SHIFFT | Jasper van Luijk
Biotopia

What do you leave behind when you set out in search of a better place?

Five courageous people set off. Running for their lives, fleeing and hoping for a better future. They are trapped in circumstances that leave them no room to breathe. They leave behind what they know, who they were, how they used to live. In search of a place, a feeling, a way of living together that does not yet exist. A utopia?

On stage, you see five dancers making this journey. Matilde Tommasini, Jeroen Janssen, Niek Wagenaar, Evelien Jansen and Wulf Stock move through a landscape that is constantly shifting. Layer by layer, what seemed self-evident disappears: habits, beliefs, the way you carry your body. What remains when everything you once held on to has fallen away? The dance alternates between tenderness and explosion, silence and confrontation. They support one another, push one another away and together seek the conditions for existence. 

A biotope is a place where the conditions for life are right. A utopia is a place that does not yet exist. Biotopia asks whether you can create that place together. Are we prepared to grow towards one another for the sake of this place? A compelling and explosive dance experience about the power and vulnerability of living together.