
Dance On Ensemble: Javier Arozena, Ty Boomershine, Emma Lewis, Gesine Moog, Jone San Martin, Marco Volta

Co-production and cooperation partners: A work commissioned by Johann Strauss 2025 Vienna in co-operation with ImPulsTanz

In a very personal exploration, the renowned French choreographer Mathilde Monnier and the Dance On Ensemble delve into the era of Johann Strauss. Melodic refrains and glimpses of elegant attire amidst the darkness, silhouettes come to life, occasionally solitary or in harmony, creating a ghostly and ephemeral universe. From it, we are reached by lost and rediscovered dances, seduced into waltzing – set to compositions by Judit Varga, breathing new life into Johann Strauss’ music and its timeless melodies.

Premiere: 10 May 2025, Volkstheater Wien
Dates: 12 May 2025
Click here for the tickets

Company MM is supported by DRAC Occitanie.

NOW WE ARE EARTH / AN ORCHESTRA

Concept, Direction, Choreography: Nicole Beutler
Performers: Anna Herrmann (Dance On Ensemble), Lia Witjes Poole (Dance On Ensemble), Felix Schellekens, Timo Tembuyser, Margarida Constantino, Hillary Blake Firestone, C’Cesirhe Sedney, Abigail Vrede

Understudy: Seline Hauptmann, Estéban Obregon
Music: Gary Shepherd
Choral Compositions: Timo Tembuyser
Choir: Local city choir
Tour Choir Leader: Tristan Knelange
Head of dramaturgy: Justa ter Haar
Dramaturgy: Igor Dobričić
Dramaturgical Advice: Tom Swaak (OBV), Richard Kofi
Set Design: Lena Newton, Noa Helder
Lighting: Minna Tiikkainen
Light operator:Maarten van Dorp
Costumes: Jessica Helbach
Repetitor: Catarina Ferreira da Silva
Assistant Director (Stage): Kaya Korabiowska-Dean
Technical Coordinator: Durante van Kuijk
Project Management VONK: Lise Thomas
Production Management NBP: Raïssa Pater

Production: Nicole Beutler Projects / Opera Ballet Vlaanderen / VONK / DANCE ON / Bureau Ritter / Opera2Day
Coproduction: O. Festival for Opera. Music. Theatre

Residence: Grand Theater Groningen
Special thanks to International Theater Amsterdam, Maarten Boussery, Kris Adem, Magne van den Berg

NOW WE ARE EARTH is a grand future vision of choreographer and theater maker Nicole Beutler. Music, dance, choir, and audience unite in this eco-futuristic symphony, creating a sense of greater harmony. With 8 dancers and singers, accompanied by a city choir of 45 voices, this 100-minute piece becomes a vibrant convergence of sound and movement, offering a glimpse into a dream of a possible future.

The piece explores the theme of interconnectedness, seeking balance across five realms: animals, humans, plants, fungi, and technology.

NOW WE ARE EARTH promises to be a total artwork, a dance opera featuring a local city choir, with a key role for the audience. Drawing inspiration from the intricate, interconnected threads of a mycelium, the performers weave a multi-layered, resonating tapestry of colors and sounds, unfolding in endlessly branching and repeating patterns.

A co-production by Nicole Beutler Projects with Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Dance On Ensemble, and Opera2Day, supported by Internationaal Theater Amsterdam.

Premiere: 25 April 2025, Opera Antwerpen
Dates: 26 & 27 April 2025
Click here for the tickets

Terminal Infinity

Part of the Biennale of the Berliner Philharmoniker 2025
Dance On Ensemble / Jugendtanzcompany von Sasha Waltz & Guests and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg

Cast: Members of the Berliner Philharmoniker and of the Karajan-Akademie
Dance: Leah Marojević, Gyung Moo Kim
Dance On Ensemble: Ty Boomershine, Gesine Moog, Tim Persent, Lia Witjes Poole
Jugendtanzcompany von Sasha Waltz & Guests: Noomi Aldinger, Toni Lehnert, Leah Soltau, Nika Brovot, Jonathan Walker

Artistic direction, conception, composition and sound direction: Alexander Schubert
Concept, development of the piece and choreography: Colette Sadler
Scenography: Dominic Huber
Light design: Diego Muhr
Costume: Felina Levits
Assistant director: Ludmilla Mercier
Video mapping and lighting assistance: Candid Rütter
Music notation, instrumentation and composition assistance: Oscar Corpo

What does it mean to be human in a world that is increasingly characterised by technology? Terminal Infinity, an immersive, audiovisual installation, explores this transition and its impact on our identity and environment. Commissioned by the Berliner Philharmoniker as part of their Biennale 2025, it combines music and visual art to create a unique performance. Humans in transition take centre stage: a reflection on the end of the Anthropocene and the interplay between technology and nature. Immerse yourself in this fascinating and at the same time disturbing world.

