studio presentations:
21 februari 2020, De Studio Rotterdam
22 februari 2020, SKVR, studio 3.2 Rotterdam
Two passionate
dancers, two generations, engage in a tempest about life and
death, fear, desire and loss.
Movements from modern
dance, tango, and ballroom, channel the intensity of Japanese Butoh.
What are the Erlkönig’s motives?
What role is there for
the father?
And what is the child trying to tell us?
In the here & now of the present, a disruptive fever dream unravels, with shadows beyond social rules and norms.
Choreography and dance: Thomas Körtvélyessy in collaboration with Elie Nassar Assistant choreography, repetitor: Eltjo Felix de Graaf
Music: Der Erlkönig; Franz Schubert | Jessye Norman -
Soprano, Philip Moll - Piano, 1995
(use of the recording licensed by Universal Music Group)
Thomas Körtvélyessy works as a dancer, maker and teacher in Rotterdam
and beyond. During and after his studies at the Rotterdam
Dance Academy (now codarts) the School for New
Dance Development (SNDO), Amsterdam, the EDDC, Arnhem and Dance Unlimited/ArtEZ, he worked closely with Elaine Summers, one of the
founders of the experimental Judson Dance Theater
in New York and developer of the somatic movement technique Kinetic
Awareness®. Since 1996,
Körtvélyessy has been working under the co-name
Reàl Dance Company on various dance projects and
performances. His work focuses on the sensation
of dance and its relation with
existing dance traditions and languages. His most
recent work is machines d'♂tendresses
(2019), a concert of short dances, about
vulnerability and male homosexual desire and the
current work-in-progress Erlkönig.
Elie Nassar is a Lebanese
artist based in the Netherlands. His
pluridisciplinary background in dance, science,
and literature has given him tools for a
poetically scientific approach to movement that he
currently develops through his choreographic work.
He worked on projects as maker and performer in
Lebanon, France and the Netherlands. Since
February 2019, Elie has been collaborating with
the French/Russian artist Nadia Larina on making a
duet originally scheduled to premiere at the Marche de L'été festival in
april 2020 with the support of the conservatoire
of Bordeaux, the CND and the Ménagerie de verre in
Paris. After the piece machines d'♂tendresses
in 2019, Erlkönig is the second
collaboration project between Nassar and Thomas
Körtvélyessy / Reàl Dance Company.
Eltjo Felix de Graaf is a
movement artist based in Amsterdam. He started studying dance at the
Dutch National Ballet School in Amsterdam but was looking for a more
liberated form of dance, therefore he started at Artez Bachelor of
Dance, where he graduated in 2019. He is involved in projects with
Thomas Körtvélyessy/Real Dance Company in Rotterdam and started to
work with Fernando Oliviera (ANT) in the BACHproject. Eltjo is also
studying to become a Certified Teacher of Kinetic Awareness®, because he
is interested in creating spaces where people can feel safe enough to
live at ease in relationship with their surroundings.
Erlkönig / collage by Elie Nassar, Thomas
Körtvélyessy, incl. photo by Eltjo
Felix de Graaf
and artwork by C.
Ebrecht and M. Seeberger, used with kind permission
If you would like to contribute to this project, you can make
a donation to NL62 ASNB 0942 8261 75 (Real Dance
Company, Rotterdam)
thank you ..