Balancing Bodies

BALANCING BODIES Performed by dance/theater company Woest from the Netherlands

Presenting Sponsor of Performances for Young Audiences.

This Performance Needs You! I’m Here. Where Do I Sit?

Anything Can Happen

You’re invited to a fun-filled dance performance.

We’re happy you’ll be joining us.

In Balancing Bodies, you’ll see an ordinary space transform into a universe full of surprises and twists.

Here’s the fun part: You, along with the dancers, get to balance playfulness and organization, foolishness and seriousness.

As you might already know, some theater performances have assigned seats. But at this one, you get to choose your own spot.

In the middle of the room, you’ll see chairs that roll.

On the edges of the room, you’ll see chairs that stay still.

Dutch dance/theater company Woest presents an interactive show in which the relationship between performer and spectator is the nucleus around which everything orbits.

Where should you go?

It’s up to you! You’re invited to join the performance either way. Sit in a rolling chair and get ready to roll out of the way or to participate (if you’re comfortable doing so) if actors engage you in a scene. If you choose to sit on the sides, no worries—you’ll still have the chance to participate in a scene or two if you choose to do so.

The performers will depict a series of vignettes, or short scenes. For example, you might see characters…

■ spinning in place until they fall over.

■ dancing with each other.

■ meeting at a restaurant.

■ inviting you to read a letter, hold a pillow, or blow up

a balloon.

So make your choice, have a seat, and you’re ready for the show.

Holding Each Other Up The show’s four dancers rely on their muscles to support their own bodies as they run, jump, and roll across the stage.

Their physical strength also helps them manage each other’s weight. Dancers intertwine their bodies, relying on their colleague’s balance and concentration to stay upright.

To engage in this interaction, the dancers must trust their partners. They illustrate the importance of connection—both literally and figuratively. They lean, struggle, and tumble; and their partners steady, catch, and lift them. They collapse, representing the way we all find ourselves in difficult moments; then they become the guiding hands to pull each other out of those struggles.

Reflect on your relationships with your family, friends, and other members of your own communities. Then describe how you have emotionally “held up” the people closest to you. Compare your own actions with the ways in which your family and friends have cared for you.

Next, pair up with someone (or multiple people) who watched the show with you. Select supports that the show did not depict. Using movement—dance or mime, for example—communicate your chosen supports to each other. Observe how the other person or group uses movement to convey their ideas.

Freeze! Make Your Own Picture The dancers use their bodies to create still and moving images. You can do the same at home. A tableaux (pronounced tab-LOW) is a scene that one or more people compose by freezing in place.

Now it’s your turn. By yourself or with others, try creating a series of tableaux. For example, can you dramatize…

■ a moment when you felt a strong emotion?

■ a time when you or someone you know had to

make a difficult decision?

■ a situation where you supported someone else?

Where someone else supported you?

■ an incident when the unexpected occurred?

■ an experience that you’ve never put into words—

but that you can express visually?

What to Look and Listen for…

The dancers use minimal sets and props, allowing you to interpret scenes with the aid of your imagination.

■ Watch for ways simple items can suggest actions

for both dancers and observers. Identify objects that serve as invitations for audience members to engage with a scene—even if the interaction is brief.

■ Listen for the ways dancers use music and

movement to tell their story, rather than words.

Describe the music’s volume and beat, which can serve as cues that increase tension.

■ Examine the performance’s use of unknowns: boxes

with unidentified contents, props whose purposes are not immediately clear, dancers who move in unexpected directions. List the emotions that these uncertain elements bring out in you. Do you feel excited? Confused? Happy?

What to Think About…

■ Reflect on the title of the show, Balancing Bodies,

and why the group might have picked that title.

Explain how the dancers illustrate the concept of balance in their performance. Define why balance is important in our lives.

■ Review the main concept of this performance—

balance—and examine it as a metaphor for the ways we support each other. Identify the elements needed in a performance that requires audience participation to tell a simple story about support.

■ Take your plan to the next level. Explain how you

would turn a tableaux from the “Freeze!” activity (on page 3) into a non-verbal, interactive dance performance. Balancing Bodies uses rolling chairs, but you can construct your own seating arrangements (cushions, tricycles!) and your own performance rules. Select simple props that you can use interactively with your audience members. Add music. This activity works for any age—challenge your whole family to give it a try.

Additional support for Balancing Bodies is provided by A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation; the Kimsey Endowment; The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; Paul M. Angell Family Foundation; Anne and Chris Reyes; and the U.S. Department of Education.

Funding for Access and Accommodation Programs at the Kennedy Center is provided by the U.S. Department of Education.

David M. Rubenstein Chairman

Major support for educational programs at the Kennedy Center is provided by David M. Rubenstein through the Rubenstein Arts Access Program.

Deborah F. Rutter President

International programming at the Kennedy Center is made possible through the generosity of the Kennedy Center International Committee on the Arts.

Mario R. Rossero Senior Vice President Education

Additional support for Balancing Bodies is provided by Dutch Performing Arts.

The contents of this Cuesheet have been developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education and do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education. You should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. © 2019 The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts