Press File - Kunstenfestivaldesarts

KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Brussels
2-24 May 2003
Press File
KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Press Service
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Sophie Van Stratum: (32) 02 2264578 sophie@kfda.be
Katelijn Verstraete: (32) 02 2264584 press@kfda.be
www.kunstenfestivaldesarts.be
Box office + 32 (0)70 222 199

Foreign correspondents
3 Haug, Kaegi & Wetzel Berlin-Frankfurt
Théâtre musical/Muziektheater/Musical Theatre
6 Schauspielhaus Zürich / Christoph Marthaler Zürich
Théâtre/Theater/Theatre
12 Théâtre 27 Marseille - Bruxelles/Brussel
16 transquinquennal Bruxelles
19 Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio Cesena
22 Edit Kaldor Budapest-Amsterdam
25 Cie Buelens Paulina Bruxelles/Brussel
38 Rabih Mroué & Lina Saneh Beyrouth
31 Wang Jianwei Beijing
35 De Onderneming Hoboken
39 TG Stan Antwerpen
Marcel Proust
42 Eric De Kuyper Bruxelles/Brussel - Paris
44 ro theater / Guy Cassiers Rotterdam
Mi Buenos Aires Querido
49 Daniel Veronese Buenos Aires
52 Tantanian/Macchi/Rudnitzky Buenos Aires
56 Beatriz Catani La Plata
60 Federico León Buenos Aires
Danse/Dans/Dance
63 Ultima Vez & TG Amsterdam / Wim Vandekeybus Brussel - Amsterdam
67 Cie Michèle Noiret Bruxelles
71 Mugiyono Kasido Solo (Java)
75 Cie FV/François Verret Paris
Installations/Installaties, Performances & Expo
79 Gustavo Artigas Mexico City
82 Myriam Gourfink & Kasper T.Toeplitz Paris
86 par benoît lachambre et eux / par b.l.eux Montréal
90 Kris Verdonck & Aernoudt jacobs Brussel
94 Aristoklas Bruxelles
99 Claudia Triozzi / Association Cespi Paris
Film
102 Els Dietvorst/Firefly vzw asbl Brussel
106 Marcel va au Cinéma
106 Mi Buenos Aires Querido
SalonsduFESTIVALsalons
107 Salon Utopia
108 Salon Proust
113 Salón Argentino
118 Festivalite/Festivalitis
2

Foreign Correspondents (Berlin – Frankfurt)
Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel
Midnight Special Agency
CentreduFESTIVALcentrum
2-24/05 > 0:00
5’
En
Entrée libre/Vrije toegang/Free entrance
Création/Creatie/Creation
Par/Door/By: Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi, Daniel Wetzel
Avec/Met/With: chaque soirée un « nouvel acteur » / elke avond een ‘andere’ performer / each
night another ‘first time’ performer
Production/Productie/Production & Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation:
KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Avec le soutien de/Met de steun van/Supported by: Goethe Institut Brüssel
Production/Productie/Production & Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation:
KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Avec le soutien de/Met de steun van/Supported by: Goethe Institut Brüssel
3

Every evening, for a period of five minutes, we will be taking stock. As if TV were real life. In
each three-dimensional news programme, someone from Brussels who we came across during
the day will get a chance to speak – 25 times.
Whether a manager, kebab seller, civil servant from the registry office, shoe model,
biochemistry student, anyone can be a newsreader. They are selected on the basis of our own
interest in them, the job they do in the city, their particular view on what we’re doing, their
experiences and predictions, their strategy for making the city their own.
News from home and abroad, business, culture, sports, the weather. Sticking to the rules of the
game – through a whole list of questions – the daily protagonist will give his or her view on
things, headlining his or her own particular area.
Catastrophes, events and scandals occur that are not adapted for camera. On the other hand,
theatre can give the news in an immediate way, something the small screen cannot.
The 25 mini dramas will describe a city of many voices. They could just as well be about
linguistic boundaries and divides in districts as about the arrival of the eurocrats and burgeoning
of multicultural oases. Yet this commentary on city life will be making some forays into fiction.
Which roles would the front-man or woman like to play in the city? What is their own burning
issue? Their next summit meeting?
To be kings and queens just for one day
Field research forms both formula and method for all projects by HAUG / KAEGI / WETZEL:
If Disneyland is there to make the rest of the world seem more real, then the real world is there
to be put on stage – this is (according to Jean Baudrillard) how the credo of Rimini Protokoll
could be described. Rimini Protokoll is the cover name for three or four urban guerrilleros who
want to change the world, at least for a while and preferably in secret. They smuggle art, not
bombs, into reality and observe the audience observing the explosion. It succeeds if you can no
longer see the fine line between the real and the manipulated. (Renate Klett, Die Zeit).
Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel don’t work with professional actors, but ‘ready-made’ ones. This is part of
the concept. They describe their actors as specialists. They put ordinary people into a space on
stage. The result is a game permanently bordering reality and fiction, document and story. What
is depicted on stage can become authentic and vice versa. (Journal Frankfurt)
Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi and Daniel Wetzel studied at the Institute for Applied
Theatre Studies in Giessen, Germany. They stage real situations in such a way that they tip
over into fiction. The basis for their work is field research that they usually end up interpreting
incorrectly. In 2000 they directed Kreuzworträtsel Boxenstopp (Künstlerhaus Mousonturm). In
the play, four 80-year-old women speak about their past as Formula 1 drivers and in the spring
of 2001 it formed the basis of the radio play Sitzgymnastik Boxenstopp. A pirated copy of it then
followed at the Prater (open air stage) of the Volksbühne in Berlin. After that,
Haug/Kaegi/Wetzel looked for five young people aged between 12 and 15 in Lucerne and
began research with them on personal attack and defence strategies, which resulted in
Shooting Bourbaki. Developed in early 2002 at the Luzernertheater, the project has been
performed at the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, the Neuer Cinema Hamburg, the Sophiensaele in
Berlin, at Expo.02 (Switzerland) and in Trondheim and Bergen (Norway). Lastly, they won first
prize at North Rhine-Westphalia’s impulse festival.
In 2002, the trio created Sonde Hannover, a play of observations about the city (Theaterformen
2002). Under the name Rimini Protokoll, together with Bernd Ernst, they produced the
Bundestag project Deutschland 2 as part of Theater der Welt 2002 (World Theatre 2002).
With others they have also created several radio plays for Swiss and German radio stations.
The première of their very latest play, Deadline, is scheduled for April 2003 at the Neuer
Cinema, Dt. Schauspielhaus HH.
Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel are currently working on, amongst other things, the ‘tourist’
play Hot Spots (Goethe Institute, Athens) and have just staged Apparat Berlin at the Prater at
4

the Volksbühne in Berlin. Stefan Kaegi has been working on local projects in Argentina and
Brazil and created Hygiene Heute with Bernd Ernst. Finally their work also includes Der
Hermeneutische Fitness Studio at De Beursschouwburg, Brussels, and Physik, a play about
gravitation, performed at the Museumsquartier Wien (Vienna) and in Frankfurt and Rotterdam.
5

théâtre musical/muziektheater/musical theatre (Zürich)
Schauspielhaus Zürich / Christoph Marthaler
Die schöne Müllerin
Franz Schubert
Halles de Schaerbeek
6.7.8/05 > 20:00
+/- 2:00
Deutsch > Soustitres/Ondertiteling/Subtitles:
Fr & Nl
€ 20 – 15
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la
représentation du 7/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de
voorstelling op 7/05.
Meet the artists after
the performance on 7/05
Coproduction avec/Coproductie met/Co-production with: Ruhrtriennale
Mise en scène/Regie/Direction: Christoph Marthaler
Avec/Met/With: Rosemary Hardy (soprano), Altea Garrido, Bettina Stucky/Corin Curschellas,
Daniel Chait, Markus Hinterhäuser (piano & celesta), Christoph Homberger (tenor), Ueli Jäggi,
Christoph Keller (piano), Stefan Kurt, Thomas Stache, Graham F. Valentine, Markus Wolff
Scénographie & costumes/Scenografie & kostuums/Set Design & costumes: Anna Viebrock
Musique/Muziek/Music: Rosemary Hardy, Markus Hinterhäuser, Christoph Homberger,
Christoph Keller (Arrangements/Arrangementen/Arrangements), Christoph Marthaler
Lumières/Licht/Lighting: Herbert Cybulska
Dramaturgie/Dramaturgy: Stefanie Carp, Arved Schultze
Assistant à la mise en scène/Regie-assistent/Assistant to the Director: Michel Schröder
Assistant à la scénographie/Scenografie-assistent/Assistant Set Design: Duri Bischoff
Assistant aux costumes/Kostuum-assistent/Assistant Costumes: Simone Strässle
Régie général/Algemene technische leiding/General technical management: Irene Herbst
Stagière à la mise en scène/Stagiaire regie/Trainee direction: Anna-Sophie Mahler
Directeur technique/Technisch directeur/Technical Director: David Leuthold
Assistant/Assistent/Assistant: Erwin Imwinkelried
Responsable atelier/Verantwoordelijke atelier/Responsible workshop: Dirk Wauschkuhn
Montage technique/Technische opbouw/Technical Construction: Martin Caflisch
Directeur technique/Technisch directeur/Technical Director: Angelo Rosenfelder
Installation technique/Technische voorzieningen/Technical Installation: Florin Dora
Responsable lumières/Verantwoordelijke licht/Responsible light: Herbert Cybulska
Lumières/Licht/Lighting: Ursula Degen, Sascha Haenschke
Responsable son/Verantwoordelijke klank/Responsible sound: Markus Keller
Son/Klank/Sound: Jörg Albertin, Kaspar Hugentobler
Responsable maquillage/Verantwoordelijke make-up/Responsible make-up: Erich Müller
Maquillage/Make-up: Judith Janser-Ruckstuhl, Erich Müller
Chef couturier coupes féminines/Hoofd atelier damessnit/ Responsible studio female cut: Iris
Caspar Stoytschev
Chef couturier coupes masculines/Hoofd atelier herensnit/ Responsible studio male cut: Anita
Lang
Habilleuse/Kleedster/Dresser: Beatrice Kürsteiner
Garderobe/Wardrobe: Amelia Bissig, Isabelle Hofer, Maia Honegger
Responsable accessoires/Verantwoordelijke rekwisieten/Responsible props: René Kümpel
Accessoires/Rekwisieten/Props: Seraina Heinz, Nicole Tillein
Responsable atelier de peinture/Verantwoordelijke schildersatelier/ Responsible painter’s
studio: Thomas Unseld
Menuiserie/Schrijnwerkerij/Carpentry: Daniel Härri
Responsable travail du fer/Verantwoordelijke smeedwerk/ Responsible ironwork: Guido Brunner
Chef d’atelier de décoration murale/Hoofd atelier muurdecoraties/ Responsible studio wall
decorations: Roland Oberholzer
Production/Productie/Production: Schauspielhaus Zürich, Ruhrtriennale
Remerciements à/Met dank aan/Special thanks to : Régie Mobile - La Mission Locale
Etterbeekoise pour l’Emploi et la Formation
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Halles de Schaerbeek, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Avec le soutien de/Met de steun van/Supported by: Pro Helvetia
6

