An intimate pas-de-deux about attracting and rejecting 

Jan Martens puts on again his successful performance A small guide on how to treat your lifetime companion from 2011 with two young French dancers : Pauline Prato and Thomas Régnier.  A woman, a man. For them, Martens composes a compelling choreography consisting of two duets.

In the first, a revision of the original performance, the dancing couple creates a painting, which looks both reassuring and confrontational. The second piece tries to distance itself from that classic couple. Can you actually perform this without speaking about love ? The music album Learning  by Perfume Genius, a minimalist pearl with subtle texts, resonates in the dance, which seeks deep sensitiveness in simple movements. Pauline Thomas is a soft and intimate work about love, which both hits and heals.

A small guide on how to treat your lifetime companion was the second dance performance in Martens' meanwhile well-filled oeuvre, and together with Sweat baby sweat one of the two love duets he made in 2011. Afterwards he created three productions on unconventional beauty, with players whose bodies you do not expect in a contemporary dance context, such as a 62-year-old woman. The work of Jan Martens is fed by the conviction that every body can communicate and has something to tell. The choreographer is intrigued by social networks and places time for slowing down and observation against the speed of technological developments.

Since 2014 Martens has created his work under the flag of his own choreographic platform GRIP, which today also supports Bára Sigfúsdóttir, Steven Michel and Michele Rizzo. Martens was awarded the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds prijs Noord-Brabant (2014) and the prestigious Charlotte Köhler prize (2015) for his work. He is 'Creative Associatedd' at deSingel international arts campus from 2017 to 2021 and 'Artist Associé' at CDCN Le Gymnase in Roubaix.

'Martens' choreography is everything you expect from a young maker : energetic and yet vulnerable, recognizable and yet personal.' Sarah Vankersschaever about A small guide on how to treat your lifetime companion, De Standaard****