VICTORY BOOGIE WOOGIE

In the mime solo Victory Boogie Woogie, Charles Pas places himself in a dystopian in-between space to explore what it means when you constantly have to rig yourself up. As a lost young man, he confronts the mundane, trying to tame it and look for all that lies behind it. What does it mean when you can't find a connection, distraught takes over, but you have no choice but to keep going?

In this performance, where the strength lies in the minimal use of theatrical means, Charles is in dialogue with a fully sampled soundscape of the soundtrack of city life. Victory Boogie Woogie is a dynamic trip in which, through flashes of a life in the city, an ever-expanding picture reveals itself to the viewer. The threat of radicalizing the individual is constantly lurking.

Charles Pas is Artsist in Residence (2023/2024) by ICK Dans Amsterdam.

photo © Thomas Lenden

BIOGRAPHY

Charles Pas (Belgium, 1998) is creator of physical, visual theater performances. For him, movement is the way to address audiences directly to their experience and feelings. In his performances, he searches for forms and narratives that touch and represent the existential dilemmas of today. His work moves somewhere between performance, absurd theater and magical realism. In his work, we find ourselves in timeless no man's land. He makes theatrical translations of his characters' inner worlds by playing with dream and reality. He shows emotional non-linear quests characterized by melancholy, humor and the urge for the unknown. His performances are always an ode to the transitory nature of performance and theater: the spectator is part of a palpably fragile, sensory perception that exists only in that moment. Thus, each time he unveils something of the present condition humaine. The main dualities in his work are utopia and dystopia, chaos and control, victim and aggressor, connection and displacement.

photo © Sjoerd Derine

Credits

Concept and performance: Charles Pas
Concept and (live) composition: Willem Lenaerts, Rint Mennes
Coaching: Stephen Liebman, Liet Lenshoek, Suzy Blok
Dramaturgy: Wessel Padberg
Costume: Bonne Suits
Produced by Likeminds in collaboration with Stichting A Fully Coherent Plan and ICK Dans Amsterdam / ICK-Artist Space

Thanks to: DeSingel, Corso, Niels van Heijningen, Emma de Mol, Shamisa Debroey

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