20Hertz / Sharon Wesseling

A new dance style, from stillness to euphoria.

In the urban performance VV || ENERGY, 20Hertz, the dance company led by Sharon Wesseling and comprising hearing, hard-of-hearing and deaf dancers, takes you on a journey through two worlds that complement and reinforce each other with a new dance style: from a dreamlike world full of visual intensity to an overwhelming explosion of light, rhythm and energy. 

VV

The first piece centres on Visual Vernacular: an expressive narrative form from Deaf culture that is still relatively unknown in the Netherlands. Together with the American VV artist Justin Perez, choreographer Sharon Wesseling – who is herself hard of hearing – and her performers explore how stories can be told not only with hands and facial expressions, but with whole bodies, space and technology. 

ENERGY

The second piece lets you experience what it’s like to live as a deaf person in a hearing world. The piece emphasises overstimulation: urban moves, beats, vibrations and festival-like energy flood the auditorium. You are immersed in a world that can be both exhilarating and exhausting; a metaphor for the daily reality in which many deaf and hard-of-hearing people navigate life.

VV || ENERGY breaks with the traditional dramatic arc of theatre and demonstrates how stimuli, rhythms and energy can be experienced in different ways, whether one can hear or not. The result is a total sensory experience in which dance, visuals, light and sound merge into a new, inclusive language. In 2025, Sharon was nominated for the Dutch Dance Days Innovation Award for her groundbreaking work. She has developed her craft over a number of years through Cultura Nova.