BIO
Rode Boom offers visual road trips that take the viewer to ‘their’ reality and far beyond. Their stage productions, packed with surreal and symbolic images, have also found their way into public spaces. Kurt Demey’s artistic palette features techniques from the world of illusion and mentalism interwoven with those of the visual arts and performance art.
The imagination is a role art must fulfil ...
Imagination is what connects us to each other. It connects our physical movements with our thoughts and triggers hormones and initiates chemical processes. Rode Boom wants to examine which systems are triggered and the reactions they catalyse through the body.
The aesthetic of the ‘traditional’ conjuring arts, by which the focus is primarily on the presentation of a trick performed as flawlessly as possible, is light years away from what Kurt Demey has contemplated as an artist. What does appeal to him in the magic on stage, like gurus performing their miracles, is the manner in which things are presented – that the audience is aware that not everything is what it seems to be, that we can do far more with our body, for instance, than we realise and that these kinds of techniques confront us with our beliefs, both big and small.
Ruim 15 jaar creëren ...
The establishment of Rode Boom in 2007 was the culmination of a long dream to start a company that could create and perform. And to provide a supporting structure to the circus theatre and visual installations that Kurt Demey created at the time. The company enabled him to professionalise and centralise his work.
During this same time, Kurt Demey enrolled in a study programme at FAI-AR (Formation supérieure d’art en espace public) in Marseille, which allowed him to redirect the focus of his artistic work as a visual artist. It was here that he used the classic circus technique of conjuring for the first time as an artistic tool in public space.
The artistic work of Kurt Demey has a personal style, interspersed with surrealism and symbolism. He uses techniques from the world of illusion and mentalism as his artistic palette.
Seven years of studying the art of conjuring, travelling around the world and interacting with various mentors and masters inspired him to create a series of ten performances. Rode Boom became a fully fledged company in 2007. Horned Man was Rode Boom’s first all-night performance.
Theatre as an art form feels safe and comfortable because the invisible border between the stage and the audience is rarely crossed by either the actors or viewers. But Rode Boom continuously tests the limits of the physical world and, in doing so, tests the limits of the mental world. As a result, mentalism no longer remains the domain of the ‘mentalist on stage’, but is transferred to the viewer, who can experiment with it directly. Rode Boom’s performances challenge viewers to step into the narrative and find meaning in themselves.
Mentalism on stage is an interactive form of experience theatre that confronts us with the limitations of our senses, an approach that toys with coincidence and performs psychological manipulations. Sheer entertainment is raised to a higher level as it were. The tricks are only the point of departure for offbeat poetic thought. A Rode Boom performance seeks out the direct narrative power of imagery. In their installations and performances, they pursue an archetypal image, an unprecedented universal symbol that reflects a subconscious world of perception.
