In "Limp" (2024), choreographer Ugo Dehaes, along with David Framba, a professional dancer who lost his right lower leg in an accident, explores the interactions between humans and technology. A high-tech theater machine provides David with simple aids that facilitate his movement: crutches, a small chair, a prosthesis, and a specially developed ballet prosthesis. Simultaneously, his movements are filmed and analyzed by artificial intelligence. At first glance, it seems like the machine wants to assist the dancer in returning to his previous style of dancing, but the robot increasingly imposes the aids. However, these aids are not ideal solutions; instead, they introduce new problems. What (dis)freedom of movement do the aids allow? Do they enable David to dance more freely, or do the aids serve to make the dancer more readable for artificial intelligence?

Throughout "Limp," we witness the complex interplay between limitation and possibility, dependence and independence, freedom and control. "Limp" is a powerful, moving, poignant, critical, but also hopeful performance about what it means to exist as a human in a hyper-technological world.

"Limp" is the third part of Ugo Dehaes' Forced Labor cycle, in which he explores how to create dance with robots. In the interactive installation "Arena" (2020), he allows the audience to manipulate and evaluate robots, enabling them to learn to dance independently. In the performance "Simple Machines" (2021), he cultivates and trains organic robots until they can take on the roles of dancer and choreographer. And in "Limp" (2024), he investigates how humans and technology can collaborate to create dance.