Season 25/26

Antonin Rioche: Comme
si tout allait s’arrêter

Commissioned by BODHI PROJECT, Comme si tout allait s’arrêter (As If Everything Was About to End) is Antonin Rioche’s new creation, premiering on 21 January 2026 in Salzburg. The work draws inspiration from the intensity and acceleration of contemporary life and the growing entanglement between real and virtual worlds.

Moving between personal relationships, work, digital dependency, and online identities, the piece examines how constant connectivity shapes, and sometimes overwhelms, our sense of self. As boundaries between physical and virtual spaces blur, it becomes increasingly difficult to discern which realities influence us most. Rioche explores this state of permanent tension, where life can feel excessive, fragile, and on the verge of collapse, almost apocalyptic at times. The choreography unfolds in that suspended moment when everything feels on edge, when intensity becomes so dense that time seems to slow down, as if holding its breath.

Key artistic collaborations play an essential role in the piece. Delicate masks and a bodysuit were created by French visual artist Damien Blottière, adding a strong symbolic and visual dimension. The music was composed by Berlin-based composer Ralf Heidel, whose soundscape amplifies the emotional and atmospheric tension of the work. At the core of the creation is the close collaboration with the dancers of BODHI PROJECT, whose physical and emotional commitment brings Comme si tout allait s’arrêter to life.

Arno Schuite-maker: Woven in the bone

Woven in the Bone by Arno Schuitemaker premiered at Sommerszene 2025. With this new creation, Schuitemaker developed a powerful choreographic language rooted in physical intensity and collective presence, expanding BODHI PROJECT’s repertory with a work that resonates on both visceral and structural levels.Created in 2025 at the start of the 2025/2026 season, the work reflects BODHI PROJECT’s commitment to celebrating diverse choreographic voices and approaches within contemporary dance. From repertory to newly commissioned creations, BODHI PROJECT continued to expand its artistic field, embracing historical, cutting-edge, and reflective practices while pushing the boundaries of what had been explored so far.

The work is available for touring in 2026 offering presenters a compelling insight into contemporary choreographic practices and the evolving repertory of BODHI PROJECT.

Lenio Kaklea: chemical joy

Chemical Joy by Lenio Kaklea was created for five dancers from BODHI PROJECT and explored the theme of youth in a world saturated with products and images supposedly made for and addressed to “youth”: pop music, video clips, social media, fashion, electronic cigarettes, sodas, amusement parks, films, nightclubs, and cultural events. An entire market appeared oriented toward, nourished by, and responsive to what youth was presumed to desire. In close collaboration with the dancers, Kaklea created a highly dynamic choreographic score that questioned what it meant to be, feel, look, or identify—or not—with being young today.

Michiel Vande-velde: to the hands

The sensuality of touch, the pleasure of a hand sliding across the back, the tension when in close proximity: to the hands is a choreography of touch. On string and vocal compositions of Caroline Shaw the five dancers engage in intimate, careful and affective relations.

Travelling through historic artistic and social imagery around touch, the dancers depict the deep need of touch as a base to understand the world. From the Ain Sakhri stone, to the famous fresco painting by Michelangelo „The Creation of Adam“, to old scores of social dances, to early recordings of contact improvisation: to the hands is a wild ride across these events, transformed and interpreted by the dancers.

A sensual, sensitive choreography that makes one reconsider what we might too often take for granted: touch.

Michèle Anne De Mey: Blue Smile

Michèle Anne De Mey brings her rich and varied choreographic experience into a new creation, BLUE SMILE, with BODHI PROJECT dance company.

Her research focuses on a shared world that is interpreted by many voices. She uses her research by channeling elements of Synesthesia, a condition that intertwines senses and experiences to recreate new versions of an old story.

A movement universe using a wide spectrum of musical influences to create a poetic melancholic humorful piece.

A choreography that touches us by awakening our senses and intellect to reconsider how a new juxtaposition can bring an unique artistic interpretation of a human condition.

BLUE SMILE, danced by the captivating BODHI PROJECT dance company, is a humanistic humorous study in presumption
and perception.