Und über den Wolken und Sternen,
da rieselte munter der Bach
(Trans.: And over the clouds and stars
ran merrily the brook )
by Markus Hinterhäuser
The danger of natural phenomena to which people are exposed, as well as their power of
attraction, are amazingly frequent themes in Schubert’s lieder. The King of the Elves, one of
Schubert’s first lieder, presents a child pushed towards death by a frightening natural
phenomenon. The allegory in it linking nature, Eros and death is more dramatic here that in any
other similar work.
The sweet, captivating calls of the linden tree in Winterreise, as well as the impulse towards
death they conceal, could guide the interpretation of several lieder in Die Schöne Müllerin. The
supposed simplicity of these lieder evokes a dangerous and enigmatic world. It is the brook that
is the key element of the lieder here, expressing the stages of seduction, passion and death,
and a direct metaphor for decomposition, sexuality and excess.
Right from the second lied Wohin? (Whither?), the apprentice miller is troubled by this stream
(Du hast mit deinem Rauschen mir ganz berauscht den Sinn)(With your rippling you have quite
bewildered my senses.) He feels intuitively that he is being drawn towards an unknown land, he
senses that he will give himself up to this seduction, that he will succumb to it. I know not what
overcame me, nor who gave such advice, I too, had to follow with my staff… (Hinunter / Down).
This ‘obligation to descend’ already reveals a sense of downfall, the backdrop against which the
story of Die Schöne Müllerin takes place. If the tempo of the first lieder still gives the impression
of progress of some kind, the sixth Lied Der Neugierige (The Inquisitive One) on the other hand
marks a stop, a decisive interruption. The apprentice miller asks the brook, O, brook of my love,
say, brook, does she love me? From that moment on, this happily flowing, peaceful brook
freezes, remaining calm and smooth for the first time. The young man asks again, Brook of my
love, does she love me? In contrast to the text by Müller from on this work is based, Schubert
asks this question twice. How strangely you are behaving, silent brook… tell me… This sweet
entreaty in B major – very close to a choral – remains without answer. The brook does not
answer the young man’s question, however decisive.
It is only in the penultimate lied Der Müller und der Bach (The Miller and the Brook) that a
conversation tentatively begins, but it is already too late, everything is already coming to a
close. The brook cannot console the young man, it can only welcome him and shelter him in ‘its
crystal chamber’, because death has fixed its hour. In the last lied Des Baches Wiegenlied (The
Brook’s Lullaby), the brook has seized hold of the apprentice miller, holding him anxiously away
from all life and earthly troubles. When a hunting horn sounds from the green forest, then it will
murmur and make everything around him tremble and the young man will no longer be able to
see the slightest little blue flower. Even the young girl’s shadow will no longer be able to touch
his eyes. The tension expressed by the lullaby is created by coupling together the young man’s
suicide and his total confidence in nature, this sure and discreet maternal bosom.
In Tränenregen (Shower of Tears), the tenth Lied in the middle of the cycle, the young man
sings an eloquent phrase about his perception of the world: And over the clouds and stars ran
merrily the brook. All laws of space and gravity seem to have disappeared, reality seems to be
pure illusion, an illusion as immense as Die Schöne Müllerin. One even wonders whether this
young girl, the fair maid of the mill, really does exist in flesh and blood, or whether she is
society’s reflection of a desire for a boy’s love for a girl. In this lied, the young man’s tears swell
the brook. The world and coveted love can no longer be seen except in the reflection of his
tears, tears running in the brook far above the universe.
Throughout the story, the feeling of ‘being a stranger to the world’ is taken to a paroxysm of
obsession, to a point where anything virile and masterful, symbolised by the green of the forest,
is unbearable for the young man. He has only one desire: to defoliate all the trees and cry on
the grass to make it deathly pale.
7

In one of the last lieder (18),Trockne Blumen (Withered Flowers), this obsession gives way to an
apparently calmer, but infinitely more disconsolate state. Spring, a time for love and revival, will
only blossom for this wandering young man when he is dead: dann, Blümlein alle, heraus,
heraus! Der Mai ist kommen, der Winter ist aus. Then, little flowers, spring forth, spring forth!
May has arrived, and winter is over.
Das Wandern (Wandering), the first lied in the cycle of Die Schöne Müllerin, is written in B flat
major; the last Des Baches Wiegelied (The Brook’s Lullaby), in E Major. The augmented fourth
– also known as ‘diabolus in musica!’ during the baroque period – and without doubt the most
shocking and saddest interval between the first and last lied, is probably a deliberate choice by
Schubert: ‘going out into the world” is turned into ‘going out beyond the world’.
When one suffers for the world, one dedicates body and soul to something else, and there is no
doubt that Schubert’s music can be defined as a way of entirely abandoning oneself, even if it is
dangerous to project a work’s codes on the biography of an artist and vice versa.
Schubert composed with a radical subjectivity almost impossible to maintain. In this respect he
differs quite markedly from Ludwig von Beethoven, a composer he admired through out his
entire life but whom he could not really get close to, even in his dreams. In its middle period,
Beethoven’s music harbours what was at least a rhetorical impulse to changes and
improvements to the world. Schubert’s own attitude was very different: the gentleness in his
style of composing often givens an impression of inactivity, as if he was hesitating to open up,
as if he was revealing both a sharp and gentle sense of communion with the world. In his essay
on the phenomenon of weather in Schubert, Dieter Schnebel describes the first part of the piano
sonata in B flat major (D. 960) “as the protocol of a life crumbling away by action more tentative
than deliberate.”
Schubert created a space where he gave himself time, another form of ‘Melos’ (Ancient Greek
for singing), another totally subjective rule of behaviour that uses processes of composition that
bring conventions to an end.
His compositions give more and more substance to subjectivity as the expression of a frame of
mind, of a feeling. The intimacy of the lied is created by words that we hear being sung by
another while making them ours. Schubert’s lieder are completely recognisable: they evoke a
collective or as it were a social process where everyone hears their own song, their own life
being sung.
8

Slow Life is Long
On the Theatre of Christoph Marthaler
By Stefanie Carp
What is it that measures us without extent and kills us without being? (Fernando Pessoa)
Time is linked to power. Whoever takes part in the reality principle participates in speed.
Whoever falls out of the reality principle loses all mastery of tempo. The unemployed man lives
slowly. Yet he is still dictated by a rhythm foreign to his body. What Paul Virilio calls the ‘racing
standstill’ [L'inertie polaire], was described by Alexander Kluge ten years earlier as the ‘attack of
the present on the rest of time.’ He means the disappearance of memory and vision or, in other
words, the disappearance of history. Virilio means the dissolving of time as temporal process
and duration. Pace is accelerated to such an extent that distance no longer needs to be
overcome. The part of mankind involved in the medial reception of the world can be spatially
everywhere at once. Accordingly, time no longer elapses, but rather pulses as ‘zero-time’. In the
traditional sense, there would then be no experience, no history. There would only be the
forever new now, the power of the present. It would no longer be possible to write biographies in
the form of a narrative development, for they would exist only as states.
There is a story by James Graham Ballard in which a man experiences his biography
backwards. Through this inversion life seems more fragmented. Rather than developing in time,
each feeling is posited anew. Yet what remains is the relentlessness of being measured, by
which human life feels tortured. The theatre resists this fragmentation of time for many reasons.
As an event, it can only take place at a single place and in the course of a specific period of
time. And the theatre is the place which only comes to life when it posits a temporal order which
is different from that of daily life. Like alI fiction, the theatre must maintain a different temporal
order than what is known by the realism of our visual and auditory habits. Otherwise, it would
not produce new experiences. The theatre is a luxurious place to the extent that it is permitted
to take its time. It is able to stop life temporarily. It is allowed to be precise. No director has
made time, memory, history, empty time and memory-time so much the subcutaneous and
always indirectly present theme of his productions as Christoph Marthaler. What is probably
decisive is that there has hardly been a director in text-based theatre who has worked so
particularly and precisely on rhythm.
As a director Christoph Marthaler works like a composer. The form of his productions is always
that of a special composition. Whether he is staging a play or an open text and music-collage,
he subordinates his material, which consists of speech, gestures, actions, music, sequences of
events, to every particular musical theme. Out of his material he makes a rhythmic and auditory
score, which accompanies the play as a sub- text. This score often makes a theme of the futile
longings of the figures more than the text itself. In musical theatre, the rhythm is predetermined
through an actual score. Yet, even in each of his opera productions, Marthaler has created a
choreography on stage whose rhythm tells something different than the expression of the music.
In his Frankfurt production of 'Fidelio', it is the aggressively redundant activities of a German
bureaucracy, at once banal and cruel, which provide a different perspective for the music's
pathos. The form is that which remains explicitly unsaid. And this form is always a temporal
form, measuring the historical moment.
Every set which Anna Viebrock designs for Christoph Marthaler, is
described as a ‘waiting room’, because this director hits upon a contemporary emotional state
with that which we call his style. Amidst racing transformation he manages to hold on to
uncertainty. He maintains this feeling in a relentless slowness. His energy of observation
captures and maintains this moment of history. But what does this temporal form consist in, this
special temporal structure, which determines the rhythm of his productions? It is the time of the
powerless. A power is operating somewhere which fragments human life into constantly selfrepeating
segments. In their rhythmical construction, independent of content or theme,
Marthaler's productions constitute a theatre of the powerless. Through the use of rhythm, he
narrates a collective existential and emotional state as a compulsive neurotic's nightmare. Even
the politicians of the project Stunde Null oder Die Kunst des Servierens [Zero Hour or the Art of
Serving] are far from being powerful executives and are dependent upon anonymous signals.
The community of fate in Marthaler's well-known production Murx den Europäer! Murx ihn! Murx
9

