The unusual task of resistance rocks and is addictive
The existence of Ohm can be attributed to three dancers and a choreographer who maniacally stamps the beat. Her feet hammer a steel plate, occasionally for twenty minutes at the time, and create music. The dancers beat on their own bodies while they move clock-wise on the square floor designed by Niek Kortekaas. It all rocks and is almost addictive, at least for the viewers who get sucked in by the cadences of Ohm.
With short, angry movements the dancers cut through the air and interrupt their movements, which boils down to punching themselves, on the inside. The body constantly stops its own movements, which must lead to a lot of aching muscles the next day. Not once is the movement extended, lyrical or dramatic. Even in their facial expressions the dancers are simply focused on the unusual task of assaulting their own body with resistance.
There is something heroic about it, much like weightlifting. Everything is aimed at maintaining the effort and control. It is all about stamina and precision. Otherwise, the clockwork, the machine with all its cogs, will not work.
Rituals, compulsion, exercising or reliving – at no point does choreographer Ann Van den Broek offer a specific context for the hardened dedication and submission of the dancers, or her own right leg alternated by her left leg. Arne Van Dongen’s digital composition for one leg is extremely effective in the structure of the sound and the increase of simple rhythms. At times is draws in and rocks tremendously, at others you feel a headbanging segment coming on, but none of that is reflected on the floor.
The dancers are dressed in elegant chocolate-brown and purple. Silver boots and high heels create a festive ambience, frivolous even, but the dance is all hard work. As a spectator you will have to fill in the side effects of movement addiction ,such as exhaustion and desperation. The performers attack, round after round, with no more than a severe frown on their foreheads.
Ohm is a unit that measures electrical resistance. Van den Broek used the concept to reformulate her work, almost fifteen years ago now, for her contribution to the second edition of the Cover Festival in 2010. Leine&Roebana, Beutler and Greco/Scholten also created interesting pieces for it, based on the work of other choreographers.
Whereas one of the themes in her popular production Co(te)lette from 2007 was the female orgasm, there are no added themes in Ohm. Van den Broek chose to cover a solo created in 1997 by Marc Vanrunxt for Marie de Corte. The original cast featured, besides Van den Broek herself, Jan Martens, Cecilia Moisio and Judit Ruiz Onandi. Little can be found online about this now. You will have to delve into old archives, and even then I wonder if you will ever get an idea of the impact Ohm had back then, or that of Mijn solo voor Marie (Vernietigd).
Ohm is in line with the many pieces inspired by raves. However, this piece maintains a fascinating neutrality between tango and hardcore, between ecstatic ritual and mechanical ordeal, between free will and submission. It turns obsession into a reasonably formal exercise. As such the lack of drama or the formulating of purpose gives it a delirious quality. Ohm makes you wonder yet again why all sorts of dancers find it so challenging and fascinating to end up in a repeating decimal, sweating and hovering between falling and stepping, stepping and falling.
Fransien van der Putt, Theaterkrant, February 27, 2023
Dark trip back to the eighties
Choreographer Ann Van den Broek created Ohm in 2010. She was inspired by Mijn solo voor Marie (vernietigd), a solo created by Marc Vanrunxt in 1997 for Marie De Corte. Van den Broek has good reason to reprise this piece now. For her, Ohm tackles themes such as resistance, perseverance, and surrender. She considers them more important now than in 2010. That is why Van den Broek drives her dancers to the brink of their abilities.
Marc Vanrunxt is still often involved in Van den Broek’s work as an ‘outside eye.’ Nevertheless, in this piece there is a striking difference between the work of the two choreographers. As a choreographer, Vanrunxt gives his dancers plenty of space, while Van den Broek is present as a driving force in Ohm with her sound performance, a barrage of massive stomps on a steel plate that forces the dancers to dance to the point of exhaustion.
The most impressive moment is when performers Carla Guerra, Isaiah Selleslagh and Jean-Gabriel Maury are lying on the floor in the last part of the performance and remain there. The three of them are shattered, but not defeated; they look like they are getting up, only to drop back down. A minimal, completely finished and stunning movement.
But an intense hour precedes that. From the very first second of the performance there is tension on the dancers. Ohm is the unit of electrical resistance, named after the German physicist Georg Ohm. This is about resistance. It is visible in their faces, their hands, their whole body. From the first step to the last fall, they are mercilessly driven forward by the sound of a metal plate. ‘Sound performance steel plate: Ann van den Broek’ the credits announce. Arne Van Dongen wrote the score.
These metal sounds take me back to the eighties. The industrial sound reminds me of bands like Einstürzende Neubauten and Coil. In terms of style the performance is a cross between Depêche Mode and Robert Palmer’s Addicted to Love. The makeup of the dancers is similar to that of the models in Palmer’s now famous video. Without the red lipstick, but with the same stiletto heels, the same black outfits, black nail polish, black pantyhose and the same dark glance. That angry, defiant glance is the same ever-present one I literally and figuratively remember from the eighties. “Anger is an energy,” John Lydon a.k.a. Johnny Rotten sang back in the day.
