NITE

Ocean Breeze is a typical NITE performance: energetic, musical, and extremely current. 

Imagine a woman who has everything: a job that she loves, a nice apartment, a loving son. But one day she faints at work. After a long period of vague symptoms, she has to accept that she is sick, suffering from an inexplicable disease that is not cancer, covid, nor aids. Nobody knows what it is, but there is clearly something wrong: maybe she is allergic to the twenty-first century. 

The woman grows increasingly isolated as she seeks a cure, trying everything but is getting more and more sick. Her struggle with the disease is at odds with the narrative she has been fed all her life: as long as you work hard enough, everything will be fine. Or as Kim Kardashian said when she got psoriasis, ‘I don’t want this to take over my body’. But supposing it does? Suppose your body forces you to face up to your vulnerability, and suppose the people around you can not handle this confrontation with chaos? 
 
Ocean Breeze follows the woman as she becomes more and more lonely. She dreams up her own imaginary TV show, and it starts to take over her life because it allows her to be anything she wants to be. In her fantasy, and despite her illness, she is in charge. Her story is simultaneously absurd, empowering, and cringeworthy, but always driven by the desire to be seen, and thus perhaps to be less alone. 
 
The NITE ensemble (Sarah Janneh, Bien De Moor, Sanne den Hartogh, Nimuë Walraven, and Olaf Ait Tami), and percussionist Yung-Tuan Ku, embody this candid and sometimes surreal journey, a rollercoaster ride that feels like scrolling through a social media feed. It is a relevant story about a body that does not fit the norm, and is looking for company and fighting to be taken seriously.  
 
Ocean Breeze takes the audience to the heart of what it means to be person in today’s society. It's inspired by Todd Haynes, Yolanda Hadid, Kim Kardashian, Olivia Laing, Audre Lorde, Nan Goldin, David Wojnarowicz, and others publicly struggle with illness.