ihn! Murx ihn! Murx ihn ab! [Kill the European! Kill him! Kill him! Kill him! Kill him off!] at the
Berliner Volksbühne must repeatedly run to a washroorn when signalled and then sit clown
again at their respective, single tables. A clock hanging on the wall shows that no time has
elapsed. Qualitatively speaking, nothing changes in the lives of these people who are locked up
in oversized rooms. But in dreams or memories they fall out of their routine. Toward the end of
the production of Kill the European, which has been called a requiem to the GDR, there is a
moment in which the obligatory duty of waiting and repeating is suspended. Two of the actors
begin to play klezmer music, at first very softly, then filling the whole room. The supposed
standstill in which the music itself takes over the tempo is memory-time. It is a rip in the
established course of time which frees up recollection.
Walter Benjamin distinguished between ‘empty’ and ‘filled’ time. Empty time is the present
sequence, a serial time without history. Filled time is time charged with a past and a future. In
Marthaler's theatre, it is mostly the music which allows time to be filled. It produces an
unconscious state, similar to dreaming and sleeping. When people sleep in Christoph
Marthaler's productions, it means more than merely a dramaturgical device. Sleep refuses to be
fixed in time. Sleep relieves the strain of meaning. In sleep and dreams the figures on stage can
express a different possibility of their existence which does not occur in their present now: what
else people could be, if they could. Sleeping, dreaming, daydreaming, these defensive,
persistent activities are in Marthaler's theatre emblematic states of people. Sleep relieves the
burden of intentional speaking; it has no goal; it dilates time.
Even the theatre always has to remember the theatre. The spaces are remembered spaces.
The people are remembered and dreamt people. The sentences which they utter are not
available as a matter of course. They are residual pieces of speech, which have been left
behind after great accidents. Anna Viebrock dresses these people in various, more recent and
older pasts. One has the feeling of having seen them before on the street, though perhaps not
today. In this belated perspective nothing can be taken for granted any longer. All of Marthaler's
works have this perspective: nothing is, rather it just passed or will become. Something ended
and the ‘becoming‘ can be no new assertion. One always sees and hears traces. This temporal
shift is the point of departure of narrative.
Marthaler's theatre is a theatre of victims, never one of perpetrators. His characters are the kind
who withdraw. They do not even want to be on stage. If they get caught up in an activity, they
find themselves in a dilemma and search for a way out. It is therefore natural that this theatre is
slow. In an epoch in which speed is a powerful social value and in which one can be
everywhere at once and see everything at once, slowness as an aesthetic structure is a
provocation. For the strong are celebrated as those who have done away with time as duration
and passage. Here is a theatre which above all else through its rhythm says: I do not belong.
And this slowness is more than a style and more than a theme. Here is a director who takes his
time, who can wait for the actors and who can therefore observe what they do. The same
freedom and energy of observation emerge in the dilated spaces of time on stage as an overprecise
and over-concrete observation of life.
Christoph Marthaler has made time experienceable once more as an object in his theatre.
Slowness and repetition produce a rhythm which tells something about social life. Slow life is
long. People wait their entire life for something that never comes to them. In an obsessive-
compulsive arrangement they repeat similar activities. Then a brief, dramatic disturbance occurs
because a flowerpot falls over or a glass breaks, after which they return to their former, humble
attitudes. For his piece Vexations Eric Satie called for a piano composition to be repeated four
hundred and eighty times in a row. Marthaler used Vexations in his Hamburg production of
'Faust' as a music of endlessness, because people are endlessly trying to be happy.
That is an abbreviation of the life of those whom life left behind. “And life continues, as if one
had never been there…’, says Karoline in Marthaler’s production of Ödön von Horvath’s Kasmir
and Karoline. The world of images and lived experience drift a part. In the end, the optimistic
neon writing and blithe cheerfulness are confused with life. And everyone believes that he alone
is once again being left behind by life. Horvath 's fair-ground idea in Kasimir and Karoline
means the fiction of life. The rides and roller coasters are concentrations of speeds against
which is juxtaposed the slow language of those who cannot afford admissions-tickets for them.
10

Horvath 's figures speak the artificial form of a language of people who are not eloquent. They
repeat things which they have heard elsewhere and they break off their language in silence in
which what cannot become language is expressed. Horvath called these silent interruptions
‘quietnesses’. Horvath's folk plays have a specific rhythm, a musical structure. Horvath very
precisely prescribed every quietness, every musical intervention. A slow, musical
inexorableness narrates the fate of these and many other people. One could say that, in his
Berlin production of Kill the European! or in his Swiss productions like the Soldatenliederabend
[Soldiers' Evening of Songs], Christoph Marthaler has always staged the plays of Horvath: the
milieu of people, the speechless speech, the role of song, the slow and relentless passage of
time. Something remarkable has occurred in the production of Kasimir and Karoline: Horvath
was staged according to Horvath's instructions and in this way became actual. When Anna
Viebrock and Christoph Marthaler dispensed with the naturalism of the fair-ground, a period of
time emerged in which, through seeing and not experiencing and through the removal of events,
Horvath's time and current time coincided.
Christoph Marthaler is called a director of the ‘meantime’. Marthaler coined this somehow
calming title himself during his Hamburg production of Faust. ‘Meantime’ means that something
has concluded and something new has not yet begun. People mutate. Their souls have not
adapted yet to the new routine. Does the word ‘meantime’ suggest that the directorial heroes of
the Seventies are over and that a new dramatic era is yet to begin? Would then Marthaler's
theatre work be the minimal theatre with which it would be possible to live without having to lie -
until the characters and conflicts of the old theatre, yet somehow new and different, are once
more to be seen? Accordingly, ‘meantime’ signifies a historic and collectively felt pause in
history and in the history of the theatre. But perhaps this improvisationally experienced ‘other’
already is the new theatre, in the event that it exists at all.
Theaterschrift 12, December 1997
11

théâtre/theater/theatre (Marseille – Bruxelles/Brussel)
théâtre Vingt-Sept
taxithéâtre
Taxistop
2.3.4.7.8.9.10.14.15.16.17.21.22.23.24/05 > 20:45 & 22:30
+/- 60’
Fr & Nl
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Billets en vente uniquement à la billetterie
Tickets enkel te koop in het bespreekbureau
Tickets on sale only at the box office.
Création/Creatie/Creation
Direction artistique/Artistiek directeur/Artistic Direction: Anne Marina Pleis
Assistée de/assistent/assisted by : Eva Wilsens
11 projets par/projecten door/projects by: Pôm Bouvier – Charo Calvo/Johan Derycke –Berti
Gonzalez – Cécilia Kankonda – Stefan Pastor – Pascale Pilloni – Edith Amsellem/Karine
Jurquet/Pierrot Renaux – Jean-Marie A. Sanchez – George van Dam –Laurent Vignaux – Hilde
Wils
Installations/Installaties/Installations: Francis Ruggirello
Régisseur technique/Regisseur techniek/Technical Director: Mohammed Adgham
Soudure/lassen/welding : Aurore Fruy, Alex Seminyachenka
Chargée de production/productieleiding/production leadership : Mariane Cosserat
Stagiaire production/stagiair productie/production trainee : Jo Frenssen
Photo/foto/photo : Anne Delrez
Photo & mise en page/Foto & lay-out/Photo & Lay-out: Liesbet Peremans
Production/Productie/Production: théâtre Vingt-Sept (Marseille)
Coproduction & Présentation/Coproductie & Presentatie/Coproduction & Presentation: KVS/de
bottelarij, Théâtre de la Balsamine, Théâtre Les Tanneurs, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Avec le soutien de/Met de steun van/Supported by: Association Française d’Action Artistique
(AFAA) & l’Ambassade de France à Bruxelles Ville de Marseille, Conseil Général Bouches du
Rhône, DRAC Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie, Partenariat La
Marseillaise, So What Café, Théâtre du Point Aveugle, F.R.M. Brussel, Brussels Downtown
12

A car awaits you.
As at the theatre you have switched off your mobile phone,
Then you leave. For an hour-long performance in motion.
Nobody asks you anything.
A journey. The streets unfold before your eyes,
The window is slightly open.
And perhaps here, the actor starts to speak.
Or maybe it’s the car radio.
Or maybe it's something completely different.
You listen… You watch…
And, gradually, the reality that surrounds you starts to alter.
Cloaked in unfamiliar colours.
Now you begin to dream of this city.
Anne Marina Pleis was born in Düsseldorf and then settled in Berlin to work. She set off for
Marseille and planned to settle there, which she did after more than four years of nomadic
wandering between Germany and the South of France. In 1991, she set up the Théâtre Vingt-
Sept in Marseille and gave it this name because 2 + 7 make 9 like 'neuf' in French which also
means new, or just because she prefers numbers to explanatory terms. But, throughout all her
projects to come, each production has revisited one essential phenomenon that frustrates her in
traditional theatres: the notion of unity. How to create the most favourable conditions so that the
barrier (mental or physical) which separates actors and spectators diminishes until the presence
of one merges into the expectations of the other as naturally as possible. This is how the
taxitheatre project came about in Marseille in 1999. There have been two productions of it.
So Anne Marina Pleis has come back up the A6 motorway from the South of France and has
arrived in Brussels with some of her actors to travel to every corner of this city, somewhat
similar to Marseille with its multicultural population, to meet the actors here and to kick-start the
adventure along carefully explored routes, with the added flavour of new suggestions for words,
music and sounds from the Brussels artists. Along with the KunstenFESTIVALdesArts, three
other French and Dutch speaking theatres are becoming involved together on the outer edges
of this odyssey and are co-producing this urban project, which originated in Marseille, but which
they are ready today to introduce onto the roads of their own city: Théâtre de la Balsamine, Les
Tanneurs and KVS/de bottelarij. Did Anne Marina Pleis mention ‘unity’?
What was the one detail, real-life, read or seen, that inspired the birth of the remarkable
project, taxitheatre?
I love driving to the sound of the radio, being at the wheel and hearing these faceless voices, so
close, so warm. Driving in the car fires the imagination, the night is even more enigmatic than
the day. When I arrived in Marseille, I drove around a lot to discover the town and I liked not
knowing where chance would take me. As a stranger in a town, all the everyday details are
intriguing and capture your attention because you are always on the lookout and eager to
absorb everything. This ceases to happen once things become familiar…
Plus, the car is a very personal space. Emotionally, I love it. Intellectually, I hate it. It is private
property, expensive at that. And yet it is only useful in the public domain. Where do these
current attitudes come from: everyone thinks that the highway code is for others, other people
who relentlessly disturb and bother us on our journey. The highway code is however the
regulating law which is essential in order for us to be able to share this public space in harmony.
It always sends shivers down my spine when I think of the fact that the car has caused more
deaths since its invention than the two world wars put together.
How did you become aware of this synchronisation between the car and the theatre?
The theatre also defends the idea of a public space and being for the public. I wanted to mix the
rules of the private space which is the car with the rules of the public space which is the theatre,
to welcome people to a point of public reception – a taxi rank – and then redisperse them in
13

