Collab with 3rd year students of ECD

Presentations on 9 & 10 April

From March 2nd until April 8th WhyNot organizes the 4th collaboration with 3rd year students of the Extended Contemporary Dance curriculum at De Academie voor Theater en Dans in Amsterdam. This edition the project will be led by choreographer Connor Schumacher and visual artist Elsemarijn Bruys.

The project will be closed off with two performances on April 9th and April 10th. More info of the process and the ticketlink for the performances will follow soon.

Connor Schumacher

Connor Schumacher is founder and artistic leader of Stichting ARK. Connor has developed as a dance artist under the wings of Dansateliers. Here he made The Fool (2015), Asset, Liability and Equity (2016), Exhibition (2017), OK Future (2017), THREESOME (2019) and Funny Soft Happy & The Opposite (2019). Establishing ARK in 2020 he continued producing Pilot PC (2021), Club INC with Theater Babel Rotterdam (2023), and Raging Against Various Elements (2024) which was nominated for most impressive dance production of 2024 by the VSCD jury & Festival Nederlandse Dansdagen.

Connor makes performances and social choreographic works for theaters, museums, festivals, and clubs. All activities are situated in different and overlapping contexts, where the higher goal is to get people moving, physically and mentally.

Elsemarijn Bruys

Elsemarijn Bruys (b. 1989, NL) is a visual artist with a strong curiosity for sensory perception. In her hybrid practice, she alternates between making sculptures and architectural interventions, but the spatial experience is always her starting point. Her background in fashion has greatly influenced her sculptural work. For example, her series Puff (2019 – now) is a sculptural reference to the archetypal puffer jacket, the garment that possesses the quality of being class-transcending and is embraced by just about every social group. Bruys' puffs are fleshy and permanently under tension. They are so high-gloss that the viewer sees themselves reflected in them, although completely stretched and distorted. This duality, between lighthearted and uncomfortable, between attractive and repulsive, is an important motif in her work.

Bruys is currently working on a series of mirrors, premiering in Berlin. Her work has been shown at the Van Eesteren Museum, Kunsthal KAdE, Art Rotterdam, Down The Rabbit Hole, Torrance Art Museum and the Van Gogh Museum, among others.