Europalia acted as a matchmaker between artists Anushka Chkheidze and Femke Gyselinck – one a musician-composer from Georgia, the other a dancer-choreographer from Belgium – and initiated this meeting.

As many as 324 mountains stand between Belgium and Georgia, or between Anushka and Femke. And yet, despite this seemingly unbridgeable gap, a connection sometimes can arise. Distance doesn’t stand in the way of intimacy. It is a paradox to play with.

The two women made a pact. They probe, measure, count. They trace a mysterious course in the space available, an imaginary journey in 324 stages. In it, Femke again seeks a close connection between expressive, unspectacular movements and live music, combined with a bold but modest performativity. Anushka’s sound evolves through styles beyond ambient and IDM. The chords in her compositions refer to Georgian polyphony, which she looks at from her perspective and knowledge.

In 324 mountains between us, the artists show how Femke’s danced vocabulary and Anushka’s electronic compositions can sometimes bridge the distance between them but sometimes also increase that same distance.

For the scenography and costumes, Femke pursued the collaborations entered into in previous productions: Aslı Çiçek has designed a glowing set for the show and created a variation on the black box that provides inspiring constraints. Nel Maertens and Veronika Vimpelova designed the costumes.