AUDIOVISUAL CLUB EXPERIENCE DISSOLVING THE BOUNDARIES BETWEEN LIVE ACTS, DJ’S AND PERFORMANCES
Freaky Dancing is a Utrecht-based collective that creates new club experiences where live acts, DJs, and art collide, merge, and transform each other. They aim to bring out the best of each of these elements and create space for experimentation and evolution. For their fifth edition, Freaky Dancing returns to WAS., where boundaries between live acts and DJs blur, and post punk, techno and more will intertwine with performance arts and installations.
Animistic Beliefs (hybrid)
It’s not often you come across artists who are doing something that is completely singular, something that simply cannot be replicated by others because the art is so informed by personal background. This certainly is true for Animistic Beliefs. Initially meeting as underage attendees of Rotterdam’s nightlife, they combined their interest in techno, electro, gabber, and punk with a preference for analogue equipment, often soldering their very own hardware. Throughout the years though, the duo delved deep into their Moluccan and Vietnamese-Chinese heritage, rediscovering traces of culture that conventional history had erased: South-East Asian tonality, tribal rhythms and pre-colonial poetry have become more and more central to their work, which has been released on labels like Dekmantel and Herrensauna. As such, Animistic Beliefs have become a powerful hybrid of the political and personal, a constantly evolving force that pairs a punk mentality with emotional release to form exhilarating, ritualistic experiences.
Gamma Intel b2b Samira
We’re not quite sure heaven exists, but if it does, that’s probably where the match between Gamma Intel and Samira was made. Both are adventurers, always searching for the darkest alleys of acid, electro, techno and wave. Gamma Intel being a Pinkman alumnus and co-founder of the Nerve Collect label alongside Identified Patient, his surprising sets burst at the seams with attitude and punch. Samira, meanwhile, adds a surplus of grit to proceedings: as a resident at Rotterdam stronghold Operator Radio, her sets seem to be a subconscious reflection of the city she calls home. Together, they’re on a quest for the elusive sweet spot between the weird and the wonderful, and for unfamiliar nuances in familiar worlds. Sure, you’ll dance, just not to the tune you might expect.
HUNTER – OFF RECORD!!!
by Courtney May Robertson
Are we in a BDSM dungeon? Are we in an emo girl’s bedroom? In any case, Courtney May Robertson will transport us far away from our familiar dancefloor. HUNTER – OFF RECORD!!! is the underground offspring of her award-winning theatre production HUNTER, a chaotic and immersive performance and installation featuring Robertson and her silicone doppelgänger. HUNTER is an interdisciplinary performance that reflects on the pervasive misogynistic roles assigned to women in horror, pornography and melodrama. It’s angry. It’s sad. It’s horny. It’s quite possibly the freakiest Freaky Dancing has ever gotten. You’ll probably be tempted to look away, but with HUNTER being mentioned in NRC’s 10 Best Dance Performances of 2024 and receiving four stars from de Volkskrant, we’re also quite sure this will be something that you want to see.
YARD
While most bands record their music in a well-equipped studio, we suspect YARD’s sessions take place in a derelict factory. The Dublin three-piece have quickly built a reputation for themselves with gripping noise pieces – calling them ‘songs’ would do them a disservice – bridging the gap between techno and post-punk. Having played festivals like Primavera, Into The Great Wide Open and Eurosonic, and supported bands like Shame, Chalk and Freaky Dancing darlings Mandy, Indiana, YARD has also become a must see on the live circuit. Don’t expect a concert, expect an intense and immersive sensory experience in the vein of Death Grips, Nine Inch Nails and Gilla Band.
Before/After by Alyson Sillon
Alyson Sillon is more things than she’s not. A visual artist, performer, graphic designer and DJ, Sillon’s activities in all disciplines inform each other, and contribute towards a personal practice that is deeply inspired by the mythological dimensions of counter-cultural movements. In her project Before/After, which was featured at Het Hem and Club RAUM before making its way to Freaky Dancing, Sillon delves into the world of techno, exploring its Black and queer origins through immersive installations that blend performances with symbolic languages and scent design. The work highlights transitional moments and shifting energies within a rave night, proving how nightlife is not only entertainment, but a profound, respectful and cathartic journey.
