I went to watch Conny Janssen Danst’s Nomality No More - Schubert’s Winterreise revisited on 19th December 2025 at Theater Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
It was a last minute decision to go. Because, I have to confess, the first half of the title and the images of the playbill were not entirely my cup of tea. When I saw them for the first time, I thought it might be a collection of incoherent lunatic shock factors. Mental health is an extremely important topic to discuss. I have had crisis moments myself. But it is not my favourite subject for dance.
However, I caught bits and pieces of beautiful music coming from rehearsals as I walked out of the morning class at Huis Conny Janssen. And I started seeing bits of pieces of choreography on their Instagram. So at the last minute, I bought the good part of it. I thought it would be “good enough” to spend money on and watch, and I was proven wrong. (It is not uncommon that playbill photographs are very different from the actual productions because photographs are taken months prior to the shows.)
Here is the trailer. I love how Dutch dance companies integrate music, musicians and singers in general. This is one of the finest examples.
Nomality No More is co-production of Conny Janssen Danst, Dagmar Slagmolen (Via Berlin), choreographer Davide Bellotta (Conny Janssen Danst) and Ragazze Quartet under the final direction of Ria Marks and with advice from Conny Janssen. And here is Winterreise for dummies on Wikipedia.
In the theatre, the interestingly sectioned stage, which might and might not be a hospital ward, was presented bear and in a plain sight without curtains. And I was already glad I came. Then audiences were asked to switch on mobile phones to answer somewhat tongue-in-cheek questions and submit them. And I did. Make sure you do that, too, because the questions are relevant. It is a part of the performance. And put your phone in the silent mode once you have finished.
Nomality No More, the first full length choreography by Bellotta, featured eight dancers, seven musicians and singers, and an actor on stage. It brought out the individuality of each artist and simultaneously blended everyone and everything together. I believe it was one of the messages of this multi-dimensional cross-discipline stage art. I might have caught a few negligible hiccups in dance. I believe they were because of a cast change and the complexity of the art. The whole thing will become more natural later in the tour. Let’s say it is a part of the creative process.
The trailer looks rather bleak, but I found some positive facets in the actual performance. The performance mentioned terms “neurodiversity” and “neurodivergent”, which are buzzwords in the field of medicine in recent years. The terms were also mentioned in the printed programme. The terms describe the subject matter of Nomality No More logically and kind-heartedly.
I also loved the technical aspects of the performance, dance, vocal, music, light, and stage and costume designs.
Specifically on dance, I always like what I call a corps work of contemporary dance companies because perfectly synchronised dance shows off the techniques of dancers. And I was happy I could see it towards the end of the performance, with the most experienced company dancers and the yougest dancing together.
In my view, Nomality No More is a visual a piece of music. It reminded me of the autobiography of Maurice Béjart, which I read in Japanese translation when I was a student many moons ago.
In the book, Béjart said something like the highest compliment for a dancer/dancers is that he/she/they became music. The all elements of Nomality No More became one piece of music.
I look forward to seeing how choreographer Bellotta’s world expands in coming years. Toi toi toi!
Although I have not watched The Nutcracker for many yeas, I was blessed with contemporary dance towards the end of 2024, Scapino Ballet’s Cathedral, Remy Tilburg/IID Company’s HEAR_ME and this.
As a personal monologue, I wish The Cellist and Black Sabbath the Ballet, among others, had had a tenth of creativity of these contemporary works.
Nomality No More is on national tour until April 2025.
Update as of 9th January 2025: Apparently, the creation process was slow and frustrating. One of them personally told me that the performance I watched was far from satisfactory and asked me to came back in April. I will certainly do so.