This interdisciplinary performance entangles dance, sound, poetry, and design, taking you on a long walk. Two people agree to meet, but lose their sense of direction. Between moments of meeting and not meeting, they navigate a landscape of loneliness and longing. The Bench (by accident) is not about arriving. It is about what can be found when you get lost, completely.
At its core, The Bench ruminates on loneliness and isolation within urban societies obsessed with productivity and progress. Rather than offering solutions, the performance proposes something else: slowing down, getting lost, resting, and listening as forms of resistance. Following their autobiographical performance-installation last portrait (2025), ashleyho+domeniknaue return to SPRING with this premiere. Artistically, the work emerges at the intersection of choreography, writing, sound, graphic, and object design.
This is their contemplation on purpose from the perspective of a generation attempting to build a future amidst frightening “progress” or collapse. It points to the reality that, more than ever, our futures are deeply entangled. The Bench is where we met, and where we will meet again. It is an exploration of humour, and of saving ourselves through imagination.
The Bench is going to be playful, and a little painful.
A feeling that came over one evening & disappeared. The horizon moving away
Here, for you, for us, a lonely piece
A yearning piece
A piece for the romantic A heartaching
A moment of healing piece
A deep-longing-for-a-response-from-anyone-anywhere-out-there piece
Biografie
ashleyho+domeniknaue is a collection of limbs and hearts. They create transmedial performative encounters, blending dance, poetry, graphic design, and scenographic experiments. For them, performance is a social practice—a political yet intimate process of transformation. Their work doesn’t focus on fixed themes but proposes a way of being in the world, confronting harsh realities through vulnerability and playfulness. Like archaeologists, they dig into hyper-personal stories, turning them into physical experiences that spark collective imagination.
Their collaboration is rooted in friendship and supported by institutions like Dansateliers, workspacebrussels, Over het IJ, De Nieuwe Oost, CAMPO, and Dance Nucleus. Their work has been presented in the Netherlands, Singapore, Belgium, and Indonesia. Both graduated from the Dance Artist programme at ArtEZ University of the Arts in 2022 and are now based in Amsterdam, working across the Netherlands, Belgium, and Singapore.
From 2024 to 2026, they will embark on a two-year development trajectory with the Nieuwe Makers Regeling, in partnership with Dansateliers and SPRING Performing Arts Festival. Last Portrait is the first project made within this trajectory.
ashleyho+domeniknaue were also present at 2023 and 2024 at SPRING with work-in-progress during OFFSPRING. In 2025, they performed at SPRING with the show last portrait. This year, they will present their latest work, The Bench (by accident), in the Blauwe Zaal at Stadsschouwburg Utrecht.
Credits
Concept, choreography, writing, performance: ashleyho+domeniknaue
Scenography in collaboration with: Liesje Knobel
Design of the bench: Max Purdon
Dramaturgy: Elowise Vandenbroecke
Sound design: Domenik Naue, with coaching from Gary Shepherd
Graphic design: Ho Yuhan Ashley, with coaching from Cleo Tsw
Campaign image: Lonneke van der Palen
Technical direction: Martin Kaffarnik
Mentors: Ingrid Berger Myhre and Rita Bifulco
Production & pr: Dansateliers
Coproduction: Dansateliers, SPRING Performing Arts Festival
Residency support: Dance Nucleus (SG) in collaboration with K3 – Centre for Choreography | Tanzplan
Hamburg, Milvus Artistic Research Centre, GROND, workspacebrussels
Financed by: Performing Arts Fund NL, Janivo Stichting
Image by: Lonneke van der Palen
