APUS

"To raise awareness is first and foremost to evoke wonder. From this comes the desire to protect what we love. Nature is an endless source of wonder, and art, having the ability to stir sometimes buried emotions, serves as a bridge to tell the wonders of this nature of which we are an integral part."

APUS is the result of collaborations between the duo Anchor and other artists from different disciplines (Bob Verschueren, Marion Guillard, Sarah De Wit, Kim Cappart, etc.), with the aim of using music and various forms of art as a means to raise awareness among the public about the beauty of nature, but also to question the place of human beings within the living world and their interactions with it.

In 2021, the project was selected as part of a residency call at the Het Bos Cultural Center in Antwerp. A week of reflection and work on initial compositions followed. The foundations of Ecoduct, an immersive musical spectacle, were laid. Ecoduct (from Dutch or English) refers to a construction providing wildlife and flora with a passage and development route, typically above a road or railway line, with the aim of reducing the risk of accidents. An ecoduct is therefore an artificial structure serving nature, a beautiful symbol for our project.

In this performance, we have chosen the city as our observation ground, ideal for exploring nature's adaptations to a typically anthropogenic environment often portrayed as opposed to it. Think again: from lichens to tomato plants, and even the black swift, emblematic of our project, nature is everywhere. All it takes is to open your eyes...

APUS also collaborates with young composers and has received support from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation for the concert version creation of works by Nicolas Paternotte and Jimmy Bonesso, specially designed for Ecoduct. In December 2023, the project was selected to present a shortened demo version of the show as part of the Festival van Vlaanderen - Mechelen: De warmste nacht van het talent.