Text by CLOT Magazine
TodaysArt and We Are Europe co-present Spectrum by Schweigman and Cocky Eek, hosted at the new Amare Theatre in The Hague (The Netherlands) from December 16 to January 2.
TodaysArt is a renowned cultural production agency specialising in creating experiences that combine art and technology. Running for over 15 years and based in The Hague, TodaysArt’s activities include an annual festival, an artist lab and several creative projects.
Spectrum questions the audience: Is it theatre? Is it visual art? Is it a light installation? Director Boukje Schweigman has developed her own unique phenomenological method in making theatre based on the tradition of abstract mime. Like the philosophical strand of phenomenology, it places sensory perception at its heart. Schweigman& develops work with a regular group of partners and associates – like-minded artists and practitioners such as Theun Mosk and Cocky Eek – and various artists, companies and ensembles working in different disciplines.
How intensely can you experience colour? Boukje Schweigman interrogates: Colour does more to you than you think. Normally we take colours for granted. What Spectrum wants to achieve is that the colours really come in physically. Not that you’re just looking at it. That is what fascinates me: if you really bathe in colour, you can lose yourself in it. You can disappear into it. It is nice if we are more aware of that, of the small wonders in the world around us.
How colour affects our physical senses is something that light master James Turrell has taught us with his mind-bending light experiments where he plays with sensory phenomena as the Ganzfeld effect or dichotomous perceptual decision.
The team behind Spectrum doesn’t want to give away much on what the show will be about. They want the audience to know as little as possible, without expectations and thoughts beforehand. Only then you can physically surrender: You have to dare, because the ground is literally being pulled out from under your feet.” – they conclude.
