Choreographer Ugo Dehaes was known for his austere and radical -yet accessible- performances focused on the power of dance and dancers. Since Simple Machines (2021), however, his focus has shifted to researching our societal quest for efficiency and optimisation by thoughtfully replacing actors and choreographers with robots, technology and artificial intelligence. This allows him to share his love and fascination for humans, the human body and movement not only with theatre and dance audiences but also with lovers of object theatre, scholars, scientists and computer programmers alike.
Ugo’s robots are conquering the world by performing at exciting and atypical settings such as conferences on electronics and gatherings on media art, both in Belgium and abroad: Austria, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Scotland, Canada and Finland have already been discovered, but they remain hungry for more.
In the 2026–2027 and 2027–2028 seasons, Ugo Dehaes is reviving his two successful productions, Simple Machines and Moving Skin.
A new performance, Soft Tissue, will premiere on November 6, 2027, at the Rode Hond Festival in Leuven. Soft Tissue is the third and final installment in Ugo's series of table-top performances exploring dance with robots.
More information about these productions can be found here.