Nicole Beutler Projects presented the moving dance performance ATMEN, the second part of the Rituals of Transformation trilogy, on Friday 19 and Saturday 20 January 2024 in the Koninklijke Schouwburg in The Hague.
The show is also touring the Netherlands through until mid June 2024, visiting Leiden, Breda, Amsterdam, Leeuwarden and more – check this calendar for location and dates.
It is set in 2200 in a post-apocalyptic paradise where humanity has disappeared as the center of civilization and nature can catch its breath.
I enjoyed attending on Saturday, and it was great to see how the theater was transformed into a ruin where nature and greenery predominated.
ATMEN was previously shown at ITA in Amsterdam; the public and press responded unanimously enthusiastically. “Plants, mosses and fungi take over the theater hall” and “breathtaking” (Theaterkrant October 2023).
The performance features the four singers from 8: METAMORPHOSIS, the award-winning and star-studded dance opera by Nicole Beutler Projects.
The Koninklijke Schouwburg will become a living eco-system.
In the performance, partly thanks to the three-dimensional video images by video artist Heleen Blanken, the plush interior of the theater changes into a ruin, overgrown by nature. Fragments of romantic nature songs sound from the shadows and a wolf howls under the moonlight. Gary Shepherd’s electronic music shows the sound of growing fungus, lava flows and natural disasters.The dancers and singers, who represent the human survivors, evolve from green and mossy shapes into beings who make new alliances and vaguely remember the songs of the composer Schubert.
Trilogy about the climate crisis
ATMEN is the second part of the RITUALS OF TRANSFORMATION trilogy. The trilogy revolves around the climate crisis and the importance of transformation. If humanity wants to continue living in harmony with the planet, it will have to adapt to climate change. Nicole Beutler designs these fictional scenarios for the future, mainly to stimulate the imagination in search of hope. The parts can be viewed separately from each other.
In GINKGO, the first part of the trilogy, Nicole Beutler said goodbye to the man-made world, in ATMEN the disaster has occurred and Beutler investigates how humans can still be part of a new ecosystem.
In part 3 (NOW WE ARE EARTH: an orchestra, on view from April 2025), Beutler searches for a new balance between humans, animals, plants, fungi and technology.
For more information:
Dutch Australian 
Leave a comment