Death haunts the production Blush by Belgian dance-theatre maker Wim Vandekeybus; not only do the dancers and Vanderkeybus himself assail the audience with questions and semi-insults on those subjects, a frog too comes to its end in a blender. The latter is a nod to Jan Fabre who crushed frogs on stage in the eighties. It almost led to a revolt by the audience until it was assured that no real frogs were used.

During Blush too, people sat in the auditorium sick when the mashed frog, diluted with milk, was drunk by a dancer. Trick or no trick, in his show Vandekeybus strains after effect. For almost two hours dancers fall and tumble, scream and fight, fling travelling-bags or each other or climb poles. Every now and then soft poetic texts from the author Peter Verhelst are to be heard, but more often it's sustained guitar notes by four American musicians headed by David Eugene Edwards (of 16 Horsepower fame) that provide gravity. Including the film-images, Blush is a permanent bombardment of the senses.

Blush seems like a Vandekeybus greatest hits compilation. All the well-tried scenes once again pass in review but ultimately it results in a cliché of his oeuvre. The sample-card of effects has a crippling effect on those who know his work, and that he, a man in his forties, joins in the dancing also or often looks on contented from the sideline, only adds some extra exhibitionism. The subtlety he displayed a few months ago, together with the Toneelgroep Amsterdam theatre company, in Sonic Boom is lost now. Only the newcomers will be impressed by all the physical force, but in fairness it has to be said that Edwards' live music was superb.