What Remains
Zoë Demoustier / Ultima Vez
What Remains is a story about beginning and ending, about standing at the very end of a lifeline, at the point where you start as a child or where you end as an older one. The poetry of changing as a person, making memories and the fear of losing them.
In What Remains, Zoë Demoustier brings two generations together on stage: children who start life and older dancers who leave life behind. The outcome of that encounter is a physical and dancing game between old and young that exposes the perishable body. In a language of movement in which roles can be reversed, both are strong in their vulnerability. A child carries his grandparent; an elderly dancer regains his childlike freedom; Who takes care of whom? They find each other in the similarities and differences. The older generation consists of professional dancers. These dancers embody the forgotten body, the body that is no longer visible on stage. Who are those people, that forgotten group? Are they forced to stop because of a changed body?
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- Genre: Dance
- World premiere: 17 February Krokusfestival Hasselt (BE)
- Direction: Zoë Demoustier
- Creation & performance: Choreography Zoë Demoustier // Performers Chizzy Chinaedu, Misha Demoustier, Kyora Kaiwa Stoffer, Charlotte Maes, Alice Monserez, Irene Schaltegger, Jef Stevens, Charlie Van Cauwenberghe, Luwe Van Gucht, Karin Vyncke Extra cast: Orion De Roo, Mina Dhaene, Rosie Houtmeyers, Ona Vidal
- Costumes: Annemie Boonen
- Music: Music & sound design Misha Demoustier & Rint Mennes // Music research Misha Demoustier & Sebastiaan Wets // Sound on tour Rint Mennes / Schröder
- Coproduction: STUK Leuven, BRONKS Theater for young audiences, HET LAB Hasselt, Krokusfestival Hasselt
- With the support of: the Tax Shelter measure of the Belgian Federal Government, Casa Kafka Pictures Tax Shelter empowered by Belfius. Ultima Vez is supported by the Flemish Community and the Flemish Community Commission of the Brussels-Capital Region
One of the best performances of 2023
Het Theaterfestival (BE)
“What Remains delivers on its promise, it remains”
Jury Report Het Theaterfestival
“(…)That is what What Remains primarily evokes – alongside the questions and emotions triggered by a confused old man, a dying woman, or a carefree child running around –: a brave, sustained, captivating, wordless, abstract-leaning parallel universe of moving bodies.”
**** BRUZZ
“Zoë Demoustier confirms her status as a promising choreographer with What Remains at Ultima Vez. It is a breathtakingly beautiful dance performance in which all generations embrace each other… What Remains is dance that leaves you speechless as you watch the duet between a five-year-old and a seventy-year-old.”
Knack Focus
“What Remains follows the erratic rhythm of memories. Tableaux freeze, fall apart, are rewound, and reappear distorted. Through the many blackouts, alternated with icy gray light, it feels as though we are wandering through the gaps of an Alzheimer’s brain (…) Yet What Remains is about much more than the impact of aging. Beneath the surface lies the cycle of life and death, of passing on, saying goodbye, and starting anew…”
De Standaard
“ Building memories and fear of suffocating in past and present loss merge in this choreography of moving and still compositions. There is stillness, vulnerability, comfort, resignation. It all carries beauty.” -
Theaterkrant