Review: Scapino Ballet's Origin - Unique, simple and versatile

I went to Scapino Ballet Rotterdam's Origin mixed bill on Saturday, 7th June 2025 at the Theater Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Just a week prior, I went to the same Scapino Ballet's super-charged big production Anima Obscura. So I was deciding if I should go to Scapino again and Nederlands Dans Theater's (NDT) Into the Hairy in Den Haag. I decided to support the local dance company in the last minute. That was also because some young dancers in Conny Janssen's morning class commended GOATS, which was a part of Origin.

Origin is Scapino's which showcases emerging choreographic talents and dancers in the company's Young Talents Program among more experienced company dancers. In this edition of Origin, the company collaborated with the Rotterdam-based RIDCC choreography competition, which was founded by former Scapino dancers, and Cinedans. It brought together two short dance films and two live dance performances.

The digital programme says, "All four works are a reflection on the vulnerability of man and blur the lines between reality and fantasy."

So here I was, solo as usual, wearing jeans and canvas shoes. And I was glad I did. I enjoyed the minimalism and the focus on dance.

The show opened with Fibonacci, one of the short films, directed by Tomáš Hubáček and choreographed by Marie Gourdain. The film features breathtakingly beautiful, almost alien, landscape. I thought the setting was in somewhere in Africa, but it was produced in Czechia. It was abstract and sublime.

Then the stage transformed to The breakable us by Olivia Court Mesa. The stage was light, quite empty and fragmented in two-tone colours of off-white and red. Dancers were also integrated to the fragmentation if it makes sense to describe so. At first, I thought it was not my cup of tea because it looked like a typical contemporary dance piece. Simultaneously, however, I was mesmerised and could not take my eyes off. Then slowly and quietly, things started getting better and started coming together. If I was not mistaken, dancers delivered kindness. It was subtle, but made me feel warm and happy.

After an intermission, here came the other short dance film, Lucid dreaming, directed and choreographed by Emma Evelein. There was a girl in a metro train. She saw a boy sitting nearby and started daydreaming a weird dream. The film maximized the fact that it was a film to film the eclectic dance routine in such a small space and a short daydreaming time window. One of the outworldly dancers featured in the film was Remy Tilburg whom I wrote about before. (Somehow, this film reminded me of James Blunt's song, You're Beautiful.)

The film screen pulled up and revealed the stage for the last act, GOATS by Sarah Baltzinger & Isaiah Wilson. The stage was bare without stage wings. It was just an artificial grass field. After grass mowers left, seven dancers dressed in pale pink popped in. From the start, it was genus. It was nonconformist. It was not an easy watch. It was comical. It was stingy. It was a satire for human society. It was full of Borat-like humour. I have never seen anything like this. As I was classically trained, it was also highly interesting for me to see how the choreographers used dancers' bodies. Dancers, especially classical dancers, always work hard to improve their flexibility to create the classical line. The more flexible you are, the better. However, GOATS used the flexibility completely in the opposite way -- beautifully grotesque. I thought this work was very mature. I wonder what kind of future awaits for the choreographic pair. It seems everyone in Rotterdam is talking about GOATS and I now know why.

GOATS: Image taken by me with my old iPhone

Overall, I sincerely enjoyed these four dance creations. Some bits and pieces were unpolished but they were all diamond roughs. Each of them focused on and loyal to the underlying theme. They were simple. Yet they were all unique. I look forward to seeing these choreographers' works in future. It was also a good call that I decided to go to Origin. I was glad I eyewitnessed the versatility of Scapino in a week.

Click here for to see the full credit in the digital programme. Except, following dancers were casted for GOATS for the specific show I went to: Elaine Meijerink, Ellen Landa, Linde van Raaij, Mathis Deure, Noa Köhler, Pedro Correia and Rafaël Belinha.

Toi toi toi!

Updated on 11 June 2025 to correct a typographical error.