On a large table are all kinds of strange machines. The audience around the table can view them from very close by. They are cobbled-together robots that look like pieces of the human body. You can see muscles in them, parts of a skeleton and even patches of skin. They look a bit creepy, but that feeling disappears when they start moving. Then it is as if they start dancing independently. Each in their own way: one graceful, the other wild or crazy. Dancing, each robot becomes a living being with its own character.

The Flemish choreographer Ugo Dehaes first made performances with dancers. Because he also likes technical inventions, he started to delve into robots. Since 2018, he has been ‘a choreographer of things’. Hik has made performances with different types of robots, and is looking for ways to make them dance. Since 2018, he has made performances with all kinds of different moving robots, also for children. At Moving Skin you are invited into his wonderful laboratory. You will learn all about the human body and what robots can do. And it will be as if you are personally getting to know the robots. ‘I have never seen anything like it’, wrote a theatre critic about his previous robot performance. ‘Dehaes combines robotics with dance, satire and philosophy.’

Company

Belgian choreographer Ugo Dehaes has been researching the complex relationship between dance and technology for years. In Moving Skin, his new production for 2025, he goes on a journey based on the breathtaking complexity of the human body.

In Moving Skin, Ugo takes his audience on a fascinating expedition: he makes the skin dance, investigates the mechanisms of our skeleton, rebuilds muscles and tries to bring lifeless materials to life in the hope of preserving his dance performances forever.

Moving Skin draws inspiration from the past and embraces the future. It is a tribute to the timeless fascination with the human body and a tribute to the intrinsic beauty hidden within. At the same time, the performance takes us to a history and future in which humans and technology are closely connected on and off stage.

“I have never seen anything like this before. Dehaes combines robotics, dance, satire and philosophy and has created a truly unsettling piece of theatre. Perhaps the real monsters are human beings, after all.”
★★★★★ northwestend.com