LIMP

Within his Forced Labor cycle, choreographer Ugo Dehaes has been exploring for several years how to make dance with robots. In the interactive installation Arena (2020), he lets the audience manipulate and judge robots, teaching them to dance independently. In the performance Simple Machines (2021), he breeds and trains organic robots until they can take over the roles of dancer and choreographer.

In LIMP (2024), the third part of his cycle, Dehaes returns to his fascination with the human body. This time he starts from the collaboration between humans and technology. Unlike the dystopian visions of the previous parts, LIMP presents a more hopeful vision of technology.

LIMP is a duet between a one-legged dancer, the technology of robots and specially developed artificial intelligence (AI). Thanks to a high-tech, robotic foot prosthesis, a one-legged dancer is back on stage. The technology gives him the balance, mobility, strength and confidence needed to perform choreography.

The dance material arises from movements demonstrated by a self-built robot. That robot looks nothing like a human, so it requires a lot of creativity from the dancer to adapt the movements to a human body. Once the dancer has learned those moves, they are filmed and put into a computer. Specially designed artificial intelligence analyses those images, learns the style and then independently generates new pieces of choreography to be re-learned by the dancer. Similarly, Dehaes as choreographer is supported by technology and together they build the performance. We get to see an assemblage in which the relationship between robot and human is not tightly defined. In a movement language that is both robotic and human, the boundaries of dependence and support are blurred.

While LIMP explores the fascination with technology as a support system, it also raises questions about its necessity.

About Ugo Dehaes

For the creation of his performances Ugo Dehaes always departs from the gaze of the spectator. Instead of wrestling with complex concepts, he asks himself what he would like to see on stage at that given moment. That way, he shares his own amazement and fascination for movement with the audience.

By focusing on the personal stories, he transforms his own initial spark into something recognisable for all. By doing so, he offers the audience a different way of looking at the world.

In the past, his sober, radical but accessible performances focused on the power of the dance and the dancers. After all, Dehaes is fascinated by the human body and the person living in said body. The last few years however, he has been going into a different direction and switched his focus to robots. He wonders how radical one can think in search of efficiency and optimisation of society.

• A collaboration between STUK and 30CC

More info

Choreography Ugo Dehaes in cooperation with artificial intelligence & David Framba Dance David Framba Dramaturgy Marie Peeters Music Roeland Luyten Lighting design Arne Lievens Video technique Gertjan Biasino Computational creativity Prof. Wiggins (The AI Experience Centre - VUB) Preliminary research Alexander Craens Production kwaad bloed Coproduction C-TAKT, STUK, Perpodium Distribution Vincent Company With the support of the Flemish authorities, the Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government Kwaad bloed is structurally supported by VGC
Thanks to Axiles Bionics, Danserie, De Factorij, Destelheide, Het Gasthuis, The AI Experience Centre, 30CC Research with the support of Participatory Partner Projects of the Flemish Government

www.kwaadbloed.com
www.vincentcompany.be/ugodehaes