Tender Men

"Can men walk the streets hand in hand without danger? And can you still be soft without sacrificing so-called manliness? Koen De Preter shows that it is possible. He does this together with his dancers Souleymane Sanogo, Po-Nien Wang, Benoît Nieto Duran, and Johhan Rosenberg. They are African, Asian, and European. Gay and straight. They come from contemporary dance, urban dance, neo-classical, combat dance. They treat each other delicately and tenderly, with empathy and tolerance. In trashy and cliché moments of spectacle, but also in abstract moments, always playful and mischievous. "The tender and delicate dancers charm," Theaterkrant wrote at the premiere in October 2020.

-|-Tender Men sheds light on our society, in which we are increasingly afraid to touch each other, and asks how men would interact in a world without homophobia. Tender Men is about the fearlessness, beauty and poetry of touch, but also about the chaos and misunderstandings that are inextricably linked to it. Four men - each with their own dance background and identity - symbolise vulnerability, roughness, and tenderness.