ICON
Focus programme around unique dance personality Lucinda Childs
ICON
Choreographer Lucinda Childs is the queen of minimal dance. She will be 85 years old in 2025, and Introdans is celebrating this with the focus programme ICON, a tribute to the ‘grand old lady’ of American dance. This evening the audience will experience a (time) journey that starts with Interior Drama from 1977, new for the Dutch audience, past the pieces Kilar, Petricor and Concerto that Introdans has danced before, and ends with a world premiere of her latest work: Notes of Longing.
Childs’ movement idiom is absolutely unique: taking an abstract, almost mathematical approach she uses relatively simple ballet and athletic movements to create amazingly complex masterpieces. The bond between Childs and Introdans can also be called unique, there is no company in the world that dances so much of her work. Introdans has a rich oeuvre of existing and new work by Lucinda Childs. With ICON it underlines this special bond.
Notes of Longing is accompanied live in seven theaters by composer/pianist Matteo Myderwyk. The choreographies Kilar, Petricor and Concerto are accompanied live in these seven theatres by the National Youth Orchestra (NJO) led by conductor Jurjen Hempel.
The press on ICON
“The choreographies of Lucinda Childs fit the dancers of Introdans like a glove.” – de Volkskrant ★★★★
“With a play of repetition, rhythm, and space, Lucinda Childs celebrates the beauty of movement.” – Trouw ★★★★
“It’s so special that we, as a Dutch company, have been able to build this intensive relationship with this American ‘icon of dance’. For me, these masterworks by Childs are truly the showpieces of Introdans. Her work is meditative, highly aesthetic and stand apart from that of any other choreographer. The dance pieces simply draw you in and enthral you, and audience members often tell me it makes them feel very calm and relaxed – which is a wonderful thing in these chaotic times” says artistic director Roel Voorintholt.
“Call it danced mathematics, musical transformation or moving shapes – it’s all exciting and lucid. As if Childs was aiming to tame human passions with a set square”, de Volkskrant wrote in 2020.
ICON will premiere 14 March 2025 in Stadsschouwburg Nijmegen.
tour: 14 March – 9 May 2025
all locations: Nijmegen *, Apeldoorn *, Den Bosch, Doentinchem, Amstelveen, Winterswijk, Wageningen, Zutphen, Haarlem *, Groningen, Maastricht *, Amersfoort, Utrecht *, Oss, Eindhoven, Amsterdam *, Gouda *.
live music: The performances marked with an * are with live music.
Agenda
ICON
Extra information
Notes of Longing (2025)
Notes of Longing is a new creation by Lucinda Childs for Introdans. She works with the piano music of Matteo Myderwyk and has selected eight pieces from his album Notes of Longing. Inspired by the structure of the music, she creates the choreography together with the Introdans dancers. Childs wants the dancers to be fully immersed in the music—she wants to see them feel it, enjoy it.
Interior Drama (1977)
Interior Drama is one of Childs’ early works. This choreography was premiered at the famous Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York in 1977 and since then has been performed at all kinds of indoor and outdoor locations in the city, mostly on large, flat roofs. This work is performed in total silence and you might call it a study in minimal, repetitive movement, but in fact this little jewel transcends this simple goal. Geometry, spatial relationships, timing, tempo and variable repetition are key in this ‘mathematical’ choreography, but the result is hypnotic and spellbinding.
Kilar (2013)
Kilar, dating from 2013, is the first work that Childs made specially for Introdans. This choreography involves an ingenious interaction with the Piano Concerto by (film) composer Wojciech Kilar. In Kilar – as in most of her creations – Childs impresses with scintillating, abstract and complex dance patterns. However, in the middle section the choreograph also challenged herself in a new way by having the dancers perform in crinolines and with cubes of steel wire. This not only generates many fine images but also gives the work something of a romantic touch.