There is no escaping the metal rhythms – neither for the public nor for the dancers. It is obvious from the start that the dancers will dance till they drop. The hard movements require a lot of energy, without a moment of release. At times they are quite obstinate: a torso falling forward and rising again, or a forward roll ending on flat feet with a load thud. Always movements for an unyielding body. Choreographer Ann van den Broek compares the performance with the experience of a dark tunnel. The darkness is not covered up, it is not excused, no ‘let’s keep it light’, no ‘sorry for the inconvenience’.
At times there is a short moment of silence, except for the hissing white noise, but even then, there is hardly enough time to breathe or relief due to the threat that the pounding will resume once Van den Broek, and sometimes one of the dancers, starts stomping on the plate. Close to the audience, center stage, is the spot where the performers keep coming back to again and again, and where their movements seem like attempts to proximity, tenderness, surrender. A hand on the heart, a hand trying to reach out. But before the movement can be fully realized, the moment has passed. Before the performers can get one extra second of rest, the lights come back on and the floor starts pounding again.
I have not seen the solo by Marc Vanruxt that Ohm was based on, and unfortunately there is no recording of it, but when Vanrunxt created it the eighties were long gone. At that time Vanrunxt had a unique position as a choreographer and dancer in the Flemish dance and performance scene. Today he is still an artist who believes that choreographing is not about giving instructions to dancers, but rather to describe a feeling from which to create movement.
That does not resemble the guidance that Van the Broek gives the performance while she stands on her spot by the steel plate in the back. Initially wearing shoes, then barefoot, not stomping, but controlled, forcefully, compellingly. Even when she is also exhausted. First with one leg, then the other leg, and when that becomes too heavy, she places her hands on her thigh to add strength. The presence of the choreographer making metal bangs at the back of the stage near the dancefloor and the dancers can be taken as an extra statement on the performance. Intentionally or unintentionally?
None of the dancers are spared this fight to the finish, but Isaiah Selleslagh goes a step further than Carla Guerra and Jean-Gabriel Maury. She falls to the floor countless times and seems to stand up again before actually hitting the floor. She is gorgeous and fragile at the same time, and strong as a mineworker, with bruises on both her arms. And I, the spectator, look at it all, look at the beautiful dancers who fall beautifully, get up beautifully and fall apart beautifully. And who do it all again the next night. Spread out across the floor lies a backdrop, part of the word ‘vernietigd’ is still legible. Possibly a reference to the title of the piece by Vanrunxt? With performers such as Selleslagh it is easy not to think about the price she pays for dancing like this. In Ohm there is no way around it for spectators: the dancers dance till they drop. And afterwards?
Marina Kaptijn, Pzazz, February 27, 2023
Ann Van den Broek’s tightly danced reprise of Ohm is a fascinating fight to the finish
The reprise of the dance piece Ohm (2010) is a fascinating fight to the finish for the three dancers, but also for choreographer Ann Van den Broek who personally sets the stomping rhythm.
With one leg, Ann Van den Broek rests on a square steel plate. With the heel of her boot, she stomps the beat on the metal. Approximately seventy beats per minute. And sometimes for fifteen uninterrupted minutes. To call this rhythm compelling is an understatement: it is relentless. The same applies to the choreography. The three dancers are forever running in circles on the floor. Their movements are repetitive and obsessive. At times they beat themselves on the chest, at others they collapse on the floor only to get up again: endlessly falling down and getting up.
And there are more steel plates on stage. Sometimes a dancer will answer Van den Broek’s beat on one of them. The amplified sound of stomping steel conjures memories of industrial concerts in squats during the ‘80s. The angry looks and the dark makeup of the dancers also contribute to a sense of doom and nihilism.
Georg Ohm
The dancers are propelled by the metal beat, but clearly also offer resistance. And resistance is what it’s all about in this uncompromising dance piece. It is no coincidence that the title refers to the German physicist Georg Ohm, who described the relation between an electrical charge, an electrical current and resistance.
The dance piece Ohm was created in 2010 as part of an interesting project in which several choreographers were asked to create a cover version of an existing piece by a different choreographer. Van den Broek selected Mijn solo voor Marie (vernietigd), created in 1997 by fellow Flemish choreographer Marc Vanrunxt. White letters on the floor refer to the word vernietigd in the original title.
Preliminary study
Since Vanrunxt’s solo is no longer being performed, it is unclear how much of it ended up in Ohm. What is obvious is to what extent Ohm has contributed to the development of Van den Broek’s dance idiom: some of the movement sequences appear to be a preliminary study for The Red Piece, the masterpiece she created three years later.
Now and then Van den Broek marks time. Meanwhile the speakers emit atmospheric sounds and static crackling, and the dancing trio – Carla Guerra, Jean-Gabriel Maury, and Isaiah Selleslagh – is given the opportunity to charge its batteries for the next phase of the fight to the finish.
In this tightly danced reprise of Ohm, Ann Van den Broek also challenges the audience. If you, as a spectator, were to offer the same dour resistance as the dancers, you probably wouldn’t see more than a mechanical ritual. However, with their manic commitment the performers succeed in eliminating that resistance and allow you to be overwhelmed by their feverish running in circles on stage and be drawn in by the rhythm.
Fritz de Jong, Het Parool, March 20, 2023