Remachine

In REMACHINE’s cascade of both earthly and supernatural forces, a dance emerges in the contradictions between man and machine, compulsion and freedom, autonomy and dependence, work and ritual. Like an insatiable, marching choir, the dancers move singing across a large revolving stage. Balancing between leading and being led – at the mercy of their own technology.

Jefta van Dinther has created a Gesamtkunstwerk – a cross-aesthetic work of art – combining dance, light, sound and scenography into a monumental whole. In a new collaboration with composer Anna von Hausswolff, REMACHINE draws the audience into a meditation on discipline, relentlessness, insatiability and the power of mind over body.

“In life, we often feel as if we are both autonomous beings making choices and cogs in a system, governed by greater worldly forces. REMACHINE stages this inner friction, a space of limbo.”
– Jefta van Dinther

Van Dinther shows the powerlessness and greatness of us humans when confronted with the relentless march of the world. REMACHINE wants to move us, to make us feel what it means to be human in a merciless world, and to stand up and continue despite everything.

Jefta van Dinther is a choreographer and dancer. His work is characterized by a rigorous physical approach and always implies a staged research of movement itself. The moving body is the core of his practice but belongs to and interacts with a body of light, sound and materials. Central in his work is the question of what it means to be human, examined through its relation to society, community and environment but also to other forms of life such as the animal and other non-human entities. Jefta’s performances reach out into metaphysical or otherworldly realms and deal with notions of illusion, the visible and the invisible, synaesthesia, darkness, labour, sex, the uncanny, affect, voice and image.

In August 2024 Van Dinther premiered the performance AUSLAND during Tanz im August at Kraftwerk, Berlin. In September 2023, the performance REMACHINE had its premiere at Norrlandsoperan Umeå. In 2022, his durational performance Unearth premiered at the festival Tanz im August in Berlin. All of these works are currently on tour. Currently on tour are also Dark Field Analysis (2017), as well as GRIND (2011). His other works include the diptych On Earth I’m Done: Mountains (2021) and Islands (2022) for Cullberg, Plateau Effect (2019) for Staatsballett Berlin, The Quiet (2019), Protagonist (2016) for Cullberg Ballet, As It Empties Out (2014), Plateau Effect for Cullberg Ballet (2013), THIS IS CONCRETE (2012), The Blanket Dance (2011), Kneeding (2010), The Way Things Go (2009) and IT’S IN THE AIR (2008). Jefta van Dinther has also created the choreography for and dances in the the music-video Monument (2015) by Robyn & Röyksopp and has also organised and curated the festival LIAISON (2015) in Stockholm. Jefta was Associated Artist with Cullberg between 2019-2022.

In 2012 van Dinther was awarded with the Birgit Cullberg Grant from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee. Van Dinther received the Swedish Theater Critic’s Dance-prize 2013 for Plateau Effect, which was also selected for the Swedish Biennial of Performing Arts 2015. GRIND was awarded the Säde prize in Finland for best lighting design and received three prizes during Favoriten Festival in Dortmund, 2012.

Van Dinther graduated from the Amsterdam School of the Arts (MTD) in 2003 and was thereafter engaged as a dancer and worked with several choreographers. Van Dinther teaches choreography at various international centres and educational programs. He was appointed Senior Lecturer and Artistic Director at the MA program in Choreography at DOCH (University of Dance and Circus in Stockholm) between 2012–2014.

Website: jeftavandinther.com