In 2013, Josephine van Rheenen was invited for Atelier Oerol/Over het IJ Festival: a research project in site specific performance work. Her research started with the idea of the body that surrenders to the space around it. Trying to let go the fear of pain and join your surroundings. This took place on two very different places: in the sand dunes at the Oerol Festival and on the concrete docks at Over het IJ festival in Amsterdam.
The results where named ZANDING, embodying the surge (‘branding’) in the sand (‘zand’), and BETONDER, embodying the rumbling (‘gedonder’) in the concrete (‘beton’). One year after its showing in Amsterdam, BETONDER is remade specifically for the Cuckatoo Island at the request of Underbelly Arts.
In ZANDING, three young men playfully conquer a barren sandpit by the sea. They climb, run and fall with unrelenting physical surrender and freedom. Their movements, relations and songs create ambivilant images, somewhere between mythical tragedies and boyrish games. In BETONDER, these three young men physically inhabit a piece of uninhabitable urban land. The vulnerability and softness of their human bodies meet the hard stone surfaces of the docks. Their energetic and optimistic games contrast the seriousness and individuality of an urban environment, evoking surpressed or forgotten desires to touch, to move with complete abandon.