Petricor (2018)
Petricor (‘the scent released when rain falls on dry ground’) is the third work that the ‘queen of minimal dance’ created for Introdans, dating from 2018. For this work, Childs drew inspiration from the composition of the same name by Ludovico Einaudi, known among other things for his music for the successful French film Intouchables. This resulted in a complex but also crystal-clear choreography of repetitive, classical dance steps – with many turns, arabesques and small, low jumps – that are arranged in space with a feather-light touch. The ingenious mathematical patterns that Childs creates through this process are also rendered visible, in a sketched version, in the stage design of the French artist Dominique Drillot. This results in abstract artworks that further reveal the genius of the choreography.
Concerto (1993)
An electrifying work that moves across the stage like one long whirlwind. That’s how Lucinda Childs’ Concerto was described at its Dutch premiere in 2007. In this work, which might well be the most ‘ballet-like’ of the choreographies by the American ‘queen of minimal dance’, seven dancers race across the stage in continually changing formations, accompanied by the driving music of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki. With tiny variations and shifts, Childs is able to create a kaleidoscopic jewel: it looks so simple, but in fact it’s incredibly refined and masterful.
Interview Lucinda Childs
“Two dance legends on the difficulty of minimal dance: Backstage, dancers count along on their fingers”: Read here an interview in de Volkskrant with Lucinda Childs and Krisztina Châtel about their work and the performances ICON and TYPHOON.
Trailer ICON
Pictures ICON
credits: Hans Gerritsen
Premiere pictures ICON
credits: Jesse Wensing
credits: Jesse Wensing
Rehearsal pictures ICON
Choreographer
Dansers
Credits
Interior Drama
choreography Lucinda Childs
lighting design Dominique Drillot
costumes made by Atelier Introdans
rehearsed by Ty Boomershine
repetiteur Jorge Pérez Martínez, Marlena Wolfe
duration ± 12 minutes
world premiere 3 november 1977, Lucinda Childs Dance Company, New York City (USA)
premiere Introdans 14 March 2025, Nijmegen
Petricor
choreography Lucinda Childs
music Ludovico Einaudi, Petricor *
set, lighting, costume and audiovisual design Dominique Drillot
costumes made by Merlijn Koopman
repetiteur Jorge Pérez Martínez, Marlena Wolfe
duration ± 13 minutes
world premiere 14 September 2018, Introdans, Arnhem
Film Lucinda Childs
camera, editing and direction
Inge Theunissen (IT Moves)
sound Egbert Hotz
Notes of Longing
choreography Lucinda Childs
music Matteo Myderwyk, Intermission, Remembrance, Evening Song, Aria, Passing Notes, Longing, Waltz For Waving Starlings, Pastoral, Lullaby (performed live by pianist Matteo Myderwyk in Amsterdam, Apeldoorn, Gouda, Haarlem, Maastricht, Nijmegen,Utrecht)
set-, lighting- and costume design Dominique Drillot
costumes made by Merlijn Koopman
repetiteur Jorge Pérez Martínez, Marlena Wolfe
duration ± 21 minutes
world premiere 14 March 2025, Introdans, Nijmegen
Concerto
choreography Lucinda Childs
music Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Concerto pour clavecin et cordes opus 40 *
costume design Anne Masset
lighting design Dominique Drillot
repetiteur Jorge Pérez Martínez, Marlena Wolfe
duration ± 9 minutes
world premiere 16 September 1993, Lucinda Childs Dance Company, Lissabon (PT) premiere Introdans 2 February 2007, Arnhem
Film Roel Voorintholt in conversation with Lucinda Childs
camera, editing and direction Inge Theunissen (IT Moves)
sound Egbert Hotz
With thanks to Hul le Kes for styling and location.
Kilar
choreography Lucinda Childs
music Wojciech Kilar, Piano Concerto: I. Andante Con Moto, II. Corale, III.Toccata
set, lighting and costume design Dominique Drillot
costumes made by Merlijn Koopman, Martine Douma
construction frames Gebroeders Slegers
set made by Helldörfer Lasbedrijf and Showtex
repetiteur Jorge Pérez Martínez, Marlena Wolfe
duration ± 25 minutes
world premiere 8 February 2013, Introdans, Arnhem
* performed live by NJON conducted by Jurjen Hempel in Amsterdam, Apeldoorn, Gouda, Haarlem, Maastricht, Nijmegen,Utrecht