Video’s

Excerpts 2008-2018

We founded cie M.E.S.S. in 2007 and since then we have been able to make beautiful productions thanks to inspiring artists.
The debut production a Body in Translationj was first shown in het Oude Badhuis and later on in cc Berchem. This production was shown in its entirety on cultural channels. We were able to make the second production Staging Reality without subsidies and in collaboration with visual artist Hans Op De Beeck. Staging Reality was shown at the Dance Week festival Zagreb.

Fallen - 2017

In “Float-some” the body is searching for attachment in the vastness of the experienced nothingness of being disconnected from one’s home, culture, language and identity. Like an endless falling from the sky. The loss of any familiarity.

Dying Swan - 2016

With this production, choreographers Elles Grzybek and Michael Lazic from cie M.E.S.S. , refer in fact directly to the original version of Michael Fokines. This piece was specially created for Les Ballets Russes at that time and in particular for prima ballerina Ana Pavlova, based on music by Saint-Saëns and based on a poem by Alfred Tennyson. Highly attractive about the current interpretation of Grzybek is the combination of classical ballet techniques with a number of fascinating characteristics of the Japanese butoh dance discipline.

4 Seizoenen - 2016

Composer Max Richter makes a stunning adaptation of Vivaldi's 4 seasons. The central decor element are the suitcases. They travelled through the seasons with four dancers and many extras.

dance: Veronique Lievin, Stefan Wise, Michael Lazic and Elles Grzybek

Brel&Bach - 2015

Jacques Brel and Johann Sebastian Bach., two grand masters, each expert in their own style,, united in a unique dance production with a surprising video animation, performed live by the ensemble Les Femmes de Nicolas (vocal, violin, cello, piano and double bass). This is a story about a love couple trying to retrieve the feeling of the first time they fell in love. But the clock is ticking until it slows down to a point where it finally stops.

After a long-standing relationship, a love couple tries to regain the passion of the first amorousness, each in their own way, with in the background the merciless sound of the clock that keeps ticking slowly until it finally stops.

Pi - 2015

Pi is dance performance based on the infinity mathematical number sequence interpreted by Elles Grzybek, Michael Lazic and Dirk Hendrikx, going through their own obsessive search, trying to break the code of life.

concept : Elles Grzybek
dance: Elles Grzybek, Dirk Hendriks en Michael Lazic
producers : Theater aan de Stroom and CIE mess

Soletude - 2014

A fantastic collaboration with pianist Jef Neve who made 4 compositions especially for this performance.
Soletude is about loneliness. Not only to feel by yourself but also in a relationship and in a group.

dance : Veronique Lievin, Stefan Wise, Elles Grzybek and Michael Lazic

Black Swan - 2014

Based on the movie Black Swan, Michael Lazic made an adaptation to the famous ballet Het Zwanemeer.

He and his 10 dancers take the audience into the schizophrenic world of the lead dancer Veronique Lievin, who plays both the white and the black swan.

dance: Veronique Lievin, Stefan Wise, Piere Doncq, Milos Sovertnovix, Michael Lazic, Pauline De Laet, Lucija Kukor, Meri Pajunpää, Ilse Orozco, Silke Muys

Staging Reality

Concept : In our modern, technology-driven environment, it is no longer obvious what is hard fact and what is fiction, what is real and what is a perform¬ance. Phenomena such as Second Life on the Internet or the biased and manipulated news coverage in many media make the line between real and virtual, between truth and lie a vague one. We humans are addicted to stories and illusions that may help us to deal with our own insignificance and mortality. Plastic surgery disguises the real age of a body and vir¬tual existence even disguises the entire physical individual. The Western world slowly seems to be landing more credence to staged reality than to life itself. But then what exactly is that reality?
video: Hans Op DE Beeck
dance: Elles Grzybek, Michael Lazic, Sophy Blommerde, Tessa Martin en Carl Vermeersch

A Body in Translation 3

A dance compilation of Belgium based choreographer Michael Lazic/Listopadance cie.
The piece is based on the Balkan war in 1992 and Leonard Cohen's song 'Dance me to the end of love'.
dance: Stéphane Bourhis , Christophe Soi Wachters,Melodie Lasselin, Hiroshi Wakamatsu,Julia Christeiner , Elles Gryzbek en Michael lazic

a Body in Translation 2 - 2008

Impressed by the Serbian-Croatian civil war from 1991 to 1995, and the repetitive similar events in other places around the world Michael Lazic created "a Body in Translation". Themes of territory, aggression, deformation and most important love form the base for this choreography.

The havoc that causes a war creates a strange architecture. It reduces everything to grotesque proportions and it forces bodies to deformations.

choreography: Michael Lazić
assistance: Elles Grzybek
scenography advice – decor: Hans Op De Beeck
assistants scenography: Elles Grzybek; Hiroshi Wakamatsu
dramaturgy advice: Kris Gevers
light: Bart van Dessel
music: Michael Lazic

Short movie Cocoon *- 2007

A short dance movie choreographed by Michael Lazic and directed by Jeroen Bogaert.
The shortfilm won first prices in Hollywood, Utah and Sydney.