Over onze vader, Jens van Daele

Over onze vader, Jens van Daele

Jens van Daele

09-04-2016, Ainsi Maastricht

‘Oh poes, geen ogenblik zou ik nog verder kunnen leven zonder je, ik vertikte het gewoon.’
The darkness of the industrial setting is being broken by the obsessive love letters of Jens’ father.

Dance, theater and live music is the recipe for this piece of van Daele.

This choreography of Jens van Daele is a tribute to his family and his father Benny who passed away. The love

letters are being written out loud by Eva Schram. They give you the feeling of the obsessive love Benny had for

Jens’ mother. This obsessive, but also vulnerable feeling is being amplified by the dancers and musicians. Jens

van Daele, Patricia van Deutekom and Pjotr Nuyts are the dancers. Three completely different characters, who each

have their own way of dancing. A beat-boy, the contemporary dancer and an old vulnerable man. The last person

on stage is the musician Richard van Kruysdijk, who with his instruments supports the choreography perfectly.

The story behind the choreography is about Jens' youth. His father was madly in his mother and wrote very extensive love letters for her. Eventhough he loved her so much, he would also do things terribly wrong. He would stay away from home for days or come home really drunk.This caused a lot of tension among the family. This tension reflected on the spoken text, but also the choreography. The spoken text was projected  on the door of the container. This was not the only thing projected on the container. There were also certain texts of family members. The text was their response to the piece. Most of Jens' family members were very mad at him for making such a personal piece for the audience. 

When I saw the performance everything was quite overwhelming, because as I said it was a very personal but also emotional performance. After the performance finished you could begin to start thinking about the dancing and the music. It was an amazing dance piece with different styles of dance and different body types combined in a perfect way. At one point Patricia and Jens had a duet. Patricia would lift Jens, instead of the stereotype, boys should lift girls. This also gave you a feeling of vulnerability. So, the projected text with the spoken text would give you a strong feeling, but this was also digested in the quality of the movements. 


Overall, I thought this was an amazing choreography with great young and old dancers. The only problem is, is that you could not just sit, watch and relax. You were constantly drawn to all the other arts, going on on stage. You had dancers, actors and a musician, you did not know where to look or luckily, what to expect. After the performance a lot of people even had to cry, because they were emotionally very touched, but also mentally overwhelmed. I personally loved the performance, just because of all the different art forms on stage. I would summarise it as a charming Flemish actrice, with a powerfull dance performance and very strong life music.

By Julia Drittij DM1