Biographie
Arco Renz productions with Kobalt Works reveal an intense physicality and explore the emotional force of abstraction. In his creations, he consistently broadens the principles of Abstract Dramaturgy to light, sound and multimedia interfaces; and his choreographies go beyond pure, formal dance, displaying “a graceful expressionism that can be situated somewhere between the German expressionist films of the 1920s and traditional Eastern dance and theatre forms.” During 2014 and 2015, Kobalt Works|Arco Renz is engaged in collaborative performance projects of very different nature in Indonesia (KRIS IS), Vietnam (Hanoi Stardust), the Philippines (COKE), and Singapore (ALPHA). Among over 20 evening length choreographies, other major Kobalt Works’ productions include .states. (2001), Mirth (2002), heroïne (2004), Bullitt (2006), i!2 (2008), PA (2009), 1001 (2010), CRACK (2011), solid.states (2012), or Discografie (2013). In addition, Arco Renz has regularly created commissioned works for the Brussels Opera House, the Festival d’Art Lyrique d’Aix en Provence, the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra, the Norvegian National Company of Contemporary Dance, among others. In the field of opera he has extensively worked with Robert Wilson, Luc Bondy and on several occasions with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. A central focus within Arco’s specific choreographic idiom is the comparative study of various Asian and European performance traditions. He has developed Monsoon, a series of transcultural and multidisciplinary research and exchange programs with editions in Asia, Europe and coming up in 2015 in Australia. Arco Renz studied dance, theatre, and literature in Berlin and Paris and was one of the first generation of graduates of P.A.R.T.S., the dance school founded by Anne Teresa De Keermaekers in Brussels.