On December 4 and December 19, Luc de Groen (dramaturgical advisor to LeineRoebana) attended rehearsals for Farewell Future Welcome World by LeineRoebana and Black Pencil. Below, he shares his observations.
Leaving space
On December 4, 2025, I attended a rehearsal of Farewell Future Welcome World. It was a remarkable moment, because the performance was already taking shape, but half of the cast was still in Indonesia. Farewell Future Welcome World is a collaboration between dancers and musicians based in the Netherlands and their Indonesian counterparts. In Indonesia, they worked with the same material, but due to visas and limited length of stay, the Indonesian dancers and musicians could not join the rehearsals in the Netherlands until mid-December.
As a result, everyone (both in the Netherlands and in Indonesia) played in the studio with a special focus: a focus on those who were not yet there. Sometimes one of the Indonesian dancers was represented by one of the Dutch dancers, who, with a note on their stomach, tried as best they could to represent the movements, energy, and character of Boby, Sandhi, or Agus. But above all, you could feel in the studio that both musically and on the floor, a space was being kept open. There was a sense of potential in the air, a palpable excitement that what we were seeing was only half of it.
An important factor here is that the performance also deals thematically with the coming together of cultures. It is precisely the finding of each other on an equal footing and the interweaving and similarities that are central to the performance. The performance was clearly ready to come together, to reunite.
Taking space
On December 19, I came back for another rehearsal. This time, there was no run-through, but rather a quiet review of all the parts of the performance in progress. By then, the Indonesian dancers and musicians had arrived, and the studio was suddenly full.
But for me, the most beautiful effect of the full cast was that everything that had felt solid two weeks earlier was suddenly fluid again. Not only did dancers and musicians who knew the material arrive, but artists also joined in who brought completely new aspects to life. Whereas in the first run-through, everyone looked expectantly at the empty space, that space was now suddenly filled and brought to life.
This new life that the gathering brings may contain the core of the performance: that there is something magical about an intercultural encounter. That everyone can be surprised by the other, because you unexpectedly recognize yourself in the other. In what we share, there is a spark of surprise and life, where movements connect and music merges.
