Vodje (meaning in Dutch: a rag, a worn out piece of cloth) is a performance for children and childlike adults and tries to deal with all kinds of useless things and a whole lot of nonsense during the quest for something real. ​

In the window of fashion designer IrvinX Couture in the fashion quarter in the city of Arnhem, strange things are happening. Or perhaps quite ordinary things? For sure remarkable things!

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Puppeteer Ewout de Ruiter (Theater De Bolle Kater) manipulates in a clever way both dancer Eilit Marom and the paper dress she desires. On the other side of the glass musicians/composers Jaap Berends (double bass and vibraphone) and Tjerk van der Ham (self made mini-piano and vibrandoneon) play away cheerfully on their instruments.

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For this piece Aafke was inspired by the rituals around death on the Indonesian island of Bali, where she lived for five years. The local people work side by side for days, sometimes weeks, to create beautifully ornamented sarcophagi for the dead, made out of bamboo, paper machè and colorful fabric. During the cremation ceremony (palebon or ngaben) this vessel is being burned together with the body before it is being released into the sea.

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Another example of human hands that create something beautiful together is that of the monks in Tibet, who work for days on a colorful mandala made of colored sand. Finally during the ceremony the sand is being blown away in all directions. In the West people would probably say that this is a pity, to throw away something beautiful created by men's hands. But the idea that everything in life is temporary and evanescent is generally more accepted in the East than in the West.