Premiere: 23 February 2025, Radialsystem Berlin
Age recommendation: from 16 years
Click here for the tickets

Also as a school concert: 24 February 2025, 11 am
Registration required at https://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/education/kita-schule/biennale-projekt/

Production: Berliner Philharmoniker in collaboration with DANCE ON / Bureau Ritter, Jugendtanzcompany von Sasha Waltz & Guests and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg

With the friendly support of

A Sky Like A Wall

Dance On Ensemble & Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop
In collaboration with Rabih Mroué

Choreography, Music, Performance: Javier Arozena, Alba Barral Fernandez, Ziv Frenkel, Anna Herrmann, Emma Lewis, Miki Orihara, Jone San Martin, Marco Volta, Anna Faber, Mia Bodet, Mari Sawada, Ildiko Ludwig, Yodfat Miron, Isabelle Klemt, Sophie Notte, Michael Rauter

Concept, Book: Rabih Mroué
Dramaturgy: Maxi Menja Lehmann
Composition Choir: Grégoire Simon
Costume Design: Werkstattkollektiv
Vocal Coaching: Doreen Kutzke
Technical Production Management & Light: Martin Beeretz

Production: DANCE ON / Bureau Ritter and Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop
In cooperation with Berlinische Galerie – Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur, in collaboration with Radialsystem. Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds.
Media Partner: radio3

Premiere: 29 November 2024, Berlinische Galerie
Dates: 30 November, 1 & 3 December 2024
Click here for the tickets

A Sky Like A Wall is the first major collaboration between the musicians of the Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, the dancers of the Dance On Ensemble and the author and performance artist Rabih Mroué.

In the rooms of Berlinische Galerie the sixteen performers create miniatures in duos, trios and quartets. They are precisely arranged with each other; in one place in the room, a movement becomes visible, while in another place the sound that matches this movement is heard. Gradually, a sculpture of sound, dance and voices emerges, inviting the audience to constantly refocus their gaze and ear on what is happening and sounding. Many scenes take place simultaneously side by side. The audience travels with the artists through the space and decide for themselves which frame they choose, what they focus on.

Both ensembles develop a collective authorship and team up with Mroué who wrote a notebook entitled ‘The Notebook of an Unspecified Colour’ for the production. Various scores are collected in it: Drawings, collages, illustrations, settings, instructions, which form the starting point of the creative process. The leitmotif of the notebook is the story of the Tower of Babel, which fails due to a lack of understanding. The idea of polyphony and multilingualism is inherent in the way both ensembles work. They ask themselves: How can we use different languages and still communicate? How can a project like this speak about the lack of dialogue in our day? An encounter in the rooms of the Berlinische Galerie.

GLITCH WITCH

Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods & Dance On Ensemble

Choreography: Meg Stuart
With: Omagbitse Omagbemi, Meg Stuart, Mieko Suzuki

Live music: Mieko Suzuki
Scenography: Nadia Lauro
Light design: Nico de Rooij
Costume design: Claudia Hill
Dramaturgy: Igor Dobričić
Artistic assistants: Luna Luz Sanchez, Valentin Braun
Technical coordinator: Tom De Langhe

Production: Damaged Goods and DANCE ON / Bureau Ritter
Coproduction: Théâtre Garonne – scène européenne Toulouse, Centre Chorégraphique National d’Orléans – Direction Maud Le Pladec, HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, Tanzquartier Wien, PACT Zollverein Essen, Kunstencentrum VIERNULVIER Ghent, Perpodium

Choreographer Meg Stuart and Dance On Ensemble dancer Omagbitse Omagbemi create a trio with composer and musician Mieko Suzuki in the framework of the Dance On series ‘Encounters’, where choreographers become visible on stage in a meeting with a member of the ensemble. This new work touches on fundamental questions: how do we share a creative process? What is the balance between a choreographic desire and freedom of interpretation? How can we transgress and reinvent our roles?

Meg Stuart has always considered her own body as a site, a testing ground. By dancing in her own pieces, she intuitively deconstructs the choreographic principles that she tries to articulate. Omagbitse brings another perspective to this search. Beneath the raw physicality that characterizes Stuart’s style, she recognizes first and foremost a quiet care and attention to detail. Playing with these seemingly opposing traits, the three collaborators look for a common ground and a shared language. Cumulating, morphing, becoming, they move towards a group portrait that remains just out of reach.

Premiere: 16, 17, 18 October 2024, Théâtre Garonne, Toulouse (FR)
On tour: from December 2024

With the support of Goethe-Institut and the tax shelter measure of the Belgian Federal Government via Cronos Invest.

The residency in Orléans is supported by Culture Moves Europe, a project funded by the European Union and Goethe-Institut.

Damaged Goods is supported by the Flemish Government and Flemish Community Commission. Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods is artist-in-residence at Kunstencentrum
VIERNULVIER (Ghent).

