Acceleration,passion and humanity
Jens van Daele(1972)graduated at the Antwerp Royal Institute for Ballet in 1990. He
danced in several companies in Belgium, The Netherlands and Canada. Starting as a classic ballet dancer, quiet soon in his career he started forming himself into a contemporary dancer, also having danced in all styles between. In 2004 Jens received the prestigious “Swan” award for best dancer in The Netherlands in the theatre season 2003- 2004.
In 2008 he ended his career as a dancer.
Jens started making choreographies in 1999. His oeuvre contains on this moment 28 creations from which most of them full evening pieces. These works have been touring frequently in The Netherlands. His form of contemporary dance can be characterized as powerful, passionate, exhausting, poetic and melancholy. He couples an extreme theatrical language with a technically advanced, often acrobatic dance idiom. His central themes are always related to the ‘ condition humaine’, that which makes a person human.
His Flemisch cultural roots are unmistakeable , as if his work has grown out of the
Flemisch clay itself. He strives to touch the entire range of the audience’s emotional
register with a human, recognizable story. Van Daele’s aim is to get the audience to sit on the edge of their seats and think, instead of sitting back passively. You only have to surrender yourself to what happens on the dance floor and the performance gets inside you. Tangible, recognizable, emotional and leaving a lasting impression. Images that you won’t forget quickly.

International

The duet Battre le Fer was performed with success in 2010 in Canada, Italy, Wales,
Denmark, Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands. Because of Battre le Fer Jens has been invited to make a new creation for the Jomba Dance Festival (2012) in South Africa together with the Flatfoot Dance Company from Durban. He will be staging there his version of ‘ Le Sacre du Printemps ‘together with the live music from the Swiss Batida Ensemble. It will be opening the Jomba Dance Festival.
Last years production ‘ Brides for Peace’ was the opening of the international
contemporary dance festival Interplay/11 in Turin, Italy in may 2011. Currently Jens is touring the Netherlands with the new production Battre le Fer/Battre le Noir. A critic wrote about this creation ‘ A powerful, unpolished and overwhelming experience ‘. For next season Jens will be creating a new production about the painter Lucian Freud.

Photo credit : Judith Zwikker

Alexandra Bellon, Anne Briset et Jeanne Larrouturou, percussions
Viva Sanchez Reinoso et Raphaël Krajka, pianos

Jeune et dynamique, l’Ensemble Batida naît de l’envie de fusionner les arts et de se mettre au service d’oeuvres modernes et contemporaines de qualité. Composé de deux pianistes et de trois percussionnistes, L’Ensemble collabore régulièrement avec des compositeurs de différents horizons et donne en création des commandes écrites pour le groupe.
Les musiciens de l’Ensemble se consacrent totalement à leur art et s’intéressent à de nombreux domaines de la musique, de l’interprétation à l’orchestre, en passant par l’enseignement, la recherche, la musicologie, la musique de chambre et l’improvisation, de même que le jazz et la musique ethno.

Lauréat du Orpheus Swiss Chamber Music Competition, l’Ensemble Batida figure au programme de la première édition du Swiss Chamber Music Festival à Adelboden en septembre 2011, concert enregistré par la Radio Suisse Allemande (DRS2). L’Ensemble prépare actuellement plusieurs concours internationaux avec un programme comprenant des oeuvres phares du répertoire pour deux pianos et percussions (B.Bartòk, L.Berio), ainsi que des créations et des arrangements.Très intéressés par les échanges pluridisciplinaires, ils bénéficient du soutien de l’Association Amalthea, qui favorise les rencontres entre les différents arts de la scène (danse, musique, théâtre).

Suite à leurs débuts fort prometteurs, ces musiciens passionnés décident de monter un spectacle avec danse : le Sacre du printemps d’Igor Stravinsky dans une version pour pianos et percussions. Le spectacle “A Spring (2) Matter” est crée en août 2012 à Durban (Afrique du Sud) avec la Compagnie Flatfoot et le chorégraphe Jens van Daele lors de l’Ouverture du Festival de danse contemporaine Jomba.
L’ensemble Batida est actuellement en tournée avec le spectacle de danse et musique « Spring Tide » de Jens van Daele.

Photo credit : Françoise Sors

Flatfoot Dance Company has existed as a professional dance company since January 2003 in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The Compagny is a performance platform for dancers and choreographers but is also a training ground for up-coming dance practitioners in South Africa. Over the past nine years FLATFOOT has been responsible for training and employing a large number of young, mostly KZN based, dancers and has aimed primarily at addressing the lack of qualified black dance practitioners (choreographers, dance teachers/educators and dancers) – our focus has strongly attempted to deal with a race legacy that has often not offered quality training and placements to young black South African dancers within South Africa.

The Compagny is housed in the Drama and Performance Studies Programme on the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Durban) campus. Flatfoot has been extremely pro-active in generating community based dance projects and programmes in both rural and urban areas of KZN and thus runs many dance education and development programmes for girls and boys in different schools.

Flatfoot has also enjoyed a high level of collaboration with fellow KZN professional dance companies in the form of shared seasons, guest choreography and guest teaching and training and a high level of collaboration with international and continental choreographers and dance companies.

One of our highlights over 2011 was Flatfoot’s  invite to open the prestigious Johannesburg based Dance Umbrella on the 24 and 25 February 2011. Flatfoot  presented Loots’s acclaimed and hard-hitting “Bloodlines” which deals with issues around African xenophobia and belonging , and also presented Sifiso E. Kweyama’s signature repertoire work with the company called “circle” – a soulful dance theatre work that draws on the tradition of African storytelling.

2012 promises to be just as memorable a year with a new season of dance theatre premiering in March 2012 at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre which will feature a new work by Loots and a first time collaboration with Australian choreographer Liz Lea. Liz comes to Durban through KZN DanceLink (and for this programme, National Arts Council funding). Liz will be creating a work with the 6 resident Flatfoot dancers and 6 guest Durban based dancers. On the back of the 2011 “Ovation Award”, Flatfoot will also be returning to the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in 2012 to present a double bill of Loots’s new works called “Southern Exposure”. And in September 2012, Flatfoot returns to the JOMBA! platform this time in a collaboration with Dutch choreographer Jens Van Daele and the music Ensemble Batida (Pianos and percussions) in a collaborative version of Stravinsky’s “Rites of Spring”.

Flatfoot boasts numerous awards within the company ranging from choreographic awards for Lliane Loots (FNB VITA Award and KZN DANCLE LINK award for choreography), as well as dance performance awards and nominations. This is recognition is something that the company is very proud of. More informations under : http://flatfootdancecompany.webs.com

Photo credit : Val Adamson