Raging Against Various Elements
ARK/Connor SchumacherExpected end time: 21:30 hour
Theater Heerlen - Limburgzaal
This performance includes stroboscopic lighting effects.
Winner of the Swan for the most impressive dance production of 2025.
Connor Schumacher's techno-jazz musical Raging Against Various Elements is all about rebuilding your family, every heartbeat. R.A.V.E., with which Connor won the prestigious Swan for the most impressive dance production of 2025, is raw, dark, unfiltered and full of zest for life. For seven years, sadness, love, pain and death danced together. Now it is time to fight for life.
R.A.V.E. takes you past deep valleys and ecstatic highs. For Connor, the past few years have been a journey through loss and heartbreak. In R.A.V.E., he tells that story on the dance floor. With the help of visual artists Boris Acket and Elsemarijn Bruijs, he created a space that not only moves, but is buzzing with life. Mirrors distort, lights change. In this setting, six professional ravers push the boundaries of what dance can be to the beats of Pascal Pinkert (DJ Europarking).
For this, Pinkert mixes techno with jazz into something that touches you deep inside.
Raging Against Various Elements is about recapturing your life on the dance floor. Every step is a chance to take back control. From the jury report of the VSCD, which awards the Swans every year: "It makes the jury very hopeful that Schumacher so liberatingly shares what dance can do. In an infectious play with dance idioms from the jazz dance and club scene, R.A.V.E. celebrates life through the dancing body in a close group of friends. The almost living scenery of Boris Acket and Elsemarijn Bruijs is a powerful additional player in this.''
Connor Schumacher/ ARK
Connor Schumacher is a dance artist, choreographer and artistic director of the ARK foundation. With this foundation, he creates raves, movement classes and performances. Connor studied dance in New York and in our country is connected to Dansateliers Rotterdam, where he developed into a dance artist. Connor likes to get people moving: Society would be better if we danced everyday.
Credits
Choreography and direction: Connor Schumacher
Created in collaboration with: Rex Collins, Simomo Boujarra, Ahmed El Gendy, Majon van der Schot, Ivan Ugrin and Cain Wittenhaus.
Dramaturgy: Maaike Schuurmans
Music: Pascal Pinkert alias DJ Europarking
Scenography / Artworks: Boris Acket & Elsemarijn Bruijs
Costumes: the members of Patchwork Family, Berber Struiksma and Marco Blažević.
Technique: Edwin van Steenbergen, Joost ten Hagen, Leonard Davids, Egbert Davids and Valienska Magfira
Production: Delta Lowe, Christel de Wolff