Kiss The One We Are

Daniel Linehan / Hiatus & Dance On Ensemble

Concept & Choreography Daniel Linehan
Creation & Performance Javier Arozena, Ziv Frenkel, Gorka Gurrutxaga Arruti, Anneleen Keppens, Noa Liev, Omagbitse Omagbemi, Jean-Baptiste Portier, Jone San Martin, Louise Tanoto
Creative partner Noa Liev
Costumes Frédérick Denis
Scenography Marie Szersnovicz
Scenography Assistant Janneke Hertoghs
Light Design Elke Verachtert
Sound Design Christophe Rault
Production Hiatus (Brussels, BE)
In collaboration with Dance On Ensemble (Berlin, DE)

Coproduction STUK House for Dance, Image & Sound (Leuven, BE), Théâtre National de Chaillot (Paris, FR), Perpodium (Antwerpen, BE)
Residencies CC De Factorij (Zaventem, BE), Kaaitheater (Brusselles, BE), DE SINGEL (Antwerpen, BE), STUK House for Dance, Image & Sound (Leuven, BE), vierNulvier (Gent, BE)
International representation Damien Valette (Paris, FR)

Daniel Linehan/Hiatus Daniel Linehan, Hiatus is supported by the Flemish authorities. In partnership with BOS+, Hiatus contributes to the reforestation of our planet.

In this piece, Daniel Linehan invites nine dancers to reflect on their histories and what role dance has played in their lives. What are the reasons one chooses to spend so much of one’s life dancing? How does one continue? When did the dance start and when does the dance end?

In 2019 Linehan created a solo called Body of Work in which he reflected on his own history of dancing, and in Kiss The One We Are, he takes this mode of internal questioning and makes it external, revisiting some of the same intimate questions that he asked himself in this personal solo, and posing these questions to a group of dancers with their own diverse histories. In asking these questions, together we reflect on the meaning of dance itself. Dance has the potential to make connections between individual histories and bring these stories together into a common field of play, through the physical connection of bodies as well as the attention we give each other when we share embodied experiences. Our dancing together can also connect to the many diverse dances that are always happening all around us: the play of animals, the slow choreography of plants growing, the rhythms of the ocean, the dance of atomic particles continually vibrating and interacting. Each dancer is given the space to reflect on what it is to experience life and the surrounding world through the lens of dance.

The creation is part of DANCE ON, PASS ON, DREAM ON (DOPODO), a four-year Creative Europe-funded cooperation project. BUREAU RITTER is lead partner of DOPODO and is supported by the following international partners:

Codarts University of the Arts (Rotterdam, NL), Compagnie Jus de la Vie | Age on Stage (Stockholm, SE), Holland Dance Festival (The Hague, NL), Nomad Dance Academy Slovenia (Ljubljana, SI), Sadler’s Wells (London, UK), STUK House for Dance, Image & Sound (Leuven, BE), Mercat de les Flors (Barcelona, ES), Station Service for Contemporary Dance (Belgrade, RS), KUMQUAT Productions (Paris, FR), Onassis Stegi (Athens, GR).

https://dopodo.eu/

MELLOWING

Choreography: Christos Papadopoulos
Artistic Director Dance On Ensemble: Ty Boomershine
Dancers: Ty Boomershine, Javier Arozena, Alba Barral Fernández, Anna Herrmann, Emma Lewis, Gesine Moog, Miki Orihara, Tim Persent, Jone San Martin, Marco Volta, Lia Witjes Poole
Choreographic Assistant: Georgios Kotsifakis
Music: Coti K
Lights: Eliza Alexandropoulou
Costume: Werkstattkollektiv
Technical Director: Martin Beeretz

A body that is outwardly still and inwardly vibrating – what processes does the energy undergo before it breaks through? How does it change when the body matures?

In his production „MELLOWING“ Greek choreographer Christos Papadopoulos embarks on his inaugural collaboration with the dancers of the Dance On Ensemble. Incorporating their knowledge and experience into the creation, together they explore moments of perception and intensities of the moment that create a lively restlessness, a permanent vibration in which the spectator is inevitably involved.

Christos Papadopoulos’ works are fed by an intensely observant approach to movement and often unfold a lively and meditative power. His attention is focused on the minimal shifts of perception, the perpetual, often unnoticed and yet powerful movements that are ever-present in nature, in everyday life, within physical phenomena and political contexts. His debut “Elvedon” (2016) was inspired by Virginia Woolf’s novel “The Waves” and captures the continuous undulation of the sea. This was followed by “Opus” and his third choreography “ION”, an artistic exploration of the phenomenon of ionization and its underlying forces of attraction and repulsion. In his latest work, “Larsen C”, he turns his attention to the micro-phenomena of movement, this time inspired by the popularised iceberg of the same name, which lost a large part of its surface in 2017. He created the choreography Mycelium with the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon in 2023.

Production: DANCE ON / Bureau Ritter
Coproduction: ONASSIS STEGI, Athens and Centre chorégraphique national de Rillieux-la-Pape / Direction Yuval PICK, as part of the accueil-studio programme.
Supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds.