'SWEAT'

What happens when you put five musicians in a rehearsel room, give them the instruments they need and tell them they should perform on stage within 48 hours? They start sweating.

Nathan (lead-singer, guitar), Aron (guitar), Jens (bass), Milly (keyboards), Oliver (drums) accepted the challenge. We went over to have a look and when we opened the door, it was like entering a sauna. Naked people everywhere!

When we tried to get an interview, they told us they had 'a really tight schedule' and were 'too busy for anything else besides playing music'. Being good reporters, we lounged around paparazzi-style for about fifteen minutes. We couldn't keep still - and had to start dancing. During the short period of time we were in there, they played a balanced mixture of modern classics, contemporary hits and a fair bit of rock 'n roll.

After our little dancing session, we tried to get one of them in front of our camera, but they kicked us out. Attitude, anyone? While they were pushing us out of the door, we caught Nathan saying: 'Djeeezus. There is sweat all over the place'. A new band is born!

Everyone is invited to the first performance of 'SWEAT', tomorrow at 8pm in Den Eglantier.

Don't forget your dancing shoes!

Discover the groove

As you could read below, the creativity group got a dance initiation a couple of days ago. For the occasion Formaat contacted Youssef, a member of the ‘Let’s Go Urban’ dance squad. This seventeen year old dancer helped everyone of the group to take the first steps on the dance floor. ‘Dancing is in my genes’, Youssef explained us. ‘My brother was a dancer as well and until I was five years old, I always joined him to all the events. This made me discover the groove in my body, heart and soul.’

Some of us had difficulties to discover the dance groove in their own body. Nevertheless, everyone did the best they could . The activity ended with a jam session: the entire group stood in a circle and one by one the participants were invited to show their best moves. Thanks for the encouragements Youssef!

Creative talent.

We caught Oliver playing around with photoshop around midnight. There is a workaholic in the creativity team! Have a look at some of his previous work ! Here you can find his personal website - and he also participated in the creation of the stopmotion movie below. Really curious what he will present us on Sunday, because this tastes like more.

Comfort zone ?

During the afternoon, everyone of the creativity team was challenged to leave his or her comfort zone. Creativity is all about thinking outside of the box, exploring new territory and pushing boundaries.

The team was randomly split up in four different groups. Each of those groups got an assignment: one of them had to invent a new game, another one had to wiggle together a new dancestyle, a third group experimented with culinary ingredients and the last group.. well, euuuhr, yeah.. they practised real hard to become Belgium's next musical sensation.

After a practice round on the courtyard of youth centre Kavka, all of them hit the streets of Antwerp to show their accomplishments to a larger audience and performed together.

While the musicians where playing their brand new musical compositions at the main shopping street in Antwerp, this journalist overheard a conversation between bystanders. 'This band could become the next Front 242!'. Stay tuned for more news about the next industrial cultband.

The dancemoves worked so inspiring that some people from other groups couldn't keep still and joined the newly formed dance squad, while a couple of meters further people where crowding around to see one of the most original new games of the year. While easedropping at the trainers evaluation meeting, we caught one of the trainers say: "The game they invented was so much fun that I wrote down the rules - I'll be using it at other seminars in the future". Talk about a compliment.

Huuuuuummmmm...

A compilation of the footage from the last 24 hours.

And no - we are not a sect.

.. or are we?

Paper clip ²

How can you define creativity and what does it mean to be creative? Is ‘being creative’ something that an individual does for himself, or does it have an intrinsic social dimension? Are we creative for our own sake, or do we want to touch other people’s emotions? These questions kept the group busy until they were asked to list as much uses they could think of ... for a paperclip.

That was one of the challenging exercises the trainers of the creativity group served the team before lunch. The group came up with more than 150 things one can do with a paper clip. A short selection of the options: chew on it, pick your nose, holding paper together (!), test potatoes, help you in MS Word, alleviate boredom, enemy/friend, piece of art, use it as a piercing, computer hangers (?), make music, collecting, fish hook, pop a balloon ... 

Now why this exercise? Sir Ken Robinson - a knight and guru at the same time – talks about an experiment in one of his famous presentations. Apparently, the older we become, the more we lose the ability of divergent thinking, which is one of the main ingredients of creativity. Have a look at the animated presentation below to learn more about the causes of this odd evolution. Stay young forever?!

Hands up for creativity

When we asked one of the trainers to describe this picture, Gunnar had a good look at it and commented: 'What the **** are they doing?' - Well, the team was succesfully completing one of the many challenges the trainers served the Creativity Team. Hands up!

Cultural evening

Tonight the two groups joined forces again for an intercultural evening at 'Den Eglantier'. Each nationality had to present itself and its most famous national traditions. Most of them brought special dishes, so everyone could have a taste of each other’s culture. Let's present some of the most curious and interesting things we’ve seen, heard and tasted tonight.

Danish playtime – The Danish people vanished two minutes after we entered the venue. When we were about to leave, someone found them backstage playing with their national pride: DUPLO!

Romanian trees – Did you ever – even for just one second – consider drinking a Christmas Tree? Well, the Romanians use the pines of the tree to make this weird idea work.. 

 

Icelandic haute cuisine  - The people from Iceland brought a very special treat for all the participants: boiled sheephead. They told us in advance that ‘the eyes and tongue are the best parts’. They surprised us – mjaaammm!

Slovenian chicken – Even though Slovenia is shaped like a chicken, don’t laugh about it: ‘the chicken has 4.000.000 legs to kick your ass’. Don’t mess with the Slovenians.

 


Orange-white-green – And the price for the most colourful delegation goes to .. IRELAND !

Estonian weather – Apparently at the moment it’s 28 degrees in Estonia. ‘Belgian weather sucks.’

Belgian chocolates – Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm   mooore ..