VOICE NOISE parts 17 & 18 are two newly created instalments in a fictional 24-part project in which each part is a 50-minute danced performance to music by female vocalists.
This performance gives the impression of being part of a much longer event, where dancers and voices come and go, in an endless unfolding of hidden or forgotten musical treasures. It features a selection from more than a hundred years of female voices in music history: singing, humming, soothing, shrieking, whispering.

The work was inspired by ‘The Gender of Sound’, a text Anne Carson wrote in the 1990s. In this essay she dissects the history of muting women, from the Greeks via Gertrude Stein to Margaret Thatcher. She relates how the female voice was considered redundant and, even more bluntly, how it was seen as an irritating noise.
VOICE NOISE is a happening, a shared event for both audience and performers. The theatre becomes an undefined open space in which watching and listening are treated equally.

After working with big groups in his recent productions – any attempt will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones and FUTUR PROCHE – Jan Martens returns to a production for a small ensemble of six dancers. He works with some dancers who have inspired him in the past (Steven Michel, Courtney May Robertson and Loeka Willems) and invites new faces (Sue-Yeon Youn, Elisha Mercelina and Mamadou Wagué).

Jan Martens’ obsessions with numbers, geometry and patterning meets the unique physical languages of these performers, and a new-found interest in dance itself emerges: in detail and subtlety, in redefining grace and elegance.

CHOREOGRAPHY: Jan Martens
DANCE: Elisha Mercelina, Steven Michel, Courtney May Robertson, Mamadou Wagué, Loeka Willems, Sue-Yeon Youn
REHEARSAL DIRECTOR: Zora Westbroek
UNDERSTUDIES: Pierre Adrien Touret, Zora Westbroek
LIGHTING DESIGN: Jan Fedinger
COSTUME DESIGN: Sofie Durnez
SCENOGRAPHY: Joris van Oosterwijk
INTERNSHIP: Malick Cissé
OUTSIDE EYES: Marc Vanrunxt, Rudi Meulemans, Femke Gyselinck

All movements are created by the dancers.

PRODUCTION: GRIP
INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION: A Propic – Line Rousseau, Marion Gauvent, Lara van Lookeren
COPRODUCTION: La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand, Maison de la Danse de Lyon, De Singel international arts center, Théâtre de Liège, Julidans, Le Manège – scène nationale de Reims, Romaeuropa festival, Teatro Municipal do Porto, Scène Nationale de Forbach, Charleroi-Danse, Festspielhaus St-Pölten
RESIDENCIES: La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand (FR), DE SINGEL (Antwerp, BE), Charleroi Danse (BE)
WITH THE FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF: the Flemish Government, Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government via BNPPFFF