STOMP surprises Antwerp; music is found in all objects
You know the type: children who find music in everything. Playing with the cardboard cereal box at breakfast, drumming with two pencils on the desks at school, preferring to see and use the cutlery as instruments in the evening, and in between playing with all the jars and boxes in the supermarket while doing the shopping. On the way home, they rustle the plastic bag, and once home, they crumple the morning newspaper and enjoy the sound of tearing and rustling paper. Well then: STOMP is exactly that. Only grown up, polished, and placed on a stage.
On Thursday evening, the Stadsschouwburg in Antwerp opened its doors for a night with STOMP. The company performed a show lasting almost two hours, without an intermission. For a large part of the audience, it was a leap into the unknown. STOMP had no hit singles, no recognisable songs and no traditional instruments. But anyone who had caught even a glimpse of what awaited them entered the hall with barely contained enthusiasm. A promotional leaflet that happened to fall into their hands, a video that surfaced on the internet, or the memory of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London in 2012, where STOMP delivered an unforgettable contribution. Perhaps also the advertising spots the company recorded for major, world-famous brands. Those who knew them understood: this was going to be something special.
The group consisted of six men and two women, forming a tight collective from the very beginning. One of them more or less presented himself as the group’s buffoon, the cheerful bungler who seemed to do everything just a little less well than the rest. But appearances were deceiving: all eight of them held their own, without exception. The audience was actively involved as well. Clapping along, stamping along, joining the rhythm: audience participation was not a side element but an integral part of the show, and it was used frequently and enthusiastically.
The eight performers entered the stage with brooms, dustbin lids, plastic buckets, matchboxes, lighters and newspapers. Everyday objects that in their hands were transformed into a complete percussion orchestra. For those looking for a comparison: imagine the visual energy and collective interplay of the Blue Man Group, combined with the power and precision of the Japanese percussion group Yamato. Add to that the relaxed, almost clownish humour reminiscent of Mini & Maxi, and build it all with the relentless, ever-swelling structure of Ravel’s Bolero. Then you come close, but not close enough…
One of the most striking elements was the element of surprise and how consciously it was used. Without ever falling into repetition, the group kept renewing itself. Scene after scene, a new everyday object was brought to life, and each time the audience wondered what would come next. Brooms were handled with a force that did not promise them a long life, and when one broke — which happened with remarkable regularity — the broken instrument was replaced faster than the blink of an eye. It simply seemed part of the routine. Sweepers, cans, tins, matchboxes: everything was allowed to break, everything was played with such force that one began to wonder how many dustbins were filled every evening with fallen instrumentarium. There was no room for nuance. This was theatre with the handbrake off.
That build-up was perhaps the most impressive element of the show. What began as one simple rhythm, one performer with a broom on an empty stage, gradually grew scene by scene into a deafening and visually compelling spectacle. Each new layer was added naturally, without explanation, without words. STOMP spoke exclusively in rhythm and movement, and that proved more than enough.
In a way, STOMP felt like a musical work of art, albeit one that was difficult to pin down. One person saw a story in it, a journey from beginning to end with recognisable characters and its own drama. Another experienced it as a series of separate moments, each complete in itself, without needing a central thread. Like a painting by Mondriaan: separate planes, each defined and standing on its own, but held together by lines that gave the whole structure and tension. Taken together, those planes formed a palette of musical colour, woven into a beautiful and coherent whole. Whether you watched the larger picture or allowed yourself to be carried along by each moment, STOMP left no one unmoved.
The climax came at the end, and it burned itself into the memory. Standing on oil barrels scattered across the stage, among other things, the eight performers unleashed what could be called STOMP’s fingerprint: an explosive scene full of violence and grace, with something of the flowing martial art of capoeira, metal dustbin lids as weapons and blue waste barrels as drums. The stage thundered, the hall trembled with it, and at that moment, the audience was completely and unconditionally swept away.
In the end, the great secret of STOMP was not the bombast, not the humour, not the spectacular use of everyday objects; it was the choreography. Not dance, not exactly, but without those steel-hard, precisely tuned movements, everything would immediately collapse. Every step, every strike, every throw and every glance was directed to the millisecond. And that was precisely why it did not collapse. STOMP stood like a house. A house full of musical violence, but musical violence that merged perfectly, directed like a musical ballet of world-class level.
The Antwerp audience present on Thursday evening was visibly surprised. Laughter regularly echoed through the hall during the comic scenes, and the silence during the most intense percussion moments was that of people who were completely captivated. At the end, the reaction was unmistakable: an exuberant round of applause for an evening no one had quite seen coming.
