Following Grace Ellen Barkey’s 2016 production Forever, it all went quiet. She still performed in Needcompany productions, but did not get around to doing any of her own work. As if she had said all she had to say in her contrary adaptation of Gustav Mahler’s Der Abscheid. Until now, that is. Probabilities of Independent Events is an unlikely piece (the title actually refers to a term in the theory of probability). It was created in just ten days and has a cast of more than twenty, but in spite of this is a treat for the eyes and ears. With an opening performance like this, December Dance in Bruges can no longer fail.

It has to be admitted that Probabilities of Independent Events or PIE is based on a tried and tested formula: take a handful of well- and lesser-known pop songs, get a rocking band to play them, throw in a bunch of dancers and you automatically end up with a festive revue. But Barkey does a lot more than that. Each song is worked up into a little scene. It starts very simply. Elke Janssens, the dramaturge and artistic coordinator at Needcompany, who steals the show more than once, comes on stage and, her face deadly serious, says that Barkey has asked her to set the tempo. She then by turns stamps on the floor and claps her hands, always with that deadpan face.

This face contrasts sharply with the exuberant bunch of dancers in black underwear who appear from behind a curtain. They are students from Antwerp Conservatoire, led by the Korean Sung-Im Her, a member of Needcompany. A bicycle with a gigantic trailer goes by. The dancers whoop as they dress up in the crazy garments on this cart. They look as if they are made of old sheets and curtains. It’s as if these adults want to give free rein to the child inside them.

In the meantime, a nine-member band starts playing Queen’s I Want It All. The band is really worth its salt, as in addition to the leader and bassist Rombout Willems it also includes leading musicians such as the violinist George van Dam and the cellist Simon Lenski. But the members of Needcompany in the band, such as Maarten Seghers and Jan Lauwers on guitar, Jules Beckman on drums and Elke Janssens, again, on violin, make it a powerful sound, to which Yonier Camilo Mejia adds a soulful voice. And the musicians are as oddly dressed as the dancers.

This way we get right into the thick of it. Janssens is now dragged to the middle of the stage in a huge shopping bag, where she breaks into Bill Withers’ tear-jerker Lean On Me. Not that she’s really grieving, no more than Mejia is. In his vivid pink rabbit costume with a silvery-white belly, he turns the song into a complete joke, ending with a falsetto voice. Maarten Seghers can’t resist putting his oar in either, with a murdered version of Timmy Thomas’ Why Can’t We Live Together.

This scene, like all those that follow, is full of humorous little interventions by the dancers. For example, one of them sticks his head through the bottom of one of the big shopping bags and crouches down so low that the bag looks as if it had come to life. It is reminiscent of the tableware that came to life in Barkey’s 2010 production This door is too small (for a bear). The dance ensemble in general turns out to be of outstanding quality: they sustain the lively, high-spirited atmosphere from the very beginning, though its well-dosed alternation of free improvisation with short scenes means it never lapses into an exhausting chaos. They even act as a chorus in an excerpt from Lou Reed’s Perfect Day.

The feelgood atmosphere is maintained with Everything Will Be Alright, immortalised in the performance by David Bowie and Tina Turner. But after this the atmosphere changes dramatically. All alone, Janssens goes and stands on a small platform at the back of the stage to perform Randy Newman’s I Think It’s Going To Rain Today. It’s here that the string-players in the band prove their worth: they are impressive in their underpinning of the song’s gentle despair.

Then it burst out into spectacle once again, with among other things a mad dance to Frank Zappa’s Dancing Fool. But the lunacy reaches a climax with Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit, a 1967 number that shines out again in this version. The lyrics are based on the story of Alice in Wonderland – which explains the title – but this Alice is seriously addicted to drugs. Barkey now briefly appears onstage in the role of Grace Slick, while behind her wooden scenery elements in the shape of rabbits overrun the stage. The sixties continue to dominate, in the form of Janis Joplin’s All This Loneliness. Crazy snakes in tulle and wire wind their way across the stage. It’s odd how this adds lightness to a song so full of despair. It is reminiscent of Forever, where death was mentioned with a loud laugh. A splendid paradox.

However, the most surprising choice of song is the closing number. Le Temps Des Cerises dates from 1871. Jean-Baptiste Clément and Antoine Renard wrote it at the height of the struggle in the Paris Commune. Legend has it that Renard fell in love with a nurse who was assisting the revolutionaries in the conflict. It has always maintained its success among members of the French left-wing. Barkey stages this song too in a somewhat contrary way. The image is sickly-sweet: Janssens and Lenski sit together on a wide swing to sing a duet, but if you listen to the lyrics, the irony of this saccharine setting will not escape you.

It’s as if Barkey wanted to say that we should not forget our dreams in these inclement times. In fact, it’s surely for this reason that the 1960s and 1970s are so well represented in this production. A period when protests were numerous and determined. The applause is followed by a little extra: Barkey clambers back onto the stage again. She tells us that the piece was made in just ten days and then invites the audience to sing an Indonesian lullaby to end the evening. And believe it or not, she made the whole lot so crazy as to stand up and sing along. The enthusiasm of the dancers and music in the course of the show was after all extremely infectious.

Source: pzazz.theater/recensies/dans/de-wederopstanding-van-grace-ellen-barkey