groups of two, three or four, onto individual paths, driven by the artist of their choice, transported
along their choice of geographic and imaginary routes.
I like this idea that in the car, life stands stills, always unfolding before our eyes. This puts a
different perspective on what is understood. Often, theatre performers want to make their mark
on the world and society, but on emerging from the dark auditorium and months of rehearsals,
this fine world may as well be Mars. If you are placed in a very everyday context and from the
beginning you accept its rules, this does not prevent you from forging a common artistic theme,
in fact quite the opposite.
I also like the fact that the audience taking part in a theatrical act, which is in essence public and
which requires a certain expertise, is also confronted by the regulations of another public space,
the highway code, and the technical skill involved in driving a vehicle well. In the car the public
can access other dimensions: privacy, disorientation…I wanted to create a journey that sets a
poetic process into motion.
It is like returning to our origins, returning to the very rudimentary things about the theatre.
Confronting the other, this unknown, this stranger to us. We are not fooled. We know that we
have paid to see an actor. There is no actual discrepancy, it must be more abstract, more
cerebral. Seeing through the eyes of another…
What do you think is important to explore here within the theatrical form of this project?
I have always considered one detail in Galilei Galileo by Bertolt Brecht to be very beautiful. At
one point in the middle of a banquet, Galileo gets bored. His gaze comes to rest on a chandelier
swinging from the ceiling like a pendulum. This detail sparks off all the research which will lead
to the proof that the earth rotates. Verfremdungseffekt ! The distancing effect! Alienation. In a
paradoxically very familiar context. Inciting surprise, curiosity…
What sort of relationship do you want to establish with the audience?
The relationship with the audience is fundamental here. The audience is here to live, dream and
feel but that is its right and it also has the right to be left in peace! taxitheatre is not an
interactive project because the essential ingredient of its success is to listen, which is what the
spectator who sits in the car is about to do. I would like the public to feel like a privileged
interlocutor, being transported in comfort and feeling close to the sensitivity shown by each
artist.
Here the spectator is moving and yet ‘motionless’ in the car, he is involved in the rhythm of
dramatic art. There cannot be anything abrupt in this movement: the spectator must move with
the same rhythm as the artist.
This is not face to face but side by side. Like a beautiful metaphor for human relationships. Each
place in the car has its specificity; it offers a particular viewpoint and frames the outside world
and the driver differently. You never see the same thing (and it is about more than the objectivity
of being physically transported!).
An impression of Brussels…
A chaotic city! It seems like a concentration of different European cities. The logic of the streets
becomes entangled, parallel roads, roads crossing into star-shapes and circular roads, road
signs and signals direct everyone onto the main roads so as not to congest certain areas. Very
different traffic systems work together. And Brussels is not the same Brussels from one district
to the next, or even from one block of houses to the next.
A secretive city! In this chaos, you always get the impression that there are lots of hidden
places, but not in the same way as Marseille where these are signposted as prohibited or there
are barriers. All that hidden water! The winding Senne, a city historically constructed on the
marshes…Some streets do not even exist on maps which have no doubt had to be simplified in
14

order to be legible. A city where it is easy to lose one's bearings. A city where much of the
population seem not to be there…Where are they all? They are not on the streets.
A city full of holes! The city is undergoing perpetual work which constantly changes and creates
streets, sometimes until you can no longer find the place you are looking for even though it is
only two steps away.
A city in the forest! Brussels has a very strong connection to the forest, Bois de la Cambre,
Forêt de Soignes, forests cut up by the roads and motorways.
A city of contrasts! Top of the city/bottom of the city. Urban juxtapositions verging on science
fiction: the Schuman European quarter, little Manhattan behind the Gare du Nord, short tunnels
and endless tunnels, the great cemetery of Evere. A NATO-OTAN bus – that really exists in
Brussels! The obscurity of the royal estate in Laeken and, right next to it, the surrealist vision of
the Atomium which cuts into the sky…
théâtre Vingt-Sept
The theatre Vingt Sept was created in 1991 in Marseille by Anne Marina Pleis. Under the
impetus of this young German director, the company has gradually taken theatre audience’s
outside: it is not so much about ‘street theatre’, as the possibility of breaking the mould and the
audience-actor relationship which is often too rigid in traditional performance venues, in order to
immerse the production in the heart of the city itself. This development enables not only the
audience-actor relationship to be rethought, but also the relationship of the theatre to the space
and the city by bringing the imagery of a text into our everyday lives. This led to the following
productions: A THEMISCYRA-NOCH shown both in Marseille (1993) and Berlin (1994), LENZ
by Georg Buchner presented in Marseille (1995) and Trilogie autour d’un lit (1996). And finally
taxithéâtre, which was conceived for the first time in Marseille in 1999 and which is 'recreated'
for Brussels this year.
15

Théâtre/Theater/Theatre (Bruxelles)
transquinquennal
In God We Trust
Théâtre Les Tanneurs
3.8.10/05 > 20:30
4/05 > 15:00
9/05 > 22:00
Fr > Sous-titres/Ondertiteling/Subtitles: Nl
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Par/Door/By: Raphaëlle Blancherie, Bernard Breuse, Miguel Decleire, Francesco Mormino,
Stéphane Olivier, Nathalie Willame
En collaboration avec/In samenwerking met/In collaboration with: François Jooris, Julie Petit-
Etienne, Céline Renchon, Catherine Sommers, l’équipe du Théâtre Les Tanneurs
Textes/Teksten/Texts:
La fièvre - Wallace Shawn (traduction/vertaling/translation: Bernard Breuse)
Quadrille albanais - Mac Wellman (traduction/vertaling/translation: Daniel Loayza)
Production/Productie/Production: Transquinquennal
Coproduction/Coproductie/Coproduction: Théâtre Les Tanneurs* (Bruxelles/Brussel), La Ferme
du Buisson - Scène nationale de Marne-la-Vallée*, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts, Festival
international des Théâtres Francophones en Limousin
Avec le soutien de/Met de steun van/Supported by: Communauté française Wallonie-Bruxelles,
service du Théâtre
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Théâtre Les Tanneurs, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
* Transquinquennal est en compagnonnage au/is in residentie bij/is in residence at Théâtre les
Tanneurs (Bruxelles/Brussel) & la Ferme du Buisson (Marne-La-Vallée)
Merci à/Dank aan/Thanks to:
Daniel Loayza, Vanja d’Alcantara, Adel Boughezala, Speculoos, Dito’Dito, Ilir et Anila
Suleimani, Xhevat Abazi, Haki Rugova, Jean-Michel-Vovk, Guy Decleire & Teresa Escudero,
Milena Depelsenaire, Xavier Lukomski, Christophe Colomb & Leif Erikson
Création/Creatie/Creation
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 4/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 4/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 4/05.
16

The project In God We Trust was created three years ago, when we were looking for
contemporary foreign texts and we asked ourselves the following question: “Which is the most
exotic for us Europeans? Eastern Papua New Guinea? Amazonia? The Tyrol?” Finally, the least
obvious but in fact the most honest answer was: “That which we most resemble!”
We turned of course to the Americans.
But who are these Americans who write plays?
Basically we know the ‘classics’ or ‘naturalists’ (Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, David Mamet
or Sam Shepard) or those who write for the cinema or who act. But who are the others? Do they
exist?
We began to investigate and we found them but, strangely no one here in Europe pays them
much attention. There are then people in the United States who write plays and only plays! And
writing plays is not the same as writing film scripts!
The first of our discoveries was Wallace Shawn
He earns a living as a character actor, with appearances in Louis Malle’s Vanya on 42nd Street,
in several Woody Allen films and series like Star Trek. This has enabled him to subsidise writing
his plays, which in their content and form have nothing in common with his day job.
Shawn offers a different view of America, allows a more forceful opinion to be heard than that
which we are used to.
The Fever is a curious play.
To say that it is only a monologue would be misleading. Although the narrator becomes aware
of aspects of his personal life that he had never imagined, we are kept in the dark as to details
of the character’s age, gender or individual characteristics. Through discomforting memories
and an internal struggle, we are led step by step towards irresolvable guilt.
Then there is Mac Wellman
Mac Wellman challenges with gusto the omnipresence on American stages of plays about “the
weeping child within us all”. He lauds theatre that speaks for itself and that is conscious of its
means. With it, we are firmly rooted in the here and now, in its ludic and frenzied performances.
In Albanian Softshoe, it’s as if Monty Python were writing with James Joyce after having been
with Pinter. Unless it is the other way round. Or the contrary. Or it might well be a ménage à
trois.
Wellman leads us where he wants to and narrates American stories with great panache where
the use of traditional codes of the genre open out into rather unexpected perspectives. We
could for example say that Albanian Softshoe is a soap that explodes into an interstellar roadmovie,
crossed with Albanian epics. Unless it is the other way round. Or the contrary. Or it might
well be a ménage à trois.
Poisonous Tomatoes
A STATEMENT ON LOGIC AND THE THEATER
By Mac Wellman
The logic of the world and the logic of the theater are the same, but the relation of these is not
so simple, it seems to me. Things can happen on stage that do not happen in the "real" world
and vice versa. But the logic of events vis-à-vis other events on stage is the same as that of the
ordinary reality we inhabit. What is called drama is only the embodiment in gesture and
language of this logic, this worldliness. Why, you might ask, is the relation between these two
logics a complex one? Kierkegaard said that a direct relation to the deity was the definition of
paganism, and he meant by this that the attempt to grasp and seize divinity by the appropriation
of a human definition was to create an idol, an unreal apparition that possessed no truth. If we
take the world we know as an act of collective imagining, an idol of the modern mind, it
becomes apparent that reality as such becomes subject to the same-or a similar-danger: decay
of the perceptual process, enactment of an unreal idol reality. The banishment of the real world.
In other terms, the thing itself is replaced by successive (repetitive) images of the thing. In
American theater this idolatry bears the name of naturalism. Its origin is the same as that of the
paganism Kierkegaard wrote of: the desire to subsume all human experience under labels,
definitions, and explanations and therefore to substitute rationalizations for experience. The
17

logic of The Bad Infinity is an attempt to suggest the logic of this decayed act of collective
imagining. It is not interesting at this point in human time to portray the real world as it seems to
be in its own terms; but it is interesting to unfold, in human terms, the logic of its illogic and so
get at the nut of our contemporary human experience. I am a pessimist, but a cheerful one. I
believe, along with Beckett and Handke and Witkiewicz, that the depth is on the surface. The
inside is on the outside. But we are not less human because our hopes and dreams and wishes
are the stuff of advertising slogans and images; that would be to succumb to the repetitions to
the idols of ourselves. No, it is simply that our relation to the drama of our lives has become
more complex, reflexive, recondite even. It matters who is behind the reassuring voice, the fine
gesture, the eloquent phrase about freedom, liberty, and equality. Villains no longer look like
villains {did they ever?), nor perhaps do heroes and heroines. We live in a low and contemptible
time, a time when ideals are mocked and scorned, when the merely human is expendable,
when those in position of official trust have put aside any pretence to disinterestedness and
practice openly the grossest kind of self-aggrandizement. Theater, as a minor province of
journalism – and that is what the current theater establishment amounts to in my opinion – has
accommodated itself to this state of affairs with nary a blush. I do not believe I can change the
world much by writing plays, but I can provide a critique of reality, this collective act of
imagining. We need a dozen Mark Twains, a score of Bierces, a hundred Menckens to do
justice to the times. Those of us involved in this critique of apparent reality cannot expect to
convince many, much less can we expect our views to prevail (the) time may be past for all
that); all we can expect is to have some fun, share some laughter, and go out with a modicum of
self-respect. We must love the truth not because it favors us but because it is the truth.
This statement was presented at the discussion ‘The Logic of the Stage’, organized in
conjunction with a production of The Bad Infinity by the Brass Tacks Theatre of Minneapolis in
May 1985.
Transquinquennal
Transquinquennal, a Brussels theatre group, have been working for more than ten years on
everyday, lively and contemporary material, in cooperation with other actors (Philippe Blasband,
Eugène Savitzkaya, Rudi Bekaert) or alone. In a group practice where each is an agent for the
work and its sense, Transquinquennal questions the ‘here and now’ of theatre, the ‘present’ of
performance and the multiplicity of its forms, through productions which are about ideas,
concepts, challenges posed for themselves and the audience:
Acting in an interactive play where each evening the actor ignores each version he interprets
(La Lettre des Chats, 1992-1993), involving an institutional theatre in putting on a show which
no one knows the intention or one single line of (Aux prises avec la vie courante, Est, 1999-
2000), convincing actors to speak for themselves (Cité-Cité, 1993-1994, Le mouvement
perpétuel, 1995-1996, Le Club 1995-1996), working with a Flemish troupe in another language
(Dito’Dito - Ja ja maar nee nee/ Ah oui ça alors là, 1997-1998, 100 ways to disappear and live
free, 1998-1999, Enfin bref/Kortom, 1999-2000, Vous Dites/U Zegt, 2000-2001), creating three
shows in three weeks (Les Clubs, 1995-1996)… just some examples of work that is searching,
questioning and stirring.
The artistic approach of the company, which uses constraints as a tool and which explores the
most diverse genres and modes of expression, attempts to go beyond conventions in order to
reinvent theatrical practices. The artistic core of Transquinquennal consists of Bernard Breuse,
Miguel Decleire, Stéphane Olivier and Pierre Sartenaer.
Latest projects: Zugzwang of and by Transquinquennal (Prix du Théâtre 2002, Best
writers/composers); Les B@lges / De B@lgen by Jean-Marie Piemme and Paul Pourveur by
Dito’Dito and Transquinquennal
Transquinquennal is a winner of the Prix Océ for Theatre Arts in 2002.
18

théâtre/theater/theatre (Cesena)
Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio
BR.#04 Bruxelles/Brussel
Tragedia Endogonidia - IV Episode
by Romeo Castellucci
La Raffinerie
4.5.6.7/05 > 20:30
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Documentation Cesena, Avignon, Berlin > 18:00
(portes ouvertes/deuren open/doors open)
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la
représentation du 5/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling
op 5/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 5/05
Création/Creatie/Creation
Mise en scène, scénographie, lumières & costumes/Regie, scenografie, licht &
kostuums/Direction, Set Design, Lighting & Costumes: Romeo Castellucci
Composition dramatique, sonore & vocale/Compositie voor woord, stem & klank/Vocal, sound &
dramatical score: Chiara Guidi
Trajectoires & écritures/Beweging & schriftuur/Trajectories & writings: Claudia Castellucci
Musique originale et interprétation en direct/Originele Muziek en live-uitvoering/Original Music
and live execution: Scott Gibbons
Avec/Met/With: Sonia Beltran Napoles, Claudio Borghi, Ivo Bucciarelli, Claudia Castellucci,
Sebastiano Castellucci, Luca Nava, Sergio Scarlatella
Mémoire vidéo/Videogeheugen/Video memory: Cristiano Carloni, Stefano Franceschetti
Photo/Foto/Photo: Luca Delpia
Interprétation et réalisation des Costumes/Interpretatie en realisatie Kostuums/Interpretation
and realisation Costumes : Gabriella Battistini
Interprétation et réalisation lumières /Interpretatie & realisatie licht/Interpretation and realisation
of light design : Fabio Sajiz
Statique et dynamique/Statica en dyamiek/Statics and dynamics : Stephan Duve
Réalisation du décor/Ontwerp decor/set realisation : Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione
Workshop
Machinistes/Machinisten/Machinistes : Salvo Di Martina, Riccardo Maccheroni
Lumières/Licht/Lighting : Fabio Sajiz, Luciano Trebbi
Technicien du son/Geluidstechnicus/Sound technician : Marco Olivieri
Assistance/Assistentie/Assistance : Sonia Brunelli, Stefano Ferra & Paul Prestipino
Accessoires/Rekwisieten/Props: Carmen Castelluci
Perruques/Pruiken/Wigs : Mario Audello/Torino
Effets spéciaux de maquillage/Speciale make-up effecten/Special make-up effects : Michele
Guaschino/Torino
Organisation/Organisatie/Organisation: Gilda Biasini, Cosetta Nicolini,
Direction de production/Productieleiding/Production manager : Alessandra Vinanti
Assistance/Assistentie/Assistance: Silva Buldrini
Administration/Administratie/Administration: Elisa Bruno, Massimiliano Coli, Michela Medri
Consultant & Planning/Consulent & planning/Consultancy & Planning: Thomas Consulting
Group
Traduction>anglais/Vertaling>Engels/Translation>English: Valentina Guidi
Traduction>français (à l’exception du texte de JoeKelleher)/Vertaling>Frans (uitgezonderd de
tekst van Joe Kelleher)/Translation>French (except the text by Joe Kelleher): Jean-Louis
Provoyeur
Remerciements à/Met dank aan/Special thanks to: Céline Astrié, Joe Kelleher, Savino Paradiso,
Nicholas Ridout
Production/Productie/Production: Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio (Cesena), Festival d’Avignon,
Hebbel Theater (Berlin), KunstenFESTIVALdesArts (Brussel/Bruxelles), Bergen International
Festival, Odéon -Théâtre de l’Europe avec/met/with le Festival d’Automne à Paris, Romaeuropa
Festival, Le Maillon-Théâtre de Strasbourg, LIFT (London International Festival of Theatre),
Théâtre des Bernardines avec/met/with le Théâtre du Gymnase à Marseille
En collaboration avec/In samenwerking met/In collaboration with: Emilia Romagna Teatro
Fondazione - Modena – Avec le soutien de/Met de steun van/With the support of: Programme
Culture 2000 of the European Union CLT2002/A2/IT-2055
19

Societas Raffaello Sanzio
BR.#04 Bruxelles/Brussel
Tragedia Endogonidia - IV Episode
by Romeo Castellucci
and
Films of Tragedia Endogonidia
C.#01 Cesena, A.#02 Avignon, B.#03 Berlin
by Cristiano Carloni and Stefano Franceschetti
sounds and original music by Scott Gibbons
Tragedia Endogonidia is a dramatic cycle that develops along eleven separate Episodes which
are linked to nine European cities.
It’s an open representation system which, in the course of three years, continuously transforms
itself and shows – each time - the various stages of its own evolution. Episodes are therefore
named after a space-temporal abbreviation which marks the places encountered along the route
made by the Tragedy, that is the cities, and also bears the progressive number relevant to the
transformation process.
The word ‘Endogonidia’ refers to those simple living beings that have, inside of them, the
presence of gonads(1): this allows them to reproduce themselves unceasingly. ‘Tragedy’, on the
contrary, presumes an end (of the hero). Tragedia Engonidia is like stating the infinity of the
end.
The intention is to represent the tragedy by re-thinking it, here and now, in the place and at the
time we are currently living. The sequence of images do not go back to any acknowledged
myth, they are rather always projected in the future. In all Episodes some basic and recurrent
figures stand out; themes and concepts of the tragedy, elicited from the real condition of being
spectators.
The destination of Brussels, reached by the 4 th Episode, introduces new figures into the
humanity of the Tragedia Endogonidia. These characters are linked to the theme of time, that is
not abstractly considered here, but it is embodied in the biological age of people. BR.#04
considers human life in its dimension of duration, especially questioning about the enigma of its
start, its birth into the world, its initiation into language and it being swallowed by the abyss of
time.
Tragedia Endogonidia also includes a Series of Films, the Diary of the movements ‘Idioma,
Clima Crono’ and an Atlas of images and ideas.
The cycle, that will engage Societas Raffaello Sanzio until the end of 2004, is structured as
follows:
C.#01 CESENA 25th-26th January 2002
A.#02 AVIGNON 7th-16th July 2002
B.#03 BERLIN 15-18 januari 2003
BR.#04 BRUXELLES/BRUSSEL/Kunsten Festival des Arts 4th-7th May 2003
BN.#05 BERGEN/International Festival Norway 22nd-25th May 2003
P.#06 PARIS/Odeon Theatre de l'Europe avec le Festival d'Automne 18th-31st October ‘03
R.#07 ROMA/Romaeuropafestival 21st-30th November 2003
S.#08 STRASBOURG/Le Maillon Theatre de Strasbourg 7th-20th February 2004
L.#09 LONDON/ London International Festival of Theatre May 2004
M.#10 MARSEILLE/Les Bernardines avec le Theatre du Gymnase September 2004
C.#11 CESENA/Societas Raffaello Sanzio October 2004
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Gonad: primary reproductive gland that produces reproductive cells (gametes). In males the
gonads are called testes; the gonads in females are called ovaries.
20

Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio
Romeo Castellucci (1960), director; Chiara Guidi (1960), dramaturgist; Claudia Castellucci
(1958), writer; they make up the artistic core of Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, the theatre company
they founded in 1981, in Cesena, Emilia-Romagna region.
The general attitude crossing the whole works of Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, although the
various single differences, is just the conception of a theatre meant as art, capable of collecting
all types of arts, for a communication directed to all senses and in all directions of the mind.
The majesty of the visual and sound system, availing itself both of the old theatrical craft and of
the new technologies, is capable of creating a dramaturgy that disclaims the supremacy of
literature.
A research into the fields of visual and aural perception is developed, aimed at studying the
effects of new instruments or, more often, at creating brand new devices.
We can count amongst their many creations Amleto. La veeemente esteriorità della morte di un
mollusco (Hamlet, the vehement externalism of a mollusc’s death) (1992) one of the keyperformances
of the Company, Orestea (una commedia organica?) (Oresteia – an organic
comedy?) (1995), Giulio Cesare (Julius Caesar) (1997, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts 1998),
Genesi, from the museum of sleep (1999), Voyage au bout de la Nuit (1999) and Il
Combattimento (The combat) (KunstenFESTIVALdesArts 2000), a piece of musical theatre by
Claudio Monteverdi and the contemporary composer Scott Gibbons, who will become a
constant reference point for the music work of the Company.
Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, has started in 2001 a project called Tragedia Endogonidia.
It’s an open system of representation that, like an organism, changes in time and according to
the geographical journey it covers, by assigning the name ‘Episode’ to each phase of its
transformation In Brussels the 4 th Episode will be presented.
The anonymity of the characters, the alphabet, the laws, the inflexibility of the dream, the city
are all themes indicated as likewise conditions of the contemporary tragedy, and assumed by
the condition of being spectators, which is, perhaps, the real thought pervading this Endogonidic
Tragedy.
Besides the performances, Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio published several books on the subject of
Theatrical Theory and produced autonomously a considerable amount of videos. Romeo
Castelluci also makes plastic art works and aesthetic-biological figurations that take their
substance from the invisible power of bacteria. In July 2002, the Festival d’Avignon reserved the
main exhibition to him. At the Chapelle de Saint-Charles, he displays To Cartage then I came, a
collection of works animated by a repetitive motion principle, which suggests the theme of the
beginning as the real enigma of the world.
The Company always attends the most important theatres and festivals in the main European
capital cities of Europe, Americas, Oceania and Asia, and has won several national and
international prizes.
21

Théâtre/Theater/Theatre (Budapest – Amsterdam)
Edit Kaldor
Or Press Escape
Kaaitheaterstudio’s
5.6.8/05 > 20:30
9/05 > 22:00
75’
En, Fr, Nl
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Concept, texte, jeu/Concept, tekst, spel/Concept, text, play: Edit Kaldor
Concipié en collaboration avec/Gemaakt in samenwerking met/Made in collaboration with:
Nicola Unger, Zsolt Mesterhazy, Catherine Henegan
Software: Marc Boon
Production/Productie/Production: Theater Gasthuis (Amsterdam)
Coproduction/Coproductie/Coproduction: Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt)
En collaboration avec/In samenwerking met/In collaboration with: wp Zimmer (Antwerpen)
Remerciéments à Tim Etchells pour ses conseils pendant le processus de répétitions / Met
dank aan Tim Etchells voor zijn medewerking tijdens het repetitieproces./Thanks to Tim Etchells
for advice in the rehearsal process.
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Kaaitheater, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 6/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 6/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 6/05.
22

‘When the first team of morons started approaching rhythmically from the
sidelines, I clicked Retry. They marched on. Cancel didn’t work either.
As last resort there was still OK. I hesitated.’
Select all. Cut.
____________________________________________________________
McLuhan remarked that each new technology not only changes the world but also
changes our body in this world. Tim Etchells (Forced Entertainment, Sheffield)
continues: The theatre must take account of how technology (from the phone and
the walkman upwards) has rewritten and is rewriting bodies, changing our
understanding of narratives and places, changing our relationships to culture,
changing our understandings of presence. In these hybrid times one can feel
closer to a person, sometimes, when they are further away than when they are
fully and simply before us. Theatre makers should take note.
"Dear Claire, I send you in attachment the article I was talking about - it's
discussing different aspects of experiencing time while sitting in front of the
computer. As I told you, I read this article when I started to work on Or Press
Escape and although I didn't try in any way to apply it directly, it had some
influence on the work. It's quite long. Anyway, maybe it's useful for your text, or
just interesting to read. Take care, Edit"
In cybertime distinctions between past, present, and future fade, and our sense of
times passage becomes distorted. Waiting for only a few seconds seems to drag
on forever, while time truly flies when engaged in computing. Immersed in these
microworlds, time seems to slow down relative to the outside world; (…) The
sense of temporal dislocation in cybertime is a key characteristic of the
experience of computing, whether it is compared to religious epiphany, druginduced
hallucination, or the dream state. Cybertime is in some ways a form of
sacred time, a mythic time or dreamtime (Kirk, 1974). And while it has become
commonplace to compare the experiencing of audiovisual media to the act of
dreaming, no other media provide the same sense of active personal presence as
the computer, no other media allow us to construct and encounter other versions
of ourselves: dream selves.
(Lance Strate: Experiencing Cybertime: Computing as Activity and Event)
Edit Kaldor is alone on stage in the shadowy half-light in front of her computer's giant
illuminated screen. With her back to the audience she types on her keyboard. The sound of
keys being rapidly hit can be heard. The screen displays her emotions and thoughts, her
hesitations, as they happen. It betrays her solitary thoughts that suddenly become displaced by
messages from outside. She is the agile cursor on the computer screen: reacting in real time, in
a virtual space. Her life is organised into files. She creates them when she feels like it or
downloads them from a shared server. She opens them and shuts them. She deletes them, has
a big clear out.
"I wanted to make a performance about the state of being alone, but without having to address
the audience directly. Sitting in front of the computer seemed like a good setting for this. It's a
very private situation, a specific state of mind, which, I think, is familiar to a lot of people who'd
come to see the performance. And the set of codes associated with the daily use of computer
are by now complex enough to play with in a way that can communicate. Of course I was also
curious whether the warping of the time-perception that occurs when one is alone in front of the
computer would also happen in this kind of a communal setting. In general, I find the way it
deals with time the most theatrical aspect of this medium. Plus I was interested in using text in a
particular way, in making the process of formulation the main action in the performance."
23

Edit Kaldor was born in Budapest. She left Hungary at the age of 13, together with her
mother, and after a couple of stops on the way, finally settled in New York. It was there that she
completed her studies in literature and drama. In 1993 she joined the New York-based Love
Theater (formerly Squat Theater) headed by Peter Halasz. Innovative and experimental, Halasz
rejects all affectation and theatrical convention, working from life and proximity and around
events in everyday life. His very visual work makes use of different media and includes the
news, making detours into everyday life. Kaldor continued to work with Halasz until 1999 as
dramaturge and video-maker on more than thirty theatre performances in Hungary, Belgium, the
Netherlands, France, Slovenia and the U.S. She then moved to Belgium, where she spent a
couple of years working with computer graphics and animation before returning to study drama
at DasArts in Amsterdam. Since then she has been living in Amsterdam and Brussels.
Or Press Escape was developed and refined from a first piece of theatrical work which formed
part of her individual project for DasArts.
This performance sharpens your view of the intimate relationship between human and
computer, and leaves you astonished at the inevitability with which this apparatus has nestled
itself so deeply into our lives. (Vrij Nederland)
Edit Kaldor creates the unexpected: her ‘desktop theatre’ becomes a refined and
dramaturgically effective theatre performance, (…). Not only does an entertaining and intelligent
story emerge on the large projection of the screen, but at the same time, rather paradoxically,
also a fascinating, strong presence of the performer. (Frankfurter Rundschau)
Daring, fatally and intelligently funny, as well as astonishingly theatrical in the tension between
the large dimension of the projection and the active presence of the small body of the performer.
(Theaterszene Lateinamerika)
24

Théâtre/Theater/Theatre (Bruxelles/Brussel)
Cie Buelens Paulina
Endless medication
Plateau
7.8.9/05 > 20:30
10/05 > 22:00
55’
Fr
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Création/Creatie/Creation FR
De & par/Van & door/By & With: Marijs Boulogne, Manah Depauw
Technique/Techniek/Technical production: Tom De Roy
Communication/Communicatie/Communication: Bart Capelle
Production/Productie/Production: Rits, Buelens Paulina vzw
Avec le soutien de/Gesteund door/Supported by: KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: NADINE, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 8/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 8/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 8/05.
25

Mysticism, life-art and another voice
Endless Medication is a story about women in a patriarchal society, told and performed by two
young women in tune with their madness, two actors seeking a language and a truth of their
own.
In this production Marijs Boulogne and Manah Depauw head off in search of their own voice: a
different way of speaking, an angle of artistic effect that goes beyond the eternal debate
between the ‘female genre’ and ‘femininity’. They craft an artistic form suited to allowing this
suddenly emerging other voice to be heard. A female voice, frequently stifled, an excessive
voice. It’s about re-enhancing the status of its specificity and past history. Its artistic echo
perhaps? Completely breaking away from the dominant norms. A female art repudiating logic
and all the dogma that is advocated on ’so-called’ reality. A voice developed from intellectual
and intuitive research, evaluating what is “real and true” according to personal experience, a
voice inspired by the chaotic perception of reality, by not knowing.
For Endless Medication, Marijs and Manah have investigated other manifestations of these
voices. They have looked into the mysticism and corporeal ecstasy of the Beguines of the
Middle Ages and the contemporary practice of female ‘performance art’. Each in their own way,
these two manifestations come from attempts to express the unspeakable, to explore and
provoke it in order to place the body in an extreme physical situation. “Life-art” or ‘performance’
tries to incorporate the unspeakable, chaos and reality in an ultimate confrontation between the
idea and the body, non-movement.
Medieval corporeal mysticism seeks to attain what is ultimately unspeakable – God as
absolutely nothing – by self-denial through mortification and asceticism. Denial and mortification
are based on a dynamic combining the fantasy of innocence with the temptation of supreme
harmony. Accompanied by acts of penitence, it is staged in a fantastical way, undertaken to
intercept emotions barely conscious of guilt, uneasiness and indecisiveness.
The story of Endless Medication is inspired by the life of one of these great mystics, Saint Rosa
of Lima (1586-1617). Plagued by a painful illness, this nun suddenly became lost in recurrent
ecstatic visions. Impervious to the extreme pain, she lived as a penitent, praying and fasting in a
cell in the middle of the family garden, continually insulted by all around her.
With Saint Rosa in mind, Marijs and Manah began writing and improvising and the
story of Rosa was born, first as a performance artist then as a fakir. Given a Belgian
tinge, this story is stained by Catholicism, troubled by erotic infantile-abominable
fantasies and perturbed by tunes from a melancholic accordion.
Endless Medication
With the atmosphere of a small old variety hall, Endless Medication tells the story of Rosa, a
strange girl with a ‘fantasy of innocence’. No-one, not her mother or grandmother, has ever
seen Rosa cry. From childhood Rosa develops strange occupations: she makes crowns of
flowers in which she plaits a ribbon of iron with small nails that cut into her. Rosa wants to
become a fakir. She picks horrible plastic flowers in cemeteries; at the supermarket she covers
herself in washing powder then jumps in the canal; she knits insect blankets and tries to go to
sleep under them.
One day she receives a visit from God. He tells her she can come to heaven, but not before
she’s given birth to the new messiah who is growing in her large intestine. As a child of God
can’t be born in shit, she has to stop eating and can only breathe air using a machine specially
sent to her by God.
Every day Rosa inhales the air she’s allowed and to start with everything goes well. But hunger
starts to gnaw away at her and she feels she will die if the new Jesus remains in her stomach.
She begs God to help her, but he doesn’t hear her. Rosa decides to dislodge the child by giving
birth prematurely. Of course things go wrong and Rosa has to call the doctor who tries to
convince her that God doesn’t exist and that life is ugly. After visiting the doctor, God speaks to
her again, annoyed because she has failed.
26

