Woest aims to reach a diverse audience with its site-specific performances. Not only concerning age but, as important, their background. You can’t put a label on an audience, just as you can’t put one on Woest.
Woest wants to perform at locations that do not seem to be the perfect venue at first sight, but rather let them become one naturally. The relaxed approach, the legible choreography and the uniting effect of working in an unknown space enables Woest to reach a public that would otherwise not be bothered to come in contact with dance theatre.
Dance does not need to be difficult. Dance can be technically and artistically challenging, but still be accessible. It can tell a knowable story in an abstract way. Woest developed a choreography with a very human, almost lowbrow nature. Within our choreography we aim to look for humour, coincidence, recognizability and, last but not least, the absurd. Our choreography is a means to communication. A way to start a dialogue with our spectator.
We do not aim for the perfect movement, the perfect body or, even, the perfect dance. We want to explore day-by-day situations by giving them a new momentum, by telling the story from a different perspective. Because this tells a story about man. We cut up fragments of reality and distort them in our studio. Subsequently we integrate this material at an unusueal venue. The spectator is offered knowability and abstraction, accessibility and virtuosity, narrative and technique. We involve our audience in a different way than they are used to and casually invite them into our world.
In addition, Woest copes with spaces in a different way. Every location can become a stage, had the potential of theatricality. Movement goes beyond the body: every element that is present in space ànd the space itself can be dynamic. Within that space we play with expectations, we breach the rules, introduce a new structure and set in motion the elements within. Every time we write a new chapter, together with the audience, as volatile as the performance itself.
Just like meeting a neighbour on the street and shooting the breeze you can suddenly walk into a Woest performance. Movement is a right, and we don’t do it enough.
Woest brings dance theater with a touch of absurdity into public space.
