ANTWERP.- Ilse Van Roy and Frederic Geurts have chosen the title Pas de deux for their joint exhibition at valerie_traan gallery. It is a term that actually originates from ballet. Two dancers, a man and a woman, move towards and away from each other in a duet. It immediately brings to mind Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, perhaps the most famous pas de deux, first performed in 1892 in a choreography by Lev Ivanov.

Now, I can well imagine that Ilse and Frederic would prefer, as a prototype, the pas de deux from Pina Bausch’s Vollmond (2006), because here classical ballet technique gives way to a bolder formal language – more anarchic, rawer, more direct. But if we look beyond the imposed virtuosity of classical ballet, we encounter here just as much the essence of the pas de deux: it is about the intense dynamic between man and woman, their complex quest that draws them irresistibly towards one another in an eternally paradoxical interplay of connection, separation and reconnection.

However, the pas de deux is not confined to ballet. The concept can also take on a figurative meaning. In that sense, perhaps the most beautiful pas de deux ever is the duet between Don Giovanni and Zerlina, ‘Là ci darem la mano’ from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, where the ‘vieni’ (come, you) slowly, tentatively, expectantly gives way to ‘andiamo’ (let us go) – from ‘you’ to ‘we’, in other words, from distance to communion.

Or consider Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky in Tolstoy’s novel. The whole story is nothing more than one great pas de deux between the two protagonists.

In short, the pas de deux is not only a staple of dance, music and literature; it is often the highlight of these art forms. But a male and a female visual artist who conceive of an exhibition as a pas de deux? That is unheard of.

In other words, this is more than just two solo exhibitions in a single space, where two artists display their own work independently of one another. Yet here it is more of a nod to the idea of the pas de deux. This makes the whole affair more playful. But play, too, can offer deep insight into human relationships and desires. It does not always have to be as dramatic as in Vollmond. Essentially, it always comes down to the same paradox. Above all, let’s not forget that seduction is, at its core, a sublime game of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and of ‘no’ and ‘yes’ that, ideally, is postponed indefinitely.

One could say of this exhibition: both artists have their ‘vieni’ moment, in which they present their works as two autonomous individuals. But they also create their ‘andiamo’ moment, in which, drawing on that individuality, they seek out what might connect them and strive to actively realise that kinship.

These two moments – ‘vieni-andiamo’, both individually and together – also form part of the classical structure of the pas de deux in ballet. After the adagio, an initial tentative approach in which both partners support one another, each dances a solo in turn, finally culminating in the coda that seals their embrace.





Frederic Geurts and Ilse Van Roy are, first and foremost, individual artists. We do not need labels next to the works in this exhibition to recognise which piece is by whom. The choice of materials alone leaves no room for doubt: glass and textiles on the one hand, metal and sheet metal on the other.

This naturally gives rise to a different formal language. Metal gives rise to rigorous structures, sheet metal to geometric planes. Glass is blown into rounded forms, whilst textiles are woven, embroidered or knitted. Thus, at first glance, the constructive, austere and linear stand in contrast to the concave, open and receptive. Without literally deriving from it, this polarity nevertheless recalls the distinction between masculine and feminine.

In other words, their bodies of work are clearly heterogeneous. This is also true in another, even more fundamental respect.

Frederic Geurts seeks out the external space and endeavours to find a vulnerable or precarious place for himself within it. We see this in the precarious constructions, which often strive for height, are directed towards the unattainable and always harbour a yearning. In an unbroken perpetuum mobile, gently swaying planes strive in vain to synchronise their rhythms. A hesitant, vertical line reaches for the heights, crowned at the top by a colour that serves as an ultimate cry. The tension between stability and instability, between standing and falling, between tipping over and remaining in position, creates a sense of uncertainty. This vulnerable moment is also the site of desire. The external space here serves as the stage for a spectacle.

In Ilse Van Roy’s glass sculptures, space is drawn inwards. It is not the convex outer wall of the vessel that matters. What does matter is the concave interior, that is to say, the cavity, the void. The sculptures emphasise their inner core, the dark womb where all the secrets of life and death are hidden. They bend forward, humbly, at the mercy of our prying gaze. They offer up their opening. In doing so, they seem to let us share in their secret, yet without actually revealing it. The secret draws us in eternally, yet it also unsettles us, for it makes us vulnerable.

In the woven canvases, too, we enter into the hidden realm. The embroidered, poetic phrases are above all an exercise in the cryptic. They seek that which is ‘kryptos’, the hidden as such.

Whether outward-looking or inward-looking, this different approach to space makes the two artists complementary from the outset. What initially seemed heterogeneous turns out to complement and reinforce one another. But there must, of course, be more to it; a pas de deux presupposes something that brings them into deeper harmony with one another.