She asks him if she can sit on an egg and she receives one at night in a dream. But the episode
with the egg goes badly too. Rosa wakes from her dream with a pool of blood between her legs
and, for the second time, she has to turn to the doctor for help. He believes she has mutilated
herself. After the doctor has sewn her wound, it begins to swell up. It swells until the stitches
break and a little leg emerges: the new Jesus is born. He is a messiah made of plastic,
therefore immortal, and he never cries. Just like his mother.
The child Jesus begins his oracles, starts promulgating laws. It’s at this point that the doctor
intervenes again: Rosa is confined to a psychiatric hospital and the baby Jesus is thrown out the
window. Summoned to appear in court, Rosa is condemned to endless medication, temporal
prison or eternal deliverance.
----------------
ENDLESS MEDICATION was created at RITS in Brussels. After a first run of performances at the Stokerij
(KVS/De Bottelarij), this production has been performed at the Voix Gras theatre festival in the Leuven
performing arts centre STUK, at the Theater aan Zee festival in Ostend where it won the Stad
Oostende/STUK prize, at the BRONKS festival and at the Porn Around The World festival at the KC nona
in Mechelen.
The French-language version has been performed at the Noria festival and at L’An Vert in Liège. It has
been re-written and finalised for performances in May at the KunstenFESTIVALdesArts in Brussels.
Cie Buelens Paulina
Marijs Boulogne (1978) took director studies at RITS in Brussels and did a further year in the
‘open workshop’ department, new media and interdisciplinary works. She has collaborated as a
trainee with Enrique Vargas and Sam Bogaerts. She wrote and directed the plays Voulez-vous
poeper avec môa and Herzschmerz. She has also adapted and directed Grand et petit (Botho
Strauss), les presidentes and Werner Schwab’s anticlimax. She has created the performance
video visoenen and the installation Fuck me dead (performance, video, slides, elaboration) on
the subject of devotion and ecstasy, which was shown at the Nieuwpoortheater in Gand in June
2002. Manah Depauw (1979) studied dramatic arts at the Royal Conservatoire of Dramatic Arts
in Liege. She has acted in La Revue Panique at the Théâtre de Poche (director, Charlie
Degotte), in the street show La Cour des Risoirs by the Compagnie du Parking (director, Patrick
Hermann) and directed a short film, Fisher Price. She went on a three month tour in Cambodia
and Vietnam with ‘clown and magician sans frontiers’ with the show Enchantement. Fascinated
by Outsider Art she also paints.
Under the name of Buelens Paulina the young artists look for a distinctive language and an
appropriate reality in an interdisciplinary and intercommunal way. Through improvisation with
theatre, performance, contemporary music, video art and elaboration they relate their stories full
of humour, tenderness, madness, cruelty and eroticism. The power of the stories lies in their
naivety, complex in their simplicity, blurring the boundaries between Flemish and Walloon,
between children’s art and adult’s art, between madness and reality.
27

théâtre/theater/theatre (Beyrouth/Beiroet/Beirut)
Rabih Mroué & Lina Saneh
Biokhraphia
Théâtre 140
15.16.17.18/05 > 20:30
40’
Fr > Sous-titres/Ondertiteling/Subtitles: Nl
Texte & mise en scène/Tekst & regie/Text & Direction: Lina Saneh & Rabih Mroué
Actrice/Actrice/Actress : Lina Saneh
Décor & graphisme/Décor & grafiek/Set & graphic design : Ali Cherry
Coproduction/Coproductie/Coproduction : Ashkal Alwan (Beyrouth 2002)
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Théâtre 140, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 16/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 16/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 16/05.
28

Start the beginning again
by Bilal KHBEIZ.
The lingual difference between ‘biokhraphy’ and ‘biography’ is not merely a play on words or a
detail of little importance.
Biography presumes that a number of acts merit being consigned, dated and archived in the
annals of history alongside events like the deportation of Napoleon or the occupation of Iraq by
the American forces. Biokhraphy on the other hand is not the account of a real-life past
experience claiming to be worthwhile as a model or example to follow. The biokhrapher starts
from an essential consideration that the past has been a grave mistake, but also that the
individual’s past is becoming muddled in a complex way with so many pasts of so many other
people. This is why a personal biokhraphy can only attack the peace of mind, tranquillity and
good conscience of these others who are such right-thinking and politically correct people.
Some biographies are like the humble and obsequious curriculum vitae we have to give every
time we are looking for a job. Servile, by necessity incomplete, distorted and distorting,
misrepresented and misrepresenting, curriculum vitae are the very opposite of biographies. For
the latter always seem to be complete, whole, absolute, full, with a beginning and an end
according to convention. The biokhraphy radically disrupts and breaks these typical forms of
relationships and connections between the narrator and his readership: relationships based on
the narrator pleading with the recipient, like in a curriculum vitae. It asks questions of the
recipient so that there is a more effective debate, hence the latter’s rebellion when he discovers
that he has lost his status as recipient and finds himself ‘put in the dock’.
Biography supposes an act of personal rectification for a real-life past. Biography seems to
master the details of a life and be capable of taking the necessary decisions concerning these
details and this life. It seems also to be capable of distancing itself with regard to this real life –a
distance necessary so that this real life can be integrated as a party to a past that is completely
clear, perceptible, removed from any suspicion, from any mistrust, from any doubt. A visible,
legible past not only for the biographer but for his readership too. Lastly biography supposes its
author to have a certain confidence in his abilities to observe and comment on a life in an
impartial and neutral way. Without these two acquired characteristics of self-confidence and
neutrality, the biography would be more like a legendary tale or would at least come close to a
legendary model.
As for biokhraphy, it can only exist in places tyrannised by powers of various and divergent
origins (the state or, worse, an absence of it, religious communities, family law, traditions, the
interference of large regional and global powers etc.) which turns the people living there into
victims rather than active and efficient citizens. And then only when the individual has become a
victim can this new genre begin to be created: a confession of the vanquished or, in other
words, a farewell to the past in order to start everything again for the better from scratch. Start
from the beginning again. Start the beginning again. Every time we are driven to the brink of
creating our own biokhraphy, we see ourselves being led to put aside our life so that we can
(better confront our fate face-to-face. Isn’t this what is being offered today to the Iraqis: they are
saying farewell to a past while seeing the coming defeat as the best way of starting the
beginning again. However in this instance it is about a new beginning that is starting off from the
unknown. Biokhraphy is a third world product par excellence. Better still, it is a local product,
specific to these places that we have just mentioned, and it cannot be produced anywhere else
without its profound meaning being lost.
Rabih Mroué
Rabih Mroué was born in 1967 in Beirut. He studied drama at the Lebanese University in Beirut
and very early on, from 1990, began creating his own plays. He has written, directed and acted
in a number of plays, spectacles and videos produced in Beirut, Cairo, Paris, Vienna, Tunis,
Berlin, Bonn, Brussels and Basle: notably La Prison de Sable, Extension 19 and Three Posters
which was produced in collaboration with Elias Khoury and featured last year on the
29

KunstenFESTIVALdesArts’ programme. He has been working since 1995 as a video director for
television (Future TV) and has made animated films and documentaries.
Lina Saneh
Lina Saneh (Beirut, 1966) studied drama at the Lebanese University in Beirut, then at the
Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris. She has acted in and directed several plays that have been
performed in Beirut, Tunis, Cairo, Amman and Paris. Her main directorial productions have
been Mouchakassa, 1993; Les Chaises, 1996; Ovrira, 1997; Extrait d’Etat Civil, 2000 and
Biokhraphia, 2002. She teaches drama at the Saint Joseph University in Beirut and the Saint
Esprit University in Kaslic.
30

théâtre/theater/theatre (Beijing)
Wang Jian Wei
Ceremony
de bottelarij
17.20.21/05 > 20:00
18/05 > 15:00
Chinois/Chinees/Chinese > Sous-titres/Ondertiteling/Subtitles: Fr & Nl
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Mise en scène/Regie/Direction: Wang Jian Wei
Acteurs/Actors: Zhang Che, Leong You Lian, Fang Jun Ju, Shao Ze Hui, Yeong Chin Chin, Lin
Yeow Haw
Texte/Tekst/Playwright: Wang Jian Wei, Meng Xiao Guang.
Musique/Muziek/Music: Chen Di Li
Lumières/Licht/Lighting: Wang Qi
Multimédia/Multimedia: Fu Yu
Coproduction/Coproductie/Coproduction: Festival Temps d’Images, Arte, Ferme du Buisson,
Les Spectacles vivants Centre Pompidou, Festival d’Automne à Paris,
KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: KVS/de bottelarij, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Création/Creatie/Creation
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 18/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 18/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 18/05.
31

A simple story. A storyteller-drummer at the court of tyrannical emperor Ts’ao Ts’ao summons
the public and openly insults their supreme leader. Furious, Ts’ao Ts’ao wants to kill the
insolent man but is too cowardly to take charge of it himself. He sends the troubadour to one of
his very quick-tempered subordinates and the outcome is as expected: when the drummer
criticises the irascible courtier he is sent to be executed. Ceremony, Wang Jianwei’s new
theatrical creation, has been inspired by Drum Rolls Criticising Ts’ao. Not without reason.
What is it that initiates a process of creation in you?
I like exploring the flaws in knowledge we have acquired: what they evade, the enigmas of
history. I like questioning what we lose sight of in their many interpretations. I like exploring the
‘intermediate zones’. How different interpretations, perceptions and forms of knowledge can
relate to one other, how they intersect and overlap, and how new realms of potential emerge
which have so far been ignored.
To do this you get your inspiration from texts that already exist. How do you choose
them?
I work with plays and fragments of literature. Both Ping Feng (performed at the
KunstenFESTIVALdesArts 2000, ed.) and Ceremony come from known gems of Chinese art
and literature. Ping Feng was inspired by a scroll of silk painted more than 1,000 years ago by a
painter at the imperial court, Gu Hongzhong. He had been appointed by the emperor to spy on
a high-ranking civil servant he was suspicious of and to report on him. Gu Hongzhong did this
by painting what he had observed. With time the painting Han Xizai gives a Banquet has
become one of the undisputed masterpieces in the history of Chinese painting, and today has
pride of place in the Museum of the Forbidden City. Ceremony was also inspired by the famous
public accusation Drum Rolls Criticising Ts’ao. I’m not interested in reproducing a story from
history or bringing a new aesthetic experience to the stage. I want to ‘read’ history and
understand the manner and details of how the different interpretations of it influence our
experiences of life and our attitude towards it, our individual and collective consciousness.
Who was Ts’ao?
Ts’ao Ts’ao, (155-220 A.D.) is a particularly significant figure in the history of China. Under the
Han dynasty, one of the most turbulent periods in Chinese history, several nobles were fighting
for power and had sown division in the country. Ts’ao Ts’ao succeeded in dominating and
unifying the provinces in the north. To do this he abused his position as prime minister whilst
feigning respect for the emperor who was nothing more than a puppet. When Ts’ao Ts’ao died,
his son followed in his footsteps and took over the imperial throne. Already at that time Chinese
opinion was criticising his character and the way he acted, taking a swipe at him as an example
of the ancient proverb: “He who usurps a title will never keep his word.”
Drum Rolls Criticising Ts’ao seizes on Ts’ao Ts’ao as a classic example of a treacherous
courtier. The story is based on three different literary texts about the same subject, spread out
over 1,000 years: The History of Han, Romance of Three Kingdoms and a traditional text
entitled Kuang Gu Shi Yu Yang San Nong. The writers and styles are very varied – the first text
is from the annals of a court chronicler, the second text is a story passed down orally from
generation to generation and the third is a traditional play. So there are three interpretations.
Where does the title Ceremony come from?
The title of Ceremony has a double meaning. On the one hand all three literary sources I’ve
used mention a place where people gathered together: the ceremony of the drum. This unusual
place suggests in advance that we’ll be dealing with a character out of the ordinary. On the
other hand the story has a ceremonial nature. It is based on historic texts covering over one
thousand years of history. During this period the sustained repetition of this story has resulted in
a consolidation of an uncontestable historical image. Serving as a norm, this story became
embedded in the collective memory. These two types of ceremony merge together and so
describe an irrefutable ‘historical event’.
32

