Fifteen years of dance company Voetvolk

Lisbeth Gruwez danced to Dylan and Debussy, but was in need of resourcing. Their fifteenth anniversary celebration in art temple Bozar, rock venue Ancienne Belgique and city theatre KVS shows that Voetvolk, the company she runs together with Maarten Van Cauwenberghe, wants to surprise, broaden and connect.

The full title of the anniversary celebration is: “Worse, Worse, Some Years of Voetvolk”, but the nod to their breakthrough performance from 2012 – It's Going to Get Worse and Worse and Worse, My Friend – is somewhat lost in the communication. “That performance changed our lives,” emphasizes Maarten Van Cauwenberghe, composer and business manager of Voetvolk.

Fifteen years ago, the step from making music and dancing with Jan Fabre to having their own company was a leap of faith. “We didn't know what we were getting into,” says dancer and choreographer Lisbeth Gruwez. “We just threw ourselves into it. The current generation is more uncertain, but more calculated. Our motto was: 'Voetvolk, throw your body into the frontline.'” Even when HeroNeroZero (2010) turned out not to be a success with the programmers, the duo did not give up.

“We made It's Going to Get Worse... in six weeks, and that was a worldwide breakthrough for us,” Van Cauwenberghe continues. “You have to be lucky too, because there is a huge difference between a good performance and a diamond. If you've never had one of those things that sets it all off, your path as a new company is much bumpier.” But even after the confirmation with ­AH | HA (2014), the duo did not consider themselves a professional company. That all changed when they received structural subsidies for the first time. “While everything was uncertain in those early years, now it is getting serious,” Gruwez still vividly recalls that turning point. “We kept that rock 'n' roll spirit, but suddenly we had a steady wage, with which we could borrow and buy things.”

What did not change were the different hats worn by the duo and the large number of performances both at home and abroad. Voetvolk was (cost-)efficient, while it also continued to grow artistically. Van Cauwenberghe: “This drive protected us from the difficulties that less successful members of the same generation are now facing. So-called mid-career artists feel the hot breath of a young generation on their necks. The message is staying fresh and not repeating yourself too much.”

Pogo, no pirouettes
“Despite past successes, always reinventing yourself is crucial,” Gruwez agrees. “That's why we're happy as little kids that we get to play in front of a standing audience in a rock venue like the Ancienne Belgique for the first time. The choreography is a bit rougher than in an ordinary dance performance, because the people in the audience cannot see the whole stage. Specifically, we were inspired by the way crowds move. Abstracting from the wave, the mosh pit, the pogo, we hold up a mirror to the audience in which they can recognise themselves. So as not to scare the AB-visitor too much, we stay far away from pirouettes and virtuosity, but everything is put in an artistic jacket.”

Dancers and musicians move around each other on stage, but the original idea – that as an audience you would have no idea who the dancer and the musician is – turned out not to be feasible. Van Cauwenberghe: “It was enough to break the barrier between the two. I have always found it humiliating for dancers when they are asked by a rock band to choreograph live. We made this performance together, as one.” That it is repetitive krautrock that brings the whole group into a kind of trance is something new for Voetvolk. For Dendermonde, Van Cauwenberghe's band with drummer Fred Heuvinck and guitarist Elko Blijweert, it was the impetus to record their first album.

Gruwez: “Normally Maarten is always behind the buttons and I dance on stage. Now the roles are reversed. Into the Open shows the coming together of before and behind the scenes.” Even before the première, the show was pitched at the summer festivals. They're hoping for a spot at Pukkelpop, but Rivierenhof is already in the bag. Gruwez once danced there as support act for John Cale. “Hearing people from the stage chatting and drinking a pint while I'm sweating like mad is weird,” she recalls, but in the future Voetvolk wants to keep aiming for crossovers between disciplines and audiences.

The break enforced by Covid and a new, permanent residence in the French Ardennes gave their revival shape. “In short, you could say that during the first part of our career we were very unconscious and nowadays we are increasingly aware of what it is that we want to try. It was only after We're Pretty Fuckin' Far From Okay (2016), the last part of our trilogy, that I started realising that there was a Voetvolk language that creeps into all our performances, no matter how different they are. I wasn't sure until The Sea Within (2018), when for the first time, I didn't dance myself. By stepping out of it for a while, it became more obvious.”

Like a rolling stone
“That is also because we have always been doers,” says Van Cauwenberghe. “We went from one project into another. Sometimes we wanted to prove ourselves to a room full of Dylan acolytes who, with their arms crossed, had come to see contemporary dance for the first time (Lisbeth Gruwez Dances Bob Dylan, 2015, ed.), and other times we wanted to surprise our own audience with a tranquil performance without the usual highs and lows (Piano Works Debussy, 2020, ed.).”

The apotheosis of the current anniversary project will be Everybody Dances Bob Dylan, an evening where everyone, alone or in a group, can come and dance on the KVS stage to a song by the American music legend they have picked. Gruwez: “I host, Maarten plays the records and we pretend the stage is our living room.” Have they asked Arno to come and dance to “Like a Rolling Stone”? “Arno, my friend! Thanks for that great idea. When I was 20, during an evening drinking beer in Le Coq, he asked me what I wanted to do in life. I was a student at P.A.R.T.S. and can still hear myself saying that I wanted to dance on a stage, alone. I had no idea what that was, entertaining people, and that an hour is a long time.” (Laughs)

Only recently, after 700 performances, during the pandemic and with new subsidy stress to look forward to, did the big doubts come, about the sense of going on and on. “I now realise that by always wearing so many caps at once, we were constantly over-stressed,” Gruwez says. “Sometimes I think: I'll stop dancing, take a course in massage and become a top masseuse.” This is precisely why Van Cauwenberghe in the future wants to focus even more on broadening, connecting and sharing knowledge. That they have thought about how things can be done differently is shown by the Hunters & Collectors (2023) creation tour, with which they, starting this summer, want to question the limits of our freedom by walking from one cultural centre to another.

“With Debussy I tried to find freedom by dancing between the notes,” Gruwez concludes. “Here, I try to do that by walking an average of 22 km a day, and anyone can join in. We like to connect, but we don't express it by joining other companies. Becoming a collective is not in our DNA. We are not going to shack up together because it is expected of us. You can also collaborate in other, more artistically meaningful and spontaneous ways, not simply because you get more money for it. But these days, intuition and spontaneity are often filtered out. Now you even have to make an appointment in advance to visit a museum.”

How would the dancing nine-year-old girl in the flower dress, longing for freedom, who still lives inside her, look at it? “She always finds a way to escape. Maybe that is why I am such a big fan of escape films. My favourite is still Papillon. (Laughs) They won't fool me, I tend to think, but it's still something that takes effort every time."