Arno Schuitemaker

Work

If You Could See Me Now

Three performers reshape a chilled-out dance into synchronized, wavelike motion until everything expands into an electrifying force. What makes itself felt is as much the steps as the way we hold ourselves together. The performers forge a metaphor for endurance at the very moment it is challenged: a declaration of power to push forward, to find continuity amid friction, and to assert autonomy.

At the height of their sweaty exertion, their invigorating cadence reinvents itself in luminous, ever-changing images. If You Could See Me Now, with deceptive simplicity, urges another, closer look. How do we keep going? How do we realign and refocus?

From ecstasy to turmoil, through an intensifying buildup and its fracturing, the performance explores the body’s intimate dialogue with change, reconnecting us with a sense of shared momentum and the willingness to let each movement, each step, define the next. This is resilience against stagnation - and a refusal to be silenced until silence fills our space and becomes our own. And it is here, in the charged hush following the intensity, that the piece finds its resonance, extending beyond the stage.

Press
"It is no exaggeration to say that these kinds of experiences will determine the future of the theatre. (....) In this liberating dance, performance everything falls into place." — Alexander Hiskemuller, Trouw

"Just when you think it has reached its peak, it brushes against a sumptuous, deep, subtle silence that lies beyond trance itself (…) This is a rare experience. Even seated in a theatre chair, the piece is something you experience as intensely as you watch it.” — Sceneweb.fr

"Their resilience is the breath of their bodies, that life-giving force, a unison that weaves a shared destiny, theirs and ours." — Nicolas Thevenot, Un Fauteuil pour l’Orchestre

"A magnificent performance, tactfully playing with your emotions." — Mirjam van der Linden, de Volkskrant

Find the dates and the credits below.

Photo: Lorenzo Benelli

Photo: Lorenzo Benelli

Photo: Lorenzo Benelli

Photo: Lorenzo Benelli

Photo: Piotr Jaruga

Photo: Piotr Jaruga

Photo: Piotr Jaruga

Calendar

Press

"It is no exaggeration to say that these kinds of experiences will determine the future of the theatre. (....) In this liberating dance, performance everything falls into place. " - Alexander Hiskemuller, Trouw

"A magnificent performance, tactfully playing with your emotions." - Mirjam van der Linden, de Volkskrant

"It is Schuitemaker's great strength to think the art of performance in all its components through and to shape it in an experimental setup, which—in the end—exudes the strongest sensuality, originality, and bliss." - Alexandra Karabelas, Tanznetz

Credits

Concept and creation: Arno Schuitemaker
Performers: Stein Fluijt, Ivan Ugrin, Mark Christoph Klee or Emilia Saavedra
Dramaturgy: Guy Cools
Music composition: Wim Selles
Lighting design: Vinny Jones
Costumes: Inge de Lange
Technique: Vincent Beune

If You Could See Me Now is a production by SHARP/ArnoSchuitemaker in coproduction with HELLERAU – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste (Dresden, Germany), O Espaço Do Tempo - Associação Cultura (Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal), CN D Centre national de la danse (Pantin, France), KLAP Maison pour la danse (Marseille, France) and Tafelhalle im KunstKulturQuartier (Nuremberg, Germany). The performance is created with contributions by Performing Arts Fund NL, Fonds 21, VSBfonds, and Cultuurfonds.