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© Bart Grietens

Not Standing/Alexander Vantournhout

Frames
VIERNULVIER

An exercise in looking through frames

We invite you to join us on a summer evening, outdoors, for the world premiere of 'Frames', new creation of Not Standing/Alexander Vantournhout.

Premiering this June in the open air, in the quietly magnificent setting of the Grand Begijnhof, 'Frames' turns architecture and nature into collaborators. The historic site doesn’t just host the performance — it frames it. Quite literally.

Here, Vantournhout and three extraordinary performers use physical frames to explore the tension between the work of art and its frame. These structures become sites for intricate, ever-shifting movement sculptures. Bodies balance, suspend, lean, lift, climb, and carry one another, defying gravity and expectation. 

There’s no fixed audience position. You’re invited to move, circle, crouch, and look again — from the side, from the front, even from below. The perspective is always changing, and so is the piece. 

Stripped of spectacle and set dressing, Frames returns circus and movement to their essence: risk, trust, and the poetry of bodies in motion. It’s a quiet kind of magic — thoughtful, precise, breathtaking and unexpectedly moving.

If you’ve never been to the Grand Begijnhof, this is the perfect occasion. And if you think you know what circus is, 'Frames' will gently turn that idea on its head — sometimes quite literally.

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Concept & choreography: Alexander Vantournhout
Created with & performed by: Chia-Hung Chung, Axel Guérin, Emmi Väisänen 
& Alexander Vantournhout
 
Dramaturgy: Sébastien Hendrickx & Rudi Laermans
Research collaborators: Charlotte Cétaire, Mélusine Lavinet-Drouet, Petra Steindl 
& Esse Vanderbruggen
Costumes: Patty Eggerickx assisted by: Coline Paquet and Isabelle Airaud. Prints: Daniel Henry Studio
Constructors: Willy Cauwelier, Bram Dobbelaere
 
Tour planning: Frans Brood Productions
Company management: Esther Maas

Technical team: Bram Vandeghinste, Bert Van Dijck, Lukas Vanhoutte
Technical team on tour: Bram Vandeghinste, Bert Van Dijck, Siebe Coorevits, Lukas Vanhoutte
Production & tour management: Janne Coonen & Kiki Verschueren
Communication: Kiki Verschueren
 
Production: Not Standing
 
Co-production: Kunstencentrum VIERNULVIER Ghent (BE), De Hallen van Schaarbeek (BE), Le CENTQUATRE (Paris),  Le Carreau Scène nationale de Forbach et de l'Est mosellan (FR), Scène nationale Carré‑Colonnes Blanquefort (FR)
 
Realized with the support of the Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government, via Flanders Tax Shelter.
 
Alexander Vantournhout is an artist-in-residence at Kunstencentrum VIERNULVIER in Ghent and an associated artist of le CENTQUATRE in Paris. Alexander Vantournhout is a cultural ambassador of the City of Roeselare and is supported by the Flemish government and Fondation BNP Paribas for the development of his projects.