NOON add image

Why is the sky blue?

I lost you.

Can we please talk about this space?

I want to take you somewhere blue.

Don't you see the sea and the universe as a similar thing?

Do you remember when we started?
With what?
Approaching each other.

It always ends up to be about you and me.

Have you ever been close?

MAP

About

With the multidisciplinary collective NOON we have been creating a series of performative installations. NOON collective gathers around a strong interest for the encounter in human and more-than-human worlds.
After three in-situ performative installations and one year of research around the immersive aspect of their work, the process continues with the creation of And now the beginning is somewhere else which is now entering its last stage and will be finished around winter 2025.

The collective is a living body, made up by its multiple collaborations through the years. Today NOON’s core is constituted Judith Dhondt, Iris Donders & Delphine Mertens, in collaboration with Janka De Waele, Joram De Cocker, Eline Harmse & Lucie Gresil.

NOON is also NOON vzw, constituted out of a general assembly with Geneviève Roberti Lintermans, Iris Donders and Delphine Mertens, and the board with Ward Dupan, Milan Van Bortel and Judith Dhondt.

Delphine is a performance artist and pedagog based in Brussels. Initially trained in geography and oceanography, in movement pedagogy (Dalcroze Institut), and in Performance Art (KASK). They are currently studying the Feldenkrais method and the fascia-therapy.

Today they are part of the collective NOON as a maker and performer, and works as performer for the Cie Ontroerend Goed in “TM” and “£¥€$” (Selection officielle d’Avignon) and for Mannès/Turine/Lemaître in Rituels du désordre (Brigittines, Varia, Charleroi-Danses,…). In the past they have been working within the collective MOSSS, created the Radical Survival Toolkit based on the experience of the Common Dream School of Maria Lucia Cruz Correia, worked with Hélène Lacrosse in Mythologies (choreographed by Fatou Traoré – Charleroi Danses), Michi Fujita on a video project (performance/contemporary flute), Blanche Tirtiaux and the collective Makral, Honoré d’O in their exhibition Singing Masks at Bozar,…

They have been teaching in many different places as ISAC, academies, Dalcroze and in OCMW.

Judith is a performer, maker and writer. She has graduated as a master at the Drama department of KASK, Ghent (BE) in 2021, with a strong affinity for movement and the choreographic. Currently she is enrolled at the STUDIOS program (MA) of P.A.R.T.S., Brussels (BE).
For the past years Judith has been active in two collectives:
NOON where she creates as a maker, performer and writer and PA\WS, where she has been active in several artistic events. For her internship in KASK she worked as a dramaturgue in the production ‘Flökt, a flickering flow’ (2020) of Bára Sigfúsdóttir & Tinna Ottesen.
Next to these performative practices, Judith is also developing her writing practice and has done so in the summer residency of Das Mag publishing in the summer of 2021.

portfolio

Iris is a multidisciplinary artist. Her main focus lies in performance (although she would rather not be put within one discipline). In 2021 she graduated as a master Autonomous Design in KASK, Ghent (BE). Before her arts studies she got a bachelor in Communication & Multimedia Design at HU University (NL) in 2015. During her studies in KASK she worked with different artist i.e. Boyzie Cekwana, Tamara Cubas and Simon Allermeersch.
Iris has been working in a collective named PA\WS (performative arts work space) for the past years.
In 2020 she joined the collective NOON for the production NOON III where she helped with dramaturgy, direction and production.
In 2021 she is developed her own piece together with Gina Beuk, Patricia Kargbo and Lucie Plasschaert, called ‘NACHTDIEREN’. Next to this, she will be working further on the research of NOON.

texts

Dialogue from NOON I
by Judith Dhondt

get pdf

The dialogue was originally written to be played in our first performance. Eventually we didn’t use it as text in the performance but the imagination of the dialogue was very much present in the creation of the movement material. That’s why we chose to still include the dialogue in the publication. In this way the spectator/reader could enter the performance through a different layer, again, after the performance.

publication & site

All our publications and the original drawings of NOON were created by Joram De Cocker. They served as a tool and inspiration to build a new narrative for this website, which was designed and coded by Valerie Paredis.

The publications have always been an important part of the work from the start. In the publications we open an extra layer of imagination and share a bit of our process, as the process is very important for NOON and never really ends.

While connecting different disciplines to get our message across, we decided to introduce the medium of the book in order to document the progress NOON makes. The publications that NOON published try to rethink what can (not) be translated into printed matter.

For NOON l, the result was an edition of 50, each with a unique silkscreened cover, containing drawings, fragments of notebooks and a dialogue. The book is always linked to the space. For NOON II, the publication was smaller and held together by a rubber band that invites the reader to treat the book as a never-ending archive, shifting the pages that with each NOON II will continue to grow in content.

