Alban Ovanessian
hardcore
Les Printemps de Sévelin | Sévelin 36
Dramaturgy: Aaa Biczysko
Performance: Bissi Adeye, Aaa Biczysko, Elsa Tagawa, Arno Verbruggen
Costume design: Rémi Vergnanini
Set design assistance: Anthony Teng Weng Chang
Music research: Baptiste Cazaux, Lisa Laurent
Additional tracks: “Joshua” by Oxhy and “Eyeyey2” by Plata
Pole dance music composition: Lulu Muñoz
Technical coordination / lighting design: Thibault Rottiers
Production: La Balsamine
Project supported by: Fédération Wallonie-Brussels – Dance Department (research grant 2024, creation grant 2025), La Balsamine, Charleroi Danse, Garage 29, Dans’harmonie, P.A.R.T.S Summer Residencies, Ménagerie de Verre (Studio Lab), ING & Belgian Government Tax Shelter
hardcore emerges as a post-emancipatory queer utopia, articulating a dialectic between positioned, affirmed, and autonomous bodies.
Bringing together four performers, the work invites an immersion into a constellation of lived experiences, where softcore and hardcore intensity coexist in deliberate and harmonious friction.
Conceived as an act of self-affirmation, a quest for heightened sensation, and a drive toward self-transcendence, hardcore unfolds through a cathartic score of movement.
Its physicality becomes insurgent and untamed, submersive and iconoclastic, poetic and ceaseless.
hardcore explores the resilience and transformative power of queer bodies, not merely as subjects of representation but as active agents of personal and collective metamorphosis.
As it unfolds, hardcore mutates into an interactive arena, offering an unapologetic celebration of bodily intensity while inviting audiences to confront the following question : Is hardcore at the heart of an apocalyptic era, or a renaissance?
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Biography
Alban Ovanessian (he·they) is a Franco-Armenian performer and choreographer who began working on film sets before assisting the editor-in-chief of DOUBLE magazine, collaborating with CHANEL, Martin Margiela, among others.
He·they studied at Studio Harmonic before joining P.A.R.T.S in Brussels, where he·they performed repertoires and creations by William Forsythe, Trisha Brown, and Boris Charmatz.
In 2020, he·they joined Norrdans for two consecutive years, collaborating with Nicole Beutler, Martin Forsberg, Ludvig Daae, Ioannis Mandafounis, and Stina Nyberg. He·they was commissioned for in.through.WATER, a group video project, and rosa.svart.station, co-choreographed with Rebecka Berchtold.
He·they later joined projects by Maxime Dreesen, Ariadna Girones, Billy Morgan, Malika Ali, and Arno Verbruggen. In parallel, he·they developsGRIEF(hub), supported by the in the mountains festival (Berlin) and the Boghossian Foundation, and hardcore, produced by Théâtre de la Balsamine.