Come see Collectief DansBlok with FALL at Spoffin 2024

Spoffin OFF 2024: the program is complete!

 08-04-2024

Good new about our festival: the program of Spoffin OFF, the talent part of the Spoffin outdoor theater festival, is complete! This year there were almost two hundred registrations for Spoffin OFF, usually from young artists, from 24 countries in Europe and far beyond. The entries have been viewed and assessed, and an exciting and interesting program has been put together from those selected.

An expert selection committee, consisting of three fellow festival programmers and one outdoor theater artist, reviewed all entries and assessed the artistic plans. Fifteen groups and performances were chosen based on originality, professionalism, expressiveness and interaction with the audience.

Spoffin's artistic director Alfred Konijnenbelt made the final selection of ten groups based on their choice, taking into account the coherence with the rest of the festival program. The variation in the disciplines also played a major role. Furthermore, four groups have been added to the OFF program that will do a residency in the two weeks before the festival to work on a new performance in the Eemhuis or at Circus Amersfoort.

“It is a nice cross-section of what is happening in the outdoor theater at home and abroad,” says Konijnenbelt. “We mainly looked for performances that were different from what has been shown on Spoffin in previous years. And also cheerfulness, which everyone can use in this exciting period when the world is groaning.”

Notable artists in the Spoffin OFF program include Sexy Boys Flipping (England), who present a spectacular acro dance show with lots of flips, spins, humor and a leading role for the audience. Adrian Kaye is an Italian clown who plays with the audience and prefers to sow as much confusion as possible. This also applies to Emiliano Alessi (Spain), who makes the streets unsafe by gluing everything and everyone together. Classic street theater is by Richard Arhinful (Ghana/Taiwan), who performs incredible tricks with rotating bowls. Iara Gueller (Brazil/Belgium) presents a spectacular trapeze show, in which everything seems to go wrong.

Very different from DeRonde/Deroo (Netherlands/Belgium), who present alienating physical theatre. Also from the Netherlands are Tappin-It Collective, with an innovative tap dance show, and Wordbites, which makes the audience dance under the title Silent Poetry Aerobics. Finally, La Mecànica (Spain) shows what happens when you think you are the great hero but everything goes wrong.

The residency groups, which also play in the OFF program, are the dance companies DansBlok (Netherlands, winner of the VKZ Spoffin OFF Award 2023) and Wonderground (Spain/Israel, winner 2022); and the circus groups Accompany ME (Lithuania/Italy) and Kanta Company (Lithuania). All these artists work on their new performances in the weeks leading up to Spoffin, a number of which will premiere during Spoffin.

This year, Spoffin will take place on August 23, 24 and 25 in and around the city center of Amersfoort. The complete festival program will be announced in June. For more information see spoffin.nl or our socials.

 Spoffin OFF

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Come see Collectief DansBlok with FALL at Spoffin 2024

Spoffin OFF 2024: the program is complete!

 08-04-2024

Good new about our festival: the program of Spoffin OFF, the talent part of the Spoffin outdoor theater festival, is complete! This year there were almost two hundred registrations for Spoffin OFF, usually from young artists, from 24 countries in Europe and far beyond. The entries have been viewed and assessed, and an exciting and interesting program has been put together from those selected.

An expert selection committee, consisting of three fellow festival programmers and one outdoor theater artist, reviewed all entries and assessed the artistic plans. Fifteen groups and performances were chosen based on originality, professionalism, expressiveness and interaction with the audience.

Spoffin's artistic director Alfred Konijnenbelt made the final selection of ten groups based on their choice, taking into account the coherence with the rest of the festival program. The variation in the disciplines also played a major role. Furthermore, four groups have been added to the OFF program that will do a residency in the two weeks before the festival to work on a new performance in the Eemhuis or at Circus Amersfoort.

“It is a nice cross-section of what is happening in the outdoor theater at home and abroad,” says Konijnenbelt. “We mainly looked for performances that were different from what has been shown on Spoffin in previous years. And also cheerfulness, which everyone can use in this exciting period when the world is groaning.”

Notable artists in the Spoffin OFF program include Sexy Boys Flipping (England), who present a spectacular acro dance show with lots of flips, spins, humor and a leading role for the audience. Adrian Kaye is an Italian clown who plays with the audience and prefers to sow as much confusion as possible. This also applies to Emiliano Alessi (Spain), who makes the streets unsafe by gluing everything and everyone together. Classic street theater is by Richard Arhinful (Ghana/Taiwan), who performs incredible tricks with rotating bowls. Iara Gueller (Brazil/Belgium) presents a spectacular trapeze show, in which everything seems to go wrong.

Very different from DeRonde/Deroo (Netherlands/Belgium), who present alienating physical theatre. Also from the Netherlands are Tappin-It Collective, with an innovative tap dance show, and Wordbites, which makes the audience dance under the title Silent Poetry Aerobics. Finally, La Mecànica (Spain) shows what happens when you think you are the great hero but everything goes wrong.

The residency groups, which also play in the OFF program, are the dance companies DansBlok (Netherlands, winner of the VKZ Spoffin OFF Award 2023) and Wonderground (Spain/Israel, winner 2022); and the circus groups Accompany ME (Lithuania/Italy) and Kanta Company (Lithuania). All these artists work on their new performances in the weeks leading up to Spoffin, a number of which will premiere during Spoffin.

This year, Spoffin will take place on August 23, 24 and 25 in and around the city center of Amersfoort. The complete festival program will be announced in June. For more information see spoffin.nl or our socials.

 Spoffin OFF

Browse back