In the process of NOON III we were looking for a form which would visualize the way we were thinking and creating, moving from space to space, connecting ideas and materials. After every residency we collected words, notions, images of the creation process. In the end we made a selection out of all this material and Joram created a graphic landscape of thoughts and images.

This website was created as an extra segment of the publication. The site as a space where we can be transparent about our process and where an extra layer of imagination can be explored, just as in our publications on paper. We wanted it to be a playground where you can discover as you move around, just as we try to facilitate in our performances. For us, it was important that it would have an unstable feel as if the whole space is still searching for balance in a sense.

performative practice

And now the beginning is somewhere else

As I woke up,
there was the strangest awareness of my body –
I remember feeling my outside strangely in(wards)
as if my edges were inside as well
and things could run outside of me,
but inside of me,

but also,
– and this was the newest part -,
sink into me, become me.

And now the beginning is somewhere else is a new work from the transdisciplinary collective NOON where you are invited into an ecosystem based on the logics of foam.

Here all different kinds of foams, thoughts, movements and sounds intermingle and make space for moments of curiosity and rest- creating a playground where each visitor can find their own pace and discover this universe.

Being a material that moves in different environments, the foam formulates questions around the concept of ‘nature’ and further on the organic-artificial binary. From this being the collective starts to think and play with the relational space, as the main characteristic of the structure of the foam is to host others.

A first try-out was presented in KAAP in December 2023. Now NOON collective continues the work on ‘And now the beginning is somewhere else’, that will premiere February 2025.

Credits :Anja Rottgerkamp (coaching), Delphine Mertens (performer/concept), Eline Harmse (scenography and curtains), India Devere (costumes and objects), Iris Donders (performer/concept), Janka De Waele (performer), Joram De Cocker (graphic design), Judith Dhondt (concept/external eye), Lucie Gresil (sound design)

Supported by : BUDA, CAMPO, C-TAKT, De School van Gaasbeek, KAAP, de Koer, Mouvance ASBL, SoAP en the Flemish Commission.

Research 2022

In 2022 the collective decided to take a year to deepen their understanding of how to create a soft immersive space. In previous works they have always worked in formats where the audience is scattered around in space, able to move around freely.

The research brought them to develop this playing together further and create new methods to invite the audience to compose together.

Here you can watch a video on our open moment during Konvooi festival!

The research was financially supported by Stad Gent.

NOON I (2019)

bodies researching / 3 full bodies / full of past present and future / empathic / in constant transformation / through day and night / going on / evolving / moving / always in conversation with / space / and / a musical entity of 2 other bodies.
5 bodies are inviting you to enter the conversation.

NOON is a project in constant transformation, moving from space to space, with an interest for the encounter.
Our first spatial research and performance is called NOON I.
With NOON I the project arrives in an emptied parking lot and exists, as a starting point, out of these 5 bodies.

NOON I - dialoog

NOON II (2020)

With NOON II (2020) we created a living room-performance where three bodies were spread in the space. We were looking for the ambiguity within these bodies, positioned throughout the landscape of the living room, morphing between subject and object.

NOON III (2021)

In NOON III we worked further on the spatial and relational proposition of NOON I. We explored the methods again and looked for how to insert minimal movement development inside our spatial and relational play, looking for a playfulness between human and nonhuman actors.

For the scenography we worked together with textile designer Elena Vloeberghen. Elena also started from this intertwinement of materials in her own work and developed the scenography from these interests.

We tried to create a moving transforming landscape where there was space for play as well as for comfort and softness. In this landscape/network, all creatures were in one way or another dependent on each other (as is the case in the world we live in).

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AGENDA

UPCOMING
February - March 2025	Premiere of “And now the beginning is somewhere else” (place to be confirmed)
August - December 2024	Creation of “And now the beginning is somewhere else”
PASSED
15-16 dec 2023	Try out of “And now the beginning is somewhere else” in KAAP (Groenplaats – Bruges)
4-16 dec 2023	Residency in KAAP – “And now the beginning is somewhere else”
6-11 nov 2023	Residency in C-Takt – “And now the beginning is somewhere else”
2-7 oct 2023	Residency in CAMPO – “And now the beginning is somewhere else”
11-16 sep 2023	Residency in BUDA – “And now the beginning is somewhere else”
17-30 jul 2023	Residency in de School van Gaasbeek – “And now the beginning is somewhere else”
19-30 jun 2023	Residency at C-takt (Neerpelt)
10-23 apr 2023	Residency at KAAP (Bruges)
12-23 dec 2022	Residency at BUDA Kunstencentrum (Kortrijk)
10-11 dec 2022	Opening the archive (research) at Winternights, Maastricht
28 oct 2022	try out: De Koer (Ghent)
25 - 28 aug 2022	curation + try out: Konvooi
11 - 31 jul 2022	residency at La Caldera (Barcelona)