In 1987, Wim Vandekeybus made his debut with Ultima Vez, and with What the Body Does Not Remember he introduced a decisive rupture in the history of European contemporary dance. More than a debut, the work stands as a foundational gesture: an extreme physical writing built on risk, speed, collision, and instinct, in which the body is constantly pushed toward a threshold of real danger. It is here that Vandekeybus’ vocabulary is defined—tension, reflex, friction, unpredictability—in an unstable balance between attraction and repulsion that earned the piece the Bessie Award in New York.
Nearly forty years later, the return of this masterpiece to the Romaeuropa Festival does not take the form of a simple historical revival, but rather of a reinterpretation that relaunches its radical nature. After a first revival tour in 2013, the 2026 edition expands the original structure with 17 minutes of new music by Thierry De Mey and an unpublished scene, reactivating its legacy of risk, instinct, and survival.
