© Marc Vanrunxt
Bodies at Work. Open Class Marc Vanrunxt & 1st BA Drama KASK students
Marc Vanrunxt and his first-year Drama students at KASK bring their open class to STUK.
Marc Vanrunxt is not only a choreographer and dancer, but also a highly appreciated teacher and mentor to several generations of performing artists. He has been working at KASK in Ghent for many years as a dance and movement teacher in the first year of the bachelor's programme. This academic year is his last year as a teacher at KASK. With his final group of bachelor's students, he is also bringing the traditional closing “open class” to STUK.
An invitation to the audience of STUK's festival for living dance heritage to soak up the atmosphere where the transmission of dance, movement and spatial and body awareness takes place on a daily basis: in the studios of the training programmes.
As in all his work with students, Marc Vanrunxt starts from a particular interest in space – both inner and outer space – and time, with a focus on duration and the perception of time. These elements are translated into choreographic patterns and linked to personal motivation and expression, enabling students to discover their own artistic voice.
Central to his approach is dancing to music. Vanrunxt confronts students with a wide range of musical styles: classical, contemporary classical, dark ambient, disco, film music, new wave and more. Other points of attention are spatial awareness, tone, perception, positive engagement, expression, depth and expressive power. He places particular emphasis on letting go of self-censorship, whereby taste, style and form are not yet paramount.
All this happens through practical movement exercises: there is a lot of walking, active standing still as an exercise in “infinity” (extending the body in the six basic directions: high, low, left, right, front, back), and work on Rudolf von Laban's theory of space, such as the skala, the directions, the points of the icosahedron and connecting these points to create harmonious movement in one's own kinesphere.
Practical
➤ During this open class, you observe as a spectator. You will not be asked to participate or move yourself.
➤ No language required
➤ Closed doors
CREDITS
teacher dance & movement KASK Marc Vanrunxt students Vladimir Baeyens, Andreas Crommelinck, Emiel Crutzen, Olivier Debaere, William Doevenspeck, Jeanne Duquennoy, Tyler Groosman, Felix Heremans, Stella Nackaerts, Sacha Noorthoek, Younes Ouchari, Mpho Pierreux, Larissa Vanreepinghen, Tuur Wuyts, Chévarrô Young, Rosalie Zijlstra acknowledgements to KASK and Madonna Lenaert
This project is realised with the support of Life Long Burning - Futures Lost and Found (co-funded by the European Union).
Marc Vanrunxt is a choreographer and dancer who has been active since 1981. His oeuvre develops from the tension between change and continuity, two concepts that do not contradict each other but reinforce one another. In his work, he explores the boundaries of dance as a medium and choreography as a language, with the body as the carrier of meaning. Vanrunxt redefines concepts such as time, space, energy and presence. His work moves between opposites such as visible and invisible, tangible and intangible. The emphasis is on the immateriality of dance and on the transformation of space through light, colour and objects. Minimalism is not a style, but an attitude.
His artistic vocabulary has its roots in abstract expressionism and the punk movement. The power of his performances lies between recognition and discovery, between history and the new. Each performance writes its own history and takes its place within a landscape, with attention to process, audience and experience.
In 2025, Marc Vanrunxt received the (first) performing arts career award during the Flemish Theatre Festival 2025.
Location
Price
FREE without registration
