Land in Sea

3 April 2023

“Land in Sea” is a music and dance production that will be staged three times in October 2023. It is a joint initiative of the DanZee Foundation, the Zeeland Orchestra and three Zeeland dance schools.

On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Zeeuws-Vlaanderen Festival, the dance production “Land in Sea” will be performed for 4 to 8-year-olds, with young dance talent from Zeeland on stage and accompanied live by professional musicians from the Zeeuws Orkest. This large-scale production will be performed twice during the Festival of Zeeland Flanders, location Scheldetheatre Terneuzen, and once in the Zeeuwse Concertzaal in Middelburg.

Choreographer Rinus Sprong, known from ‘The Dutch Don’t Dance Division’ and the TV programme ‘The Ultimate Dance Battle’, will lend his cooperation. The participating dancers come from three dance schools in Zeeland from the municipality of Sluis and Terneuzen. This will give them the chance to dance in a professional dance production, at a renowned festival and in a classical concert hall, accompanied by live music. At the same time, these dance schools get the chance to profile themselves in a unique way at a time when they have lost many dancers due to the many lockdowns.

The performance

Land in Sea is an interactive dance performance, in which music plays a major role. The dancers portray all kinds of different animals from the sea and Rinus Sprong takes on the role of captain/storyteller. The audience, children with their parents and grandparents, actively participate. They sing songs about the sea and make little boats out of paper, which in turn play a role in the performance. At the end of the performance, all children get to dance on stage together with the sea creatures. The (classical) music has been arranged by the Residentieorkest in The Hague, which is providing the music free of charge for use in this production. The play and its title refer to Zeeland as ‘Land in Sea’, where the sea is never far away.

A ship sails out to sea, the captain looks for the shore with his spyglass, and then the adventure begins with all the sea animals telling their story. The dolphins jump from right to left across the stage, the crab nibbles on a toe of the bathers sunbathing on the beach and, of course, the mermaid falls in love with the captain. And what is that sweet little seahorse doing?

The Hurgronje Family Fund made a financial contribution to the creation of this production.

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