Bram Ellens
We first encountered Bram Ellens through his exhibition ‘Robots in Captivity’, a stirring and sometimes outright frightening collection of installations exploring the complex and shifting relationship between humans and machines in the age of technology. It was in many ways a fitting introduction to Ellens, a Jekyll and Hyde-type artist who has built a reputation for his theatrical sculptures. Ellens doesn’t shy away from the big gesture, but that doesn’t mean there’s no deeper layer to his work. It arouses curiosity and invites contact, but there’s always a sense of jeopardy as well. Ellens relishes displaying his installations in unconventional settings, having presented his work at Lowlands, the Concertgebouw and even Paleis Soestdijk. At Freaky Dancing, Ellens will present a prototype of his newest creature. Building on ‘Robots in Captivity’, the new experiment ‘Under my skin’ will bring the beast even closer, pondering if we’ll ever draw a line on where we allow technology to go in our lives, bodies and souls.
Cris Mollee
From our very first installment, Cris Mollee has been an essential part of Freaky Dancing. Combining an unrelenting DIY attitude with a fine sense for innovation, the Utrecht-based creative technologist has shaped the way Freaky Dancing looks and feels. Cris’ work has featured at festivals like DGTL, Uncloud and Le Guess Who?, and she has collaborated with artists such as Coloray, Altin Gün and Luwten. Safe to say we’re increasingly proud to call this light technician, producer and immersive space creator one of our own. The scenography for the upcoming edition was created by Cris alongside Cas Aerts, Marc Huizinga and Quin Nicasia, kickstarted by the idea to make some of WAS.’s most recognisable features even more visible, and made possible by some second hand finds on Marktplaats.
Grove
Bristol-based producer and vocalist Grove is a force of nature, simple as that. They fuse dancehall, bass and hip-hop into a bold new sound, driven by sensual liberation and political defiance. Inspired by the DIY ethos of punk, the catharsis of dance music, and the power of Jamaican soundsystem culture, Grove delivers food for thought on the dance floor, with enough energy to turn thought into action. With song titles like ‘MILF MAGNET’, ‘Ur Boyfriend’s Wack’ and ‘F*ck Ur Landlord’, Grove makes quite clear that their futurist rave bangers are meant to function as protest anthems as well. After supporting the likes of Bob Vylan and Peaches, Grove is now ready to claim the spotlight for themselves.
Jannah
If it’s electronic and from the nineties, chances are Jannah has listened to it, bought the vinyl for her colossal collection, and maybe even played it in one of her groovy and versatile dj-sets. She’s a passionate, persistent crate digger, always trying to unearth the underground and ideally, find out if there’s something even further beneath it. Inspired by Amsterdam’s infamous RoXY and counter shifts at Rotterdam’s iconic Clone Records, it’s now time to build Jannah’s legacy very own in Utrecht. Having moved to the city recently, her sets full of raw, analog techno and electro will surely become a staple of our local nightlife.
Jehnny Beth (DJ)
Rising to fame as the mesmerizing singer of Savages, who released two acclaimed albums of spellbinding post punk, Jehnny Beth has become a versatile and singular artist. She works as a visual artist, starred in the Oscar-nominated motion picture Anatomy of a Fall, and hosts tastemaking musicians in her television series Echoes. After a solo record, a film soundtrack and a collaborative album with Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, the self-proclaimed punk existentialist is now broadening her horizon even further. While Beth has already shared bills with the likes of Curses and The Hacker in her home country France, Freaky Dancing will see her first ever DJ-set on Dutch soil. In typical fashion, it’s unlike anything she’s done before, but still unmistakably Jehnny Beth.
