Dans Brabant

Anthony van Gog

2023- now

Anthony van Gog (Antwerp, 1996) graduated in 2019 from the Performance course of the Toneelacademie Maastricht. His work moves on the interface of theater and visual arts, in which he allows body, sound and space to take part in a game over and over again. To feed his artistic work, he is currently following a master’s degree in Philosophy at the Universiteit van Antwerpen. After a trajectory at Makershuis Tilburg, Anthony is affiliated with DansBrabant as a PLAN maker. Veem House of Performance has also committed itself to Anthony as a residence partner and co-producer.

In 2021, Anthony and Maarten Heijmans made Heartscore, in which their bodies, directed by each other’s heartbeat, became increasingly intertwined. Like their previous collaboration Breathing Piece, it was a ‘physical score’ – an investigation into the body as an instrument.

In the coming years, Anthony will explore the ‘selfless body’ – the idea that we humans do not have a solid core, but that identity by mirroring what is happening outside of us. Self-development is thus no longer a steadily building development, but a “falling in all directions, without any footing”.

Anthony: “I don’t see the body as a ‘who’, but as a ‘how’. How does the body appear to us? How does it appear to us? It starts with matter: the circumference of the body, the geometric lines and the dimensions. But also the interior, the use and the physical possibilities. The imagination of a selfless body is a play with all these elements – which interact and flow apart again. A constantly mutating body.”

Parallel to this research, Anthony focuses on bass sound. The body is also central here: how do bass tones steer the spatial atmosphere and the bodily sensation?

Nienke Rooijakkers, artistic director DansBrabant:
“During the development of Heartscore, we saw how Anthony was looking for a movement language that touches the essence of being for him: a body that can be everything and nothing. We have come to know Anthony as an original and thoughtful maker, for whom words are important – and the floor his mouthpiece. There he makes the bass growl and the intestines of the spectator vibrate with it.”