Review: Arts Talk Magazine – Michael Hasted

“Visually OhGirl! was very satisfying with Loes Schakenbos taking much of the credit with her lighting.”

 “This is a tour de force performance by Ms Yamada, both physically and emotionally.”

 “The finale is a celebration, a declaration, a fist in the air …”

Review: Volkskrant - Annette Embrechts

 "The haunting 'Ohgirl!' cleverly depicts the shadow sides of a dancer's existence."

 "Arika Yamada cleverly squirms away under her own shadow on stage."

 "It is to be applauded that Rioche does not opt for a liberating finale..." 

★★★★☆

OHGIRL!

Five years after Ohboy! which has successfully toured in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, France, and finally in the Netherlands last year. Antonin is now presenting its feminine counterpart: Ohgirl! 

What happens when the curtain falls, the spotlight goes out, the camera stops, and the apartment door closes behind us? Ohgirl! is a journey, an intimate outtake on the essence of anxiety, questioning the weight that we sometimes carry on our shoulders. An experience that reminds you of all the times you felt not enough. Anxiety is like a human mechanism that helps us survive, we are born as vulnerable animals, and worrying is supposed to be our superpower… but when we worry too much every day, that anxiety upraises and shadows us, inhibiting our daily flow. You feel in trouble, our thoughts over-flooding, everything gets louder inside, and it feels like an internal fight, a battle against yourself. Antonin sees the stage as a canvas in which the dancer evolves closely, witnessed by the observer’s eyes. The body is painted through space, crossed by different qualities and emotions of the daily life. We follow her thinking process and inhabit her dreams but also feel the daily life’s pressure that nails her to the ground, struggling to move forward. She feels trapped, she is trapped, looking for an escape, a way to navigate and ride the waves of emotion inside her.

Antonin Rioche:

director 

Arika Yamada

(Den Haag, Nijmegen, Haarlem, Den Bosch, Amsterdam)

performer and collaborator

Adi Amit:

(Gouda, Dordrecht, Utrecht)

performer

Lisa Harres:

composer

Loes Schakenbos:

light design

Bas Vissers:

technical support

Jan-Jan van Essche: 

costume-design 

Jorg Schellekens:

sound-design

Tommy Pascal:

video registration