BRUSSELS -- This year choreographer Wim Vandekeybus wanted to do less, but ended up doing more. With "Blush'' he once again made a clean slate within his company and composed a new team out of 800 candidates. He locked David Eugene Edwards from Sixteen Horsepower in his tourbus together with a box of his dance videos, hoping that he would be willing to write music for him. Edwards accepted, "even though I couldn't quite see how the dancers would move to my music."

Last Thursday, almost midnight. The stage of the Royal Circus is empty. There are three barstools on it. Spotlights cast a blue glow on the eight cymbals of the drums: the energy machine is kept in check, the musicians are hiding in the wings. A sharp whistling is getting louder and louder. This crowd will not cave in easily, it wants an encore from Sixteen Horsepower. Among the approximately 1.500 music lovers is Wim Vandekeybus and the cast of his Ultima Vez company. It includes dancers from Russia, Slovenia and New Mexico. Two are absent, they have to rest because of rehearsal injuries. For most of them it is the first time they see sixteen Horsepower at work. They've been working with the music of frontman David Eugene Edwards for some weeks now, so they don't want to miss this concert for the world. For the band Brussels is the last stop on their four-week tour.

"I knew they would come," says Edwards (34), who immediately started a decent sleeping cure after the tour. "It motivated me to give it my very best. I hope we could pass through energy for their show by means of our concert. I always like to go for it. It doesn't matter to me if people don't think I'm cool or find me silly. The dancers of Ultima Vez are also very passionate. When I see how Wim works and thinks, I see a lot of similarities with our way of making music. Very serious, but still pleasant and very open to others."

Open and free is indeed the way in which mister Edwards handles his band's repertoire. In the heat of the concert his colleagues step back for a while and he plays the incantating "Black Soul Choir" solo. He accompanies himself with a banjo. In front of him are two microphones, one of which is designed for mouth-organs, which sounds like a distant phone call. Edwards: "It is a microphone from the 40s. A friend once bought it for ten dollar at a jumble sale. I love working with the close-remote contrast. Depending on the mood I'm in, I bring in a different emotion and bend towards another microphone. We often bring different versions of our songs, acoustic or electric ones, using different instruments. And you know what? Instead of "Black soul Choir" I was supposed to be playing "Heel on the Shovel", but I suddenly felt like something different."

Choreographer Wim Vandekeybus too is someone who likes to make a u-turn. In the past seasons he repeatedly put together a totally new cast and has made both an all male and all female production. For Blush too he has composed a different group and at the age of 39 he himself dances along the entire show. Vandekeybus: "I wanted to do less this year, to regroup. After fifteen productions you start to get very critical of your own work. But I ended up doing more, first a theatre solo and then a project together with thirty young people. That was something very different. Not since my years with Jan Fabre have I been directed by someone. I experience it as refreshing to be dancing an entire production again. I can just manage physically. The title Blush applies to me, because if anyone should blush later on for going flat on his face it will be me."

It is not Vandekeybus's first time on stage. "I also danced in What the body does not remember. I was not so much the knight or queen of the chess game there, but the bishop, a piece that can do lots of things. Now I really want to draw a route throughout the whole show. It was only at the very last moment that I made one of the parts my own. I continually passed the ideas that came to me on to the other dancers, to make sure they had something. Peter Verhelst, who produced texts on the basis of our improvisations, gave me my share last week on Wednesday."

Productions of Ultima Vez often have text and video in them, but they always have music. He thought David Byrne was enormously varied and Marc Ribot was an absolute craftsman. Pierre Vervloessem chose a sound as he saw the dancers move. Arno was the perfect soul man. For Blush Vandekeybus wanted a musical input in which the voice would come entirely to the fore. "Ever heard David Eugene Edwards?" suggested Tom Barman from dEUS. Edwards had never written dance music before. The rare occasions on which he was exposed to modern dance could please him only moderately. Edwards: "Then I saw those videos from Wim. He goes about dancing in a very physical way. I find him to be sincere with regard to his emotions and creativity. His dancers look grubby, dripping with sweat. They dance with full dedication. I was not afraid of this assignment. In the end he chose me for what I do. That took a lot of pressure off of me."

Months before the première of Blush Vandekeybus had forced himself to put some structure into Blush. He flew Edwards over from Denver to fill in the musical interventions. Edwards: "Wim gave me the entire context of Orpheus' myth, with its paradise and underworld. For each scene he offered me some keywords, such as 'isolation'. I had to force myself somewhat to be able to write longer pieces of music than the average rock song. The best solution was to just do it. Play and record. For some time I have been wanting to work with non-musical sounds. This was my chance. I stuffed a suitcase with percussion instruments and started drumming. On the tape you can hear the ravens in my backyard and the voices of my wife and children. My material was then remixed again and other sounds were added. I am not familiar with the world of dance. I need someone who can organize the material in such a way that it becomes usable. It is a good thing that other people put their character and personality into it."

Translation by Lot