Premiere: June 16, 17 & 18, Oerol Festival

The Party is a playful interaction between five virtuoso young performers and a curious audience that dares to respond to a sincere and artistic invitation to collaboration and connection. Five young adults arrive at the scene, appearing to be preparing for a meeting. A few stools are set up, a cord is connected to a speaker and microphone, a flag is planted.

The music starts playing and a choreography unfolds between the performers that slowly but surely seeps through the audience. Encounters, duets, trios, a chase ensue, two people avoid a collision, a few people rest on a chair, someone is carried, a circle is created, through which another group walks right through. Someone says something through the microphone.

Little by little and almost unnoticed, the spectator becomes an active part of this orchestrated pop-up gathering. Together with the public we build a spontaneous and temporary community in which everyone appears to have an influence on the whole.

The Party is an artistic-social dance theater experiment about leading and being led, inspired by the three basic rules of a flock of birds.

Birds in a swarm make room for each other so that they do not bump into each other. They coordinate direction and speed. Birds in a flock that stray do their best to get closer to each other again.
In a flock, each individual bird is both leader and follower.
One individual bird is capable of causing a whole flock of birds to change direction.
The bird uses signals that the human eye cannot perceive.

In recent years we have noticed an increased polarization and hardening of the social debate. With The Party, ShELFISH wants to offer an artistic counterweight to this together with the public.

The Party is a ShELFISH production in co-production with Grand Theater Development Institution.

The Party is made with and by: Latisha Sparks, Matija Franjes, Erik Wilken, Olympia Kotopoulos, Djamila Boulil.

Concept and direction: Veerle Van Overloop
Dramaturgy: Judith Blankenberg
Communication: Karlijn Vermeij
Business management: Frits Selie

The Party is made possible financially by the Municipality of Groningen, OCW and the Scholten Kamminga Fonds.