Director, choreographer, actor and photographer Wim Vandekeybus was born on June 30th, 1963 in Herenthout (Belgium). Brought up in a rural environment as a son of a veterinarian, Vandekeybus was often in contact with animals in their natural environment. These experiences had a great emotional impact on him. Animals, their movements, their instinctive reactions and their trust in their own physical power are often integrated into his performances.
He began his studies in psychology in Leuven, but did not complete them, irritated, as he says himself, by the surplus of 'objective science'. His interest in the complex relationship between body and spirit remained. A workshop with the Flemish theatre director and playwright Paul Peyskens brought him into contact with theatre. He followed some dance courses (classic, modern, tango) and took up film and photography.
Wim Vandekeybus' mainly draws his inspiration from the world surrounding us and life in all its aspects. Encounters with nature, people, different movement forms and styles, music, film, literature, theatre, … form the seeds for his creations.
Over the years Wim Vandekeybus has experimented with different media and has involved collaborators from very diverse nationalities and backgrounds in his work.
His creations are formed through confrontations and cross-fertilizations between the different artistic collaborators during the creation period.
For the realisation of its projects Ultima Vez relies on a network of important partners.
Dancers / performers in Wim Vandekeybus' productions are full partners in the creation process. When selecting his dancers, who bring along their very personal world of language and movement, Vandekeybus lays the emphasis strongly on the personality of the performers rather than solely on their technique.
From his very first performance music / sound has been an important stimulus for Vandekeybus' productions. He has commissioned works from, among others, Peter Vermeersch, Thierry De Mey, David Byrne, Marc Ribot, Eavesdropper, David Eugene Edwards and Mauro Pawlowski. The music is mostly composed during the creation process, stimulating the creation of the performance/dance and vice versa. Often Wim Vandekeybus makes an appeal to sound designers such as Charo Calvo or Josh Martin to create the overall soundscape for his performances and or films / videos.
Another important fascination is the medium of video / film. Not only are films an important source of inspiration, they have also become important media in which Vandekeybus expresses his intense imagination. Vandekeybus discovered the medium of film during the realisation of his first dance films – based on the choreographic material of his debut performances - in co-direction with Walter Verdin and Octavio Iturbe: Roseland (1989) and La Mentira (1991). A few years later he started writing and directing fictional short films. Made as part of his stage performances, they jumble up the order that is brought on the stage; they amplify the energy of the performance and introduce other places and moments in time into the performance.
Literature has always been an important source of inspiration for Wim Vandekeybus: the bizarre and magical worlds of writers such as Paul Bowles, Milorad Pavic, Julio Cortázar and Pier Paolo Pasolini are important reference points throughout his oeuvre. While in his first performance the instinctive body, the body of the reflexes is at stake, Vandekeybus increasingly introduces theatrical and anecdotal elements as well as literary and mythological references in his creations.
The dramaturgic discourse in Wim Vandekeybus' creations is developed during the creation process. His work starts from the conviction that life is very complex and chaotic and that in spite of our efforts to make sense of it, it remains a place beyond our understanding, over which we have no control. Although creations begin from a theme, stories, texts or images, it is only during the creation process that the meaning, intentions, form and content are developed. In more recent productions, text takes a more important place. Vandekeybus collaborates with authors such as Peter Verhelst and P.F. Thomése who attend the creation process and write texts based on the developments in the studio.
The objects and materials that Vandekeybus uses for the scenography of his performances are very diverse: stones, wooden platforms, tree trunks, ice, hooks, feathers, earth, … Often also the films take an important place in the scenography. Both scenography and costumes get their form during the creation process in relation to the development of the performance and each other. They are the result of exchanges of ideas, collaborations and confrontations with other people, collaborators and artists.
Ultima Vez has always functioned as an independent structure, relying however on an important network of co-producers and partners. The performances are realised with the financial, productional, infrastructural and/or promotional input of international co-producers. With some partners a more structural partnership has been set up. From 1993 to 1999 Ultima Vez was ‘artist-in-residence' at the KVS. From 2000 until 2001 Ultima Vez was structurally co-produced by the Festival of Flanders Brussels-International. Between 1999 and 2002 Ultima Vez was ‘guest dance company' at Teatro Comunale di Ferrara. Since 2002, with the new direction of the KVS, the partnership with this Brussels city theatre has found a new form.
