Would Edward van Gils, the world famous street football player who recorded videos with Ronaldinho, ever have stage fright? From January he will be on stage instead of squares in theaters throughout the Netherlands. Voetbalzone was allowed to attend the premiere of FTBLL (pronounced: Football) by ISH Dance Collective. An ode to the sport, its evolution and especially the culture behind it. Choreographer Marco Gerris, musician Rik Ronner and spoken wordartist Moze Naèl tell the story of the street through the moves of football players and dancers.
By Kevin Van Buuren
Going theatrically to the ground has never been so justified in football. Where many field football players would scream for yellow cards with all those flying, stretched legs over the podium, street football players Edward van Gils and Achie Tarhouchi keep dribbling. Between the pannas and dance moves, Moze Naèl – known for Breathe in, Breathe South after Feyenoord championship – how the beautiful game connects and provides. The street brings together people of all kinds, but also different generations. “Achie!” shout young viewers enthusiastically. In the meantime, the spotlight is on the silent old hand: Edward van Gils.
It was also a first for Van Gils. With all those adversaries he once humiliated, he will never have gated a man in handstand. “I missed that feeling, that tension in my legs,” he explains to Football zone† “Fortunately, we start the performance with a real warm-up, otherwise I would have a lot less ball control.” The Godfather of street football hears his biography in rhyme through the speakers, while his transitions tell along. How fluently he moves with a football, his childhood was not always like that. FTBLL uses a mixture of art forms to tell how squares and sports gave direction to Van Gils’ life.
Symbolically, a game of panna knockout has to make way for dance. The performers follow each other with oblique glances and broad shoulders. Naèl takes the audience through the life of B-Boy Dietrich Pott. The Dancer, also known as BBoy Dietje, found in urban culture that ‘his life is only balanced in a handstand’, according to Naèl’s words. Defying the law of gravity made his life easier. When he and fellow dancers Oscar Starink and Daryl David Benjamin seem to find peace with the football players, two cultures come together.
B-Boys Daryl David Benjamin, Oscar Starink, Dietrich Pott defy gravity.
Then the . tells spoken wordartist tells the story of four-time freestyle world champion Kitti Szász. How Touzani’s famous video inspired her to have a relationship with the ball, which still clings to her feet as the Hungarian soccer woman performs break-dance-worthy moves. For example, Szász took matters into her own hands, just like she and colleagues Rowdy Heinen and Pola Gomez maneuver the toy like marionettes on stage. Until now, it is the last step in the evolution of street sport that once made the Netherlands great.
At the time, Van Gils was committed to professionalizing the game in its purest form. He flew all over the world from asphalted fields in Amsterdam neighborhoods. Official tournaments and video games followed. Van Gils even visited prisons to provide relief with his tricks and stories. As a footballer, he looked down on freestylers: “As street footballers, we used to look down on freestylers”, he remembers. “That meant you weren’t good enough to be on the field. Then you went along the side doing some tricks.” Mixing different disciplines eventually also developed freestyling: “People who didn’t even play football picked up that art form and took it to a whole other level.”
Freestylers Kitti Szász, Rowdy Heinen, Pola Gomez juggle spectacularly with the three of them.
FTBLL shows in sound and choreography how different crafts from the streets of Amsterdam come together. The charm of the performance is that this representation also follows the rules of the street. The bounce of the ball cannot be studied, so small missteps are more visible than ever. “I was allowed to freestyle for large parts of my performance. That things occasionally go wrong is also part of the game,” says Van Gils. However, it is the resilience and focus of the artists to see these mistakes as part of life and immediately keep both their heads and the ball high again.
FTBLL will play this year from 20 to 22 May in Parkstad Limburg Theaters in Heerlen, and 26 to
May 29 in the Carré in Amsterdam. From January 2023, the performance will travel throughout
The Netherlands with no fewer than 31 performances.