Ultima Vez has been called a modern dance company, an advant garde troupe and a theater project. The confusion is understandable. How do you label a group of artists, actors, dancers and designers whose dance performances are seamlessly interwoven with film and video? How do you describe the work of a choreographer who requires his dancers to speak?
Exploring boundaries, blurring boundaries and then pushing beyond them is what Ultima Vez is all about.
And if you want to find out for yourself, the Brussels-based group will be back in Taipei next week after a two year absence with its latest production, Blush.
At the center of this maelstrom is the group's founder, Belgian-born Wim Vandekeybus, a choreographer, dancer, director, photographer and film director. Ultima Vez -- and Vandekeybus -- have won international renown for performances that are a dynamic mix of intensely physical, energetic, often confrontational choreography, short films or videos and music, a unique fusion of screen, stage and technology.
When they were last in Taipei, Ultima Vez performed Vandekeybus' Inasmuch as Life is Borrowed. At that time, in an interview with the Taipei Times in June 2001, Vandekeybus talked about how he likes to have his dancers speak.
"Sometimes people say, `stop making dancers speak.' But I think when a person speaks, everything changes ? Many dancers have really never worked with text -- so I say, `Tell me a story.' Sometimes top dancers get rejected in auditions because they can't speak," he said.
He also said that for him the creative process starts with a title or a theme.
As usual with Vandekeybus' pieces, Blush is a collaborative effort. He says he comes up with an idea and then opens it up to the company -- in this case, companies, since Blush is a joint production of Ultima Vez and the Royal Flemish Theater/de bottelarij -- and then works with a musician or composer to come up with the score.
The starting point for Blush is the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice -- the classic story of boy meets girl, they fall in love, boy loses girl and then goes through hell to win her back.
In Greek mythology, Orpheus was a musician whose talent rivaled those of the gods. He fell in love with Eurydice and they married. But just after the wedding ceremony, Eurydice is bitten by a snake and dies. Orpheus, overcome with grief, decides he must descend into the underworld, the realm of the dead, to bring his beloved back.
Through the power of his music Orpheus was able to defeat all those who stood in his way and the ruler of Hades agreed to return Eurydice to him, on one condition -- he could not look back at her as they made their way out of the underworld.
Orpheus made it back to the world of sunlight before succumbing to the overwhelming desire to see his wife. But he looks back too soon, for she has not yet made it out into the sun's light, and so she is lost to him forever.
In Blush, which premiered just over a year ago, Vandekeybus has woven a tale of emotion, of communication and confrontation, of sex and of sensuality, of isolation and liberation. He asks if love is a miracle or just chemistry; is it hell or paradise? What do people try to hide and what do they not; what makes people blush?
"Extremes are important for me," he said back in that 2001 interview.
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