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Hands do not touch your precious Me_Wim
Hands do not touch your precious Me_Wim
Hands do not touch your precious Me_Wim
UV_HandsDoNotTouch©DannyWillemsP3X17785.
UV_HandsDoNotTouch©DannyWillems20DT2540.

HANDS DO NOT TOUCH YOUR PRECIOUS ME

A dialogue between the universes of Wim Vandekeybus, Olivier de Sagazan and Charo Calvo

Hands do not touch your precious Me: Bio
UV_WVdkbs_OSagazan©DannyWillems-_8D25310

With Hands do not touch your precious Me, Wim Vandekeybus creates a mythical tale of confrontation and transformation, light and darkness, death and rebirth. For this he collaborates with the composer Charo Calvo, eight dancers and – for the first time – with performer and visual artist Olivier de Sagazan. Together they create a world in which bodies balance like living, fleshly sculptures between the utopian and the gruesome, the powerful and the fragile.


The poetic, mysterious title is a verse taken from a hymn by the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna to the goddess Inanna. Of all the myths surrounding the goddess Inanna, her spectacular descent into the underworld is the most intriguing. Innana is the divine embodiment of the paradoxes of human existence, and her deeds are a reflection of the tensions and contradictions that every person is forced to navigate in life. Inscribed on clay tablets in cuneiform over 4,000 years ago, these are some of humankind’s most ancient stories. 


Regardless of their different styles, the performances by both Wim Vandekeybus and Olivier de Sagazan balance on the line of what it means to be ‘body’ and ‘man’. Vandekeybus developed his movement language based on impulsive and instinctive reactions when confronted with situations of physical risk and danger. At the core of de Sagazan’s work is the transfiguration of the body and the face with clay and paint into a lump of anonymous flesh. Vandekeybus’ and de Sagazan’s exploration of human limits finds a musical echo in the material and physical texture of Charo Calvo’s electroacoustic music.

Hands do not touch your precious Me: Welcome
Hands do not touch your precious Me: Video

DIRECTION AND CHOREOGRAPHY Wim Vandekeybus 

CREATED WITH AND PERFORMED BY Olivier de Sagazan, Lieve Meeussen, Wim Vandekeybus, Maria Kolegova, Mufutau Yusuf, Borna Babić, Maureen Bator, Davide Belotti, Pieter Desmet and Anna Karenina Lambrechts

ARTISTIC CREATION WITH CLAY Olivier de Sagazan

MUSIC COMPOSED AND PRODUCED BY Charo Calvo

ADDITIONAL ORIGINAL MUSIC (RED DANCE) Norbert Pflanzer

ADDITIONAL ORIGINAL MUSIC Jeroen Van Herzeele

LIVE CAMERA Wim Vandekeybus 

ARTISTIC ASSISTANT Margherita Scalise

DRAMATURGY Erwin Jans

COSTUME DESIGN Isabelle Lhoas ASSISTED BY Isabelle de Cannière

ACCESSOIRES Cèline de Schepper

TECHNICAL COÖRDINATION AND STAGE MANAGEMENT Thomas Glorieux ASSISTED BY Benjamin Verbrugge

SOUND ENGINEER AND LIVE VIDEO OPERATOR Schröder

LIGHT DESIGN Wim Vandekeybus and Thomas Glorieux

PRODUCTION Ultima Vez 

CO-PRODUCTION KVS Brussel, Teatro Comunale di Ferrara

WITH THE SUPPORT OF Tax Shelter measure of the Belgian Federal Government, Casa Kafka 

Hands do not touch your precious Me: Text
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