It is precisely vulnerability and longing that are the ideal starting points to take us a step further, beyond the heterogeneous and the complementary. They lead to a pas de deux. If we look closely at some of their earlier works, we see that the theme was already present, long before it was chosen as the title for this exhibition. Take, for example, works by Frederic Geurts, such as Four Legs (2020), which seems to embody a dancing structure, or Red and Blue (2020), which forms an ambiguous and uncertain intersection of two rectangular structures.

I would also point to the two spherical glass flasks leaning towards one another in Ilse Van Roy’s Silent Dance (2022): with their openings facing each other, they seem to want to step out of their enclosed darkness and lose themselves within one another. Something similar occurs in her You and Me (2025).

In this exhibition, too, specific works are underpinned by the theme of the pas de deux. In Dance by Frederic Geurts, two cubes interlock; they are entwined in a dizzying dance. Because the lower ribs are missing, the cubes become light and float across the floor as if in a dance step. In Red Square (2025), a metallic-coloured and a red square slide into one another; they touch, come together and drift apart. This ambiguity of coming together and drifting apart is the essence of the pas de deux.

Ilse Van Roy’s work, entitled Pas de deux, consists of two knitted jumpers, each with the distinctive feature of having only one sleeve. The left sleeve of one jumper and the right sleeve of the other together form a perfect hyperbola. In this way, they suggest a lemniscate or a horizontal figure of eight, the symbol of infinity. But the lemniscate is, above all, a dynamic bond, an interplay, an ever-flowing cyclical connection between two poles. It is the boundless energy that one transmits to the other and which also constantly returns to itself.

In My Dear Other, one vase supports the other, whilst the other leans against the first. Whether they fit or not, whether meant for one another or not, whether dependent on one another or not, they are each other’s refuge. Together, in solidarity, the secret is easier to bear.

The ‘vieni’, the call of shared expectation, becomes explicit and reciprocal in these specific works: Dance, Red Square, Pas de deux and My Dear Other. But above all, it becomes poignant, as the shifting cadences in ‘Là ci darem la mano’ indicate. The call cannot help but lead to ‘andiamo’. Ultimately, both will reach out to one another.

This is already present in On The Verge of Balance. It is an explicitly collaborative work, which both transcends and preserves the personal signature. In the exhibition, it serves as the adagio. It is a first attempt at rapprochement, in which both partners literally support one another. Two glass bell jars balance at either end of a long metal rod resting on a single point.

The deep blue colour of the glass bell jars transforms them into devotional objects. They become vessels of the infinite, as if only the infinite can counterbalance the infinite and bring it to rest. The horizontal, straight line cutting through the space is precarious. The beauty of this line demands that it be perfectly level. This depends entirely on the equal forces exerted by the two weights. The supporting rod cuts through the space, which takes on a theatrical quality. The blue sleeves detach themselves from it; the space turns inwards.

In On The Verge of Balance it becomes clear just how much they need one another. One space complements the other.

Nevertheless, the individual remains distinctly present in On The Verge of Balance. We effortlessly recognise the distinct contribution of each of the two artists. The metal scales on the one hand and the glass vessels on the other leave no room for doubt. Thus, this adagio initially leads the visitor towards the solos and invites them to explore the individual journey.

But ultimately, everything culminates in Endless Veils, which can be seen as the exhibition’s coda. It is the grand pas de deux, the closing moment and its apotheosis. The nine small canvases from Flowers they are from the Wild Sea by Ilse Van Roy may offer a clue here. Each canvas bears a hand-embroidered verse. Together, the poem reads: ‘It carries on / It just flows / From one thing / To the other / Endlessly / In the way they move / The way they come and go / Flowers they are / Of the wild sea.’

It could be a description of the two dancers in a pas de deux: the endless, flowing movement from one to the other, moving away from and towards one another, their attraction and separation. That is what both veils do in their confrontational pirouettes: in their slow, spinning movement around their axis, they cannot choose between meeting and parting.

But there is a difference compared with the coda in The Nutcracker. Take, for example, Balanchine’s choreography: the alternating distance and closeness between the two dancers culminates in them falling into each other’s arms, a moment further emphasised by Tchaikovsky’s final chord. In Endless Veils there is no final chord. The interplay between the two movements will never cease. This makes the scene both more dramatic and more playful.

The eternal undulation makes it more akin to nature’s ‘everything flows’. Embroidered, botanical motifs are visible on the veils. They are ‘flowers of the wild sea’. Seaweed sways gently in the eternal current of the ocean. Thus, nature too has its own pas de deux.

Francis Smets

Translation: Frank Maes