People have always danced together. I guess you could say raves have always existed. For While we are here, dancer, choreographer and researcher Lisa Vereertbrugghen investigates our timeless desire to dance as a collective.

Vereertbrugghen invited Claire Godsmark, Dolores Hulan, Eimi Leggett and Castélie Yalombo Lilonge to perform together, paralleling modern hardcore raves to traditional folk dances. The objective is to celebrate joy and togetherness with no nostalgia or fixed vision of the future. While we are here brings a hybrid techno-folk dance to life, working against control and celebrating a collective physicality.

Lisa Vereertbrugghen has been researching hardcore techno sound and dance styles since 2014, through different formats in between performance, sound and installation. In recent years Lisa created Softcore - a hardcore encounter (2019) and DISQUIET – sensational aesthetics of a technokin (2021). While we are here (2023) will be the first work she makes for a group, produced by Ghent-based arts centre CAMPO.

“Go see it because Vereertbrugghen looks beyond the fetish of 160 beats per minute to what lives among this subculture” – Charlotte De Somviele, De Standaard