Noqté - Embracing The Zeropoint

Full on experience of Music, Video-Art & Dance

Maya Sapera
May 23, 2025

Full on experience in which Music, Video-art & Dance become ONE!

©Iben Van Damme

This performance tells our creation story, where every ending invites a new beginning: The Zero Point. Therefore we chose the Farsi word “Noqté“, meaning “Point”. Noqté is the chronicle of life, the continuum of growth that unfolds itself in cylces. Can we get in touch with the wisdom of our emotions along the way? This immersive experience challenges the conventional boundaries of art and reminds us that we are all creators, whether we consciously create art or shape our lives with our choices and interactions.

Visit our website if you want to learn more about nOqté!

Curious to see a glimpse of nOqté? See the video below!

Curious to read more about the creation story of nOqté? Scroll further down!

An Invitation for Reflection

nOqté is a space for shared reflection and dialogue. Through our artistic research, we open a conversation with you — the audience — to explore new perspectives on the challenges we face as a society today. nOqté is not just a performance; it’s an invitation to rethink, respond, and reimagine the way we live.

RETHINKING LABELS & CATEGORIES

©Iben Van Damme

We use categories, labels, and names to make sense of the world – they help us to communicate and connect. But are we aware of their limitations? nOqté doesn’t seek to eliminate categories, but to soften their edges. Can we use them more consciously, more fluidly? What happens when we allow our thinking frameworks to shift, expand, or even dissolve? By embracing nuance and flexibility, we challenge rigid boxes. In doing so, we make space for complexity, openness, and creativity.

PSYCHOLOGICAL & SOCIAL REFLECTIONS

Mental health challenges are rising – but where can we turn for healing? Through nOqté, we don’t claim to offer “the” answer, but we propose possible paths towards healing and connection. How can we invite emotional intelligence and body-wisdom into our society, in which cognitive thinking is dominant?

nOqté explores circular thinking as an alternative to a linear view – a cycle in which disappointment and failure are not ends, but beginnings that invites us into a new cycle of growth. In the shards of what was, we find seeds of renewal: the Zeropoint.

©Iben Van Damme

This way of thinking invites us to release perfectionism and embrace the dynamic, ever-changing nature of growth. Failure becomes a threshold, not a verdict — a moment of transformation.

We also reflect on the divide between the individual and community. nOqté imagines a space where individual growth and communal connectivity can coexist – where personal stories feed the collective, and where the collective nurtures personal flourishing. We bring this vision to life through a personal creation story — one that resonates across cultures, yet remains deeply individual. In sharing ours, we invite the audience to reflect on their own.

PEOPLE BETWEEN CULTURES

More and more people grow up in cultural, socially, and biologically divers contexts. This in-betweenness can lead to a sense of uprootedness; of not fully belonging anywhere. But it also holds great potential for a new kind of richness – one that transcends boundaries rather than being defined by them.

©Iben Van Damme

nOqté explores what it means to be a bridge – not caught between, but connected through. From this perspective, hybridity is not confusion – it is creative ground. A place where contradictions coexist, and new identities take shape. Our work becomes a path to healing, where rootedness doesn’t depend on one’s origin, but grows from within – drawing on shared resources, layered experiences, and the strength of being many things at once.

BALANCING TRADITION & INNOVATION

nOqté embodies the bridge between living heritage and contemporary life. Rather than offering “the” solution, we propose possible paths forward – because we believe no single answer exists.

Our guiding question: How can we cultivate a sense of rootedness that transcends specific cultural identities? Together with our audience, we search for shared resources and a delicate balance between tradition and innovation.

©Iben Van Damme

SLOWING DOWN

At its core, nOqté is also an invitation to pause – to slow down, to become still.

In a world driven by urgency and constant productivity, we forget to listen – to ourselves, to one another, to the spaces in between. nOqté offers a moment to just be, and experience – a chance to return to presence, to the body, to the now. In slowing down, we create space for reflection, for connection, and for a different kind of understanding – one that unfolds, gently, over time. nOqté is a moment to feel, to witness, to wonder. Together.

©Iben Van Damme

With the beating heart of a giant drum…

A Story of Creation

Every creation starts with one cell, one point:

The Zeropoint, nOqté

©Iben Van Damme

Creator rubbed his palms, from which fell a small, round, brown ball. The brown ball stretched to immeasurable size. It became the earth.

Our story starts here, with the creation of the earth. Creator and creation explore each other.

Life originates out of fluidness and lively bubbles multiply as they dance around in space.

©Iben Van Damme

An intense event takes place: the birth of humans.
Experiencing the human drama they start their journey, searching for peace, searching for the Zero Point.

Order and chaos become one, everyone is reflected in each other. It is a moment of transformation, a moment of embracing the Zero Point.

©Iben Van Damme

Do you want to learn more about nOqté? Check out our website!

A Dialogue

Noqté is a dialogue between different forms of art, between different cultures, and between human beings. Therefore we invite you to a dialogue between the artists and the public. You will have the chance to ask any question about the creation process and the performance.

Meet The Artists

Did you ever wonder how the body sounds? Or how music looks? The artists are weaving together different forms of art, inspired by different roots. They take you on a journey of creativity, showing the interconnectivity between different forms of art. They cross the conventional bounadries of art with curiosity to find out how music, video-art and dance can interact.

Robbe Kieckens combines his rich cultural heritage with the constant search of new sounds and rhythms. He plays with the interactions between music and dance using cultural references.

Shahab Azinmehr entered the realm of music through singing, and later began to play the tar and setar. He is a skilled musician, who is strongly influenced by Persian music.

Niko Himschoot is formed in video-art, camerawork, projection and dramaturgy. By experimenting with the art of visualization, he illustrates how video-art interacts with dance and music as an equal force.

Maya Sapera treats her body as a source of dance and communication. Exploring the balance between tradition and innovation, she uses the language of dance to cross cultural boundaries.

Do you want to learn more about nOqté? Check out our website!

Special thanks to: City of Ghent (subsidy), Kesha Raithatha (mentoring), Gretel Selusi Vanderdoodt (costume), Shanti De Bruyne (costume), Danspunt (residence), De Centrale (premiere), Danshuis De Ingang (residence), La Geste (residence), Eva Pollet (costume), Alain Platel (advice), Aakash Odedra Company (residence), The Curve (residence), Cultuurloket (financial advice), CC De Warande (residence), Reintje Callebaut (coaching), Katalin Trencsenyi & Uniarts Helsinki ( mentoring)