Kill Your Darlings

“We live in an age of endless stimulation. Light floods our eyes. Sound fills every silence. Information arrives faster than the body can process it. In this constant stream of input, the nervous system rarely rests. This work explores what happens to the body when it becomes addicted to anticipation.

Dopamine is often mistaken for pleasure, but it is the chemistry of pursuit, the spark that ignites when we expect something rewarding. In a world of infinite scrolling, instant feedback and perpetual novelty, that spark is triggered again and again. The cycle becomes relentless: stimulus, surge, crash, craving, repeat. The high shortens but the hunger grows.

Kill Your Darlings reflects this paradox. The “darlings” are the very things that feel beautiful and irresistible: the rush, the flash, the instant validation. Yet these fleeting highs begin to crowd out depth, patience and presence. To reclaim stillness, the body must confront and perhaps release the sensations it clings to most.

What remains is a question rather than a conclusion. When the high no longer satisfies, what choice does the body make? Does it reach again for the flicker, or can it endure the quiet?

In a culture that equates stimulation with vitality, this piece asks us to consider another possibility: that true aliveness may begin where the noise ends.”

– Imre van Opstal & Marne van Opstal

“Working with Imre & Marne has been a very creative journey. From the moment we met them, they were as excited to share their art with us as they were interested in seeing who we are individually. We all have researched and created a lot of material together, which over the time built up in a rich bank of possibilities from which we could all take inspiration from.

It has been very rich for me to be asked to come up with so many different ideas based on the tasks they were giving us; and I feel like my artistry has developed a lot as we were creating the piece. It is honouring as well to see the final edit of the work, and to recognise a few phrases I came up with, and some of the choices I had the liberty to make…

On another note, I appreciate that the piece is theatrical. It is something I’ve always been drawn to, and diving in this aspect of our art is a discovery I am still exploring day by day. The main difference here is that some dancers and I are mic’d up and talking live. This comes with many difficult yet playful challenges. Seeing how the use of sound while dancing forces me to rethink breath control, as well as the relationship between movement and sound is very interesting. Once again, it is an aspect of the work that variates every day and keeps me alert.

Finally, I would like to talk about the idea of constant stimulation that is being tackled through this piece. Dancing this work is very much overstimulating and can almost be overwhelming at times. I think it might be for the audience as well and I would like to tell you: enjoy the chaos. I don’t think every detail is supposed to be seen, that every idea is meant to be perfectly well-received and understood clearly. I feel that we (the group of dancers) are embracing being lost and transported into various many different realities; and if you let go of the will to control everything that happens, you can listen deeper to what this journey does to your body. I invite the audience to accept the huge amount of information that they will receive, and to observe what it does to them as a whole, rather than focusing on each thing. Surrender to this infernal machine that blurs time and space.

Thank you for coming and enjoy!!”