NDSM Manifestation Favorite 

For this edition of ADE, Stichting NDSM-werf invited art- and activist group Tools for Action + Floor to use their terrain as a public practice space for RÆV REHEARSAL. They invite the public to rehearse new forms of assembly. With a Bluetooth speakers system, floating inflatable sculptures, and a minimalist techno beat, they move through the city like a radiating dancing swarm. Then, the streets become the club, the stairs, roundabouts and benches, temporary stages.

For this edition of ADE, Stichting NDSM-werf invited art- and activist group Tools for Action + Floor to use their terrain as a public practice space for RÆV REHEARSAL. They invite the public to rehearse new forms of assembly. With a Bluetooth speakers system, floating inflatable sculptures, and a minimalist techno beat, they move through the city like a radiating dancing swarm. Then, the streets become the club, the stairs, roundabouts and benches, temporary stages.

RÆV REHEARSAL was initiated in Rotterdam in the summer of 2021 by visual artist Artúr van Balen, founder of Tools for Action, and choreographer Floor van Leeuwen. Every week they rehearsed the raving swarm in public space with a fixed team of twenty ravers, that in some editions swelled up to more than 80 people. After two packed editions of ‘Unmute Us’, the protest march for a more open event and nightlife culture in Amsterdam, there’s a vivid urge for people to gather, dance, and enjoy themselves. Through dancing, people can express their protest in a peaceful way. Artúr van Balen, founder and artist at Tools for Action, explains: “Actually, this is meant to be a new form of manifestation that has the potential to become a protest. We use the rehearsal as a format, as this allows us from a legal perspective to gather up to more as 100 people in open air, no matter the changing covid regulations.” Floor van Leeuwen says: “I see the rehearsal as a way to practice collective movement together, to tune into each other, meet new people, dance with people at a distance, even if they stand on their balconies..”