The Club
Hosting around 4000 people per event, Rotterdam´s Now&Wow was one of the largest dance clubs in the Netherlands. Pushing the boundaries of club-culture to forms of theatre, political manifestation and cultural criticism, it is considered to be the most innovative Dance Club in the Netherlands.
From on 2000 till February 2006 Nyo was responsible for all visual expressions in the club Now&Wow. Every weekend and on all specials, I was present to create an surrealistic atmosphere with my visuals. From on 2006 I still occasionally work for Now&Wow. Only on special events.
Since N&W started in 2000 it has become a leading place for dance, music, visual art and theatrical performances. N&W sets the atmosphere for an exciting, entertaining evening. People are confronted directly with topics taken from their daily lives, politics, culture. Their individual search for pleasure and being hip is mixed with an explosive combination of provocation, stimulation and humour. N&W is a big playground where young people can recognize and reinvent themselves. Around 4000 people come and enjoy themselves every weekend again.
Parallel to the projections behind the DJ booth which I mix to fit with the music and the performance I also project on two 4×6 meters vertical screens. From the entrance area you could already see the silhouettes of the figures projected on the long vertical screens at the other end of the building. I filmed the models to fit head to toe on the screen, extremely slowed down so they’re moving as a frozen giant within the dance crowd. As an element of calmness in the moving crowd these models take their time to move, look around, sometimes bored, sometimes lonely. These vertical screens have the character of an art installation and form a rather imperative contrast to the more active projections on the other side of the space.
N&W is like a hotel where you stay for a night and feel at home and where in every room different settings are playing. There is this voyeuristic sensation of wanting to sneak trough all keyholes of every room to participate in the playing scene. With my visuals I enforce this feeling, I create an atmosphere that emphasizes the atmosphere of the scene which the models are playing. My visuals are creating the setting, are sometimes a rather passive part of the decoration and sometimes a very active, provocative and commenting opponent to what is happening on stage. A lot of the material for the samples I shoot myself, in all kinds of places, I like to film people, the human scale, they are the representations for the club-life. Besides that I also sample scenes from movies. I prepare them to become video-samples. Most of the material I produce has some kind of filmic quality to it. I look for scenes which directly speak to the subconscious perception of the dancing crowd in the club. Something which evokes strong feelings in them. Something which can be part of a larger story. Always it is something that relates with real life of people.
Live performances
While I was working in Now&Wow as a VJ, the team was also exploring other terrains then just its own home base. As a team with creative Director Ted Langenbach as initiator we performed on different occasions and stages such as: Dance Valley, with a visual and sound performance on more then 12 big projection screens. Museum night Amsterdam at the exhibition space FOAM, Museum night Rotterdam, at the Booijmans van Beuningen museum and a theatre performance at The Unie in Rotterdam.