<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">PERFORMANCE</span></div></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; ">Lisbeth Gruwez: <i>It’s going to get worse and worse and worse, my friend</i></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; ">Friday, May 10, 2013, 8 PM</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; ">EMPAC Studio 1 – Goodman</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">$18 general admission; $13 non-Rensselaer students, seniors, and Rensselaer faculty + staff; and </span>$6 Rensselaer students</div></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><a href="http://empac.rpi.edu/events/2013/spring/worse-and-worse">http://empac.rpi.edu/events/2013/spring/worse-and-worse</a></span></div><div><br></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; "><b><img id="659b062d-dc1e-49bd-a6d6-ec69dc3fa766" height="155" width="320" apple-width="yes" apple-height="yes" src="cid:3EE27957-1650-4DB6-B03F-7CBE1FFA4CBF@dynamic.rpi.edu"></b></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; "> </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; ">Belgian-based choreographer and dancer Lisbeth Gruwez transforms a recorded speech by ultraconservative American televangelist Jimmy Swaggart into a disturbing gesture and dance form. Her body juggles with words, makes syllables, shouts, stammers, horrifies, and fascinates.<br> <br>A speech can be a mighty weapon. Throughout the centuries it has enthused countless masses and mobilized them into action, for better or worse. It has unleashed revolutions and fueled wars. Such is the power of words.<br> <br>The piece deals less with the direct meanings of words and phrases and more with the violence that can lie in the rhetorical strategies of someone in a trance-like state.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; "><div style="font-size: medium; ">+ trailer: <a href="https://vimeo.com/41662794">https://vimeo.com/41662794</a></div> <br><b>Lisbeth Gruwez | Voetvolk</b> is a performance group founded by dancer/choreographer Lisbeth Gruwez and composer/musician Maarten Van Cauwenberghe. Since 2007, Voetvolk has developed as an international contemporary dance and performance company. Lisbeth Gruwez and Maarten Van Cauwenberghe are artists-in-residence in the Troubleyn/Laboratorium of multidisciplinary artist Jan Fabre.<br> <br><b>Lisbeth Gruwez</b> studied dance at the Stedelijk Instituut voor Ballet and at P.A.R.T.S. In 2006, she founded the dance performance group Voetvolk with Maarten Van Cauwenberghe. She starred in Caroline Strubbe’s film <i>Lost Persons Area</i>, which won best screenplay at the Cannes film festival in 2009; she was nominated as Best Actress at the Flemish Film Awards for her role in the film. She also choreographed and danced with actress Juliette Lewis in a music video for her band Juliette and the Licks.<br> <br>Gruwez has been working with multidisciplinary artist Jan Fabre since 1999, and during her career has worked with Pierre Coulibeuf, Needcompany | Jan Lauwers, Grace Ellen Barkey, Riina Saastamoinen, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Peter Verhelst, Arco Renz, and Silvia Defrance, among others. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><a href="http://www.voetvolk.be/">http://www.voetvolk.be/</a></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; "> <br>Musician and composer <b>Maarten Van Cauwenberghe</b> graduated from KU Leuven in 1998 with a degree in commercial engineering. Shortly thereafter, he started playing as a musician and performer with Jan Fabre. Their first joint project was <i>As Long as the World Needs a Warrior's Soul</i>. In 2006, Van Cauwenberghe and dancer/choreographer Lisbeth Gruwez founded the dance performance company Voetvolk. Their first production, <i>Forever Overhead</i>, premiered in 2007.<br> <br>Van Cauwenberghe has composed music for Julia Sugranyes; the PolyDan production <i>See-Sick</i>; <i>La Nuit est mčre du jour of the Comédie de Valence</i>; <i>Ay'n</i>, a dance performance of Louise Charon and Luc Van Den Dries; the documentary <i>Yell for Cadel</i>; and Voetvolk’s <i>Birth of Prey</i>, among others; and composed the music and danced in Voetvolk’s <i>HeroNeroZero</i>.<br><br></div></div><div>Tickets are $18 general admission; $13 non-Rensselaer students, seniors, and Rensselaer faculty + staff; and $6 Rensselaer students (must provide ID for discounted tickets).</div><div><br></div><div><div><i>Evelyn’s Café will open at 7 PM with a full menu of meals, snacks, and beverages as well as a selection of wines. Service continues after the event. Parking is available in the Rensselaer parking lot on College Avenue.</i><br> <br>More information can be found on the EMPAC website: <a href="http://empac.rpi.edu/">empac.rpi.edu</a>. Questions? Call the EMPAC Box Office: 518.276.3921.</div><div><br></div><div><i><div style="display: inline !important; "><div style="display: inline !important; "><div style="font-style: normal; display: inline !important; "><i><div style="font-style: normal; display: inline !important; "><div style="display: inline !important; "><div style="display: inline !important; "><i>EMPAC 2012-2013 presentations, residencies, and commissions are made possible by continuous support from the Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and Performing Arts. Additional project support by the National Endowment for the Arts; the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the New York State Council for the Arts; Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation with support from the National Endowment for the Arts; Arts Council Norway, Fond for Lyd og Bilde, and Fond for Utřvende Kunstner.</i></div></div></div></i></div></div></div></i></div></div><div><i><div><br></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><i><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; "><div><div>The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC)<br>Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute<br>110 8th Street<br>Troy, NY 12180</div></div></div></i></div></i></div></body></html>