What is BodyLounge?

BodyLounge has been developped in 2004 through Ina Stockem. Ina is a  performer and theatre maker and finished an extra studie called KIS (Kunst in samenleving, art in society). Inbetween Kis she developped the concept of BodyLounge in colloboration of the host and inspired by her work with  Felix Ruckert. The BodyLounge is an interactive dance performance wherin new forms of dance, movemenet and (physical) communication are researched.

The BodyLounge is about the senes. Participants of the show get blindfolded from before. By taking the sight away, the other senses like touch, smell and taste are appproached more strongly what creates an unique, original way of communicating, based on trust, freedom and the discovery of borders.

The public of BodyLounge which is called participators are both passive and active. The participant dances around in an individual show full of living sound and smell. All other senses play the main rol.

Guided by professional hosts a sho is created  full of craziness, warmth, loneliness, love, stress and confusion. BodyLounge searches for borders without  being border crossing. The participant decides what is happening.

BodyLounge has got three spaces:  the Check In, wherin the participants get briefed what they go through. Than follows the Play Zone, wherin the participant is guided through a personal journey under accompany of the performers/hosts.The performers are called host and they have got a specialisation in professional dance, physical drama and improvisation. Furthermore there are professional body therapist like Shiatsu, Feldenkreis or Alexander technique. Also physical musicians and masseurs.

Finally there is the Chill Zone, wherin the participant can chill, reflect and catches the breath with or without the blindfold. It is also a place where we turn around the roles with the help of some host who go blindfolded. The participants can guide them and the rest of the other participants.

The BodyLounge deals with the following three issues:

1. Trust

By taking the sight away, the participant is fragile and dependent of the one that guides.  The participant is alert and awake and can react on the base of feelings. BodyLounge wants to give back that feeling to people, intuition.

1. Responsibility

The host are aware of their responsibility for the participants. They do have background and experience to take care.

Furthermore, by entering the Chill Zone, the  participant himself gets an own responsibility: take care of yourself and others. By trusting the hosts before, now the participants are ready to take responsibility. That is what BodyLounge wants to achieve.

1. Freedom

In the Check In the participants get told: In BodyLounge everything what you want can happen. Nothing that you do not want. This is an unique offer.

Use this freedom in a good way, that the trust will be used en that responsibility will be taken at all time.

What does BodyLounge want to achieve?

BodyLounge wants to bring people together by a new way of communication. BodyLounge builds a bridge between feeling and seeing en stresses the non-verbal communication. BodyLounge reseraches about how art can move human beings in a double sense of the word.

In the club scene, by giving trainings and workshops to different groups like managers, elderly people or children/teenagers, BodyLounge takes an importnat role: People that do not get in contact with art get actually touched by art on a direct and sensual way. They undergo what influence art can have on their body, mind and soul. Like this, BodyLounge  is an easy accessable art for. The effect of BodyLounge even goes further. In the daily way of dealing with each other and exchange, the experiences of BodyLounge come back and can be used. People get confrontated with questions around freedom, trust and responsibility.

BodyLounge can take an important role in the corporate business world. The ways how they function is sometimes stuck. BodyLounge can try to open up the communication again by preventing other forms of communication. Participants after a BodyLounge feel more alive and more a human  being they describe. They are touched from outside and inside.