VOICE NOISE Jan Martens/GRIP

'Redundant.' Or more bluntly: 'Irritating noise.' This is how the voice of the woman has often been considered from ancient Greek times to today.

VOICE NOISE  is inspired by Anne Carson's essay 'The Gender of Sound' (1992), in which she exposes how patriarchal culture has sought to silence women by ideologically associating women's sound with monstrosity, disorder and death. In VOICE NOISE, some innovative, unknown and/or forgotten women's voices from the past hundred years of music history are given a stage. By doin so, Jan Martens takes another step in his efforts to shape an alternative canon.

Six dancers respond to recordings in which the human voice can be heard in various guises: humming, soothing shrieking, whispering, singing. Gradually, they discover their own voice.

After working with big groups in his recent productions - any attempt will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones  and FUTUR PROCHE - Jan Martens returns to a production for a small ensemble of six dancers. He works with some dancers who have inspired him in the past (Steven Michel, Courtney May Robertson and Loeka Willems) and invites new faces (Sue-Yeon Youn, Elisha Mercelina and Mamadou Wagué).

Jan Martens' obsessions with numbers, geometry and patterning meets the unique physical languages of these performers, and a new-found interest in dance itself emerges: in detail and subtlety, in redefining grace and elegance.