Why have you chosen theatre? In your opinion, what role ideally should theatre have in
contemporary society?
Theatre enables me to state the issue, to express myself directly and in the flesh.
In my view that’s what theatre should be: a way of expressing oneself, expressing different
points of view against the general and intellectual background of today. And theatre should take
its relationship with contemporary society seriously and firmly establish it at the same time.
Does Ceremony take a stand concerning the society you live in?
Like Ping Feng, this play asks questions and challenges things. It is not simply a reflection of
reality, any more than it is a symbolic or suggestive evocation of it. Ceremony reflects the way
I’m thinking at the moment, starting from the underlying relationships and intermediate zones
I’ve already mentioned. When we examine History from a ‘relational’ point of view, it is
something quite different from a succession of past events with no link between them. It
becomes a recording of the relationship between events, providing a way of understanding and
interpreting them.
Ceremony has been inspired by three literary texts and their process of creation. It uses an
individual story to analyse an historic event. Each takes part in the ceremony, as an orator and
as an actor. The stage is transformed into a place where present and past blend, allowing the
audience to play a role reinforcing this link between the drama and history.
What kind of relationship do you want there to be with the audience?
One of dialogue: being able to ask each other questions.
Will an audience in the West have enough knowledge to appreciate the in-depth analysis
your plays offer?
I don’t think the audience requires a special education (in Chinese language or in politics) to
understand the play. It’s more about your own way of reading things, your own interpretation. I
think that through the dialogues, as through acting the questions and answers taking place on
stage, I can convey to the audience all the things ‘at stake’ in this play.
Do circumstances in China influence the way you work?
The technological equipment in the venues where I have to work is definitely not suitable for
multimedia performances. I also encounter quite a few financial stumbling blocks along the way.
It’s not always easy to have to constantly change venue and convey my ideas to the actors
despite it. At the moment my rehearsals are taking place in a meeting room about 40 metres
square. I have to remind myself and the actors all the time what the venue we’ll be performing in
will be like. It’s a very interesting experience.
What do you never want to see on stage?
A fixed framework, a predictable structure, lack of freedom …
And what attracts you?
Neither black nor white, but grey. I want to experience comprehension and incomprehension at
the same time, a balance between doubt and conviction, being pulled by two extremes.
How do you see the world?
We seem to be subjected to two forces in the world: the first is difficult to predict, a natural force;
the other is best described as an attempt to impose a change on the world through control. I can
only oscillate between the two: I can’t submit myself passively to a general and imposed plan,
but I feel powerless in the face of forces coming from I don’t know where and that control me. I
can only understand the world from a micro point of view.
33

So from the outset we have to force ourselves to create a visual experience in order to unify the
space we’re actually in and the fictitious space where we will perform or want to perform.
What do you hate most in human nature?
Power and indifference.
What do you like most in it?
Heading off in search of new realms of possibility …
Wang Jianwei
Born in 1958 in Sichuan province, Wang Jianwei lives and works in Beijing. A talented oil
painter – he studied at the China National Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou City – he won
China’s National Gold Prize. Feeling constrained by the two-dimensional expressiveness of the
painted surface, he turned to installations, video, then documentary and now theatre. Since
1989 his entire work has been haunted by the question of power and truth. His first theatrical
production, Ping Feng, was created at the KunstenFESTIVALdesArts in 2000, and in 2002 he
opened the seventh festival with an artistic intervention.
34

théâtre/theater/theatre (Antwerpen-Hoboken)
De Onderneming
Ça va !
Théâtre Les Tanneurs
20.21.23/05 > 20:30
24/05 > 18:00
80’
Nl > Sous-titres/Ondertiteling/Subtitles: Fr
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Jeu & Adaptation/ Spel & bewerking / Performers & Adaptation: Ryszard Turbiasz, Günther
Lesage, Robby Cleiren, Carly Wijs
Texte/Tekst/Text: Vladimir Maïakovski
Lumières & décor/Licht en decor/ Lighting & Set: Stef Stessel
Technique/Techniek/Technical production: Richard Kerkhofs
Costumes/Kostuums/Costumes: Karen De Wolf
Coproduction/Coproductie/Coproduction: KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Avec le soutien de/Met de steun van/Supported by: Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Théâtre Les Tanneurs, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Création/Creatie/Creation
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 21/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 21/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 21/05.
35

Architects of the universe, we are miracle-workers... (Mayakovsky, 1918)
Following Agota Kristof’s trilogy presented at the KunstenFESTIVALdesArts in 2000, De
Onderneming is focusing its attention on the ideals and ups and downs of ‘the new man’. Their
inspiration is Vladimir Mayakovsky, the great futurist poet who committed suicide by shooting
himself in 1930, thirteen years after the October Revolution which he helped mastermind and of
which he was one of the most fervent propagandists.
Ca va! presents a world without solutions because there are no problems! Unless the reverse is
not true…
De Onderneming comes from (free) enterprise, a concept – as everyone knows – salvaged by
those western Yank-ropean capitalists. Er… let’s start again. De Onderneming comes from
“ondernemen” which means to undertake. There are several people who make up De
Onderneming: some of them like staging a repertoire, others insist on sticking to contemporary
works not made for theatre but which they then adapt: novels, novellas, poetry etc. They only
write at the very last minute because they don’t want to have anything fixed on paper, preferring
to try everything on stage first. This is why they are handing over here to the person who
inspired them: Vladimir Mayakovsky as described by himself in his own biography “Myself”.
The subject
I am a poet. And as such, interesting. This is what I am writing about. Like on the beauties of
nature in the Caucasian mountains when I love them or am excited by them – only if that can be
decanted into words.
Memory
Burliuk said, “With Mayakovsky memory is like the road to Poltava. Everyone leaves their rubber
overshoes on it. As for me I can remember neither dates nor faces. All I remember is that in
1100 there were some Dorians or other migrating to I don’t know where. I can’t remember the
details of it, but it must have been a big event.
Third memory
Practical basic knowledge. Night. Behind the wall my mother and father are always whispering.
Subject – the piano. I couldn’t sleep. There was a phrase that kept nagging away at me. In the
morning I started running: “Papa, what does “staggering payments” mean?” I really liked the
explanation.
The extraordinary
Seven years old. I occasionally accompany my father into the mountains when he has to inspect
the forests. A storm. Night. We are walking in a cloud. I can’t even see my father.
A winding path. It seems my father catches his sleeve on the branch of a wild rose. Held back,
then released, it crashes across my cheeks. Screaming a bit I pull out the thorns. I am
disoriented by the cloud, and by pain. Under my feet the cloud disappears – I see the sky lit up.
It is electricity. Prince Nakachidze’s riveting factory. Having seen “electricity”, I lost all interest in
Nature.
First book
In the genre of Dondon Agafia. Perhaps a hen. If I’d only come across books like that then, I
would have given up reading for good. The second, fortunately, was Don Quixote. Now that’s a
book. I made myself a wooden sword and armour and hit anyone who tried to encircle me.
Examinations
Have moved. From Bagdadi to Koutais. Entrance exam for the secondary school. Didn’t want to
do it. Asked me about the anchor (on my sleeve) – I knew the answer. But the priest wanted to
36

know what “oko” is. I answered: “Three books” (correct in Georgian). The kind examiners
explained to me that “oko” means “eye” in old church Slavonic. That almost did for me. After
that, I begin to hate everything that was “old”, “church” and “Slavonic”. Possible that my
futurism, my atheism and my internationalism come from that.
Arrest (perhaps)
Ambushed at Grouzino. Our secret printing outfit. I ate the notebook. With the addresses and
binding. District of Presnaya. Okhrana. District of Suchtchevskaya. The investigating magistrate
Boltanovsky (thought he was smart) made my write with him dictating. I was accused of writing
proclamations. I make a mess of the dictation. I write “social dimocratic”. He walks off. Released
on bail.
In the smoking room
Get-together of nobles. A concert. Rachmaninov. Isle of the Dead. Unbearable bordeom set to
music. I leave. One minute later, Burliuk. We burst into laughter. Leave together to go for a
walk.
A memorable night
Conversation. From Rachmaninovian boredom we move to boredom at school, from there to
boredom with all classical art. With Burliuk it comes from the anger of a master who overtook his
contemporaries, with me – a socialist full of pathos, aware that the collapse of the old is
unavoidable. Russian futurism is born.
Next night
During the day I write a poem. Rather – bits of one. Bad. Never published. Night. Sretensky
Boulevard. I read some lines to Burliuk. I say they’re by a friend. David stops. Looks at me. He
says: “So you wrote that all by yourself! You’re a great poet!” The use of such a grandiose and
undeserved epithet really made me happy. I go back to poetry again. That evening, totally
unexpectedly, I became a poet.
Burliuk’s oddness
The next day Burliuk, in his bass voice, announces to one of my acquaintances who is in the
company of someone: “You don’t know? My friend, the genius, the famous poet, Mayakovsky”. I
nudge him. But Burliuk will not stop. What’s more, he shouts as he leaves: “Write now. If not,
you’ll make me look stupid”.
I move
The “Knave of Diamonds” exhibition. Arguments. David and I make people furious. Papers
begin to fill up with futurism. The tone isn’t very polite. I’m called a “son of a bitch” for example.
Yellow tunic
I’ve never had a suit. I had two tunics that looked pretty awful. A method that never fails – dress
up in a tie. No money. I took a piece of yellow ribbon from my sister’s house. I tied it around my
neck. Sensation. So the most obvious and beautiful thing about a man – his tie. Evidently – the
bigger the tie the bigger the sensation.
Given that tie sizes are limited, I had to use a trick: I made a tie-shirt and shirt-tie all in one.
The most joyous date.
July 1915. I meet L.U. and O.M. Brik.
37

October
To accept or not? For me (as for other Moscovite futurists), a question like this is never asked.
It’s a revolution of mine. Arrived at Smolny. I work. I take everything coming.
25 October, year -18
I have finished “Mistery”. I read it. We talk a lot. Meyerhold stages it with Malevich. There’s a
terrible fuss about it. Intellectuals-who-think-they-are-communists in particular. Andreeva stood
on her head. To block the way. There are 3 performances – then things start getting a bit rough.
And the “Macbeths” leave again.
Year -28
I write the poem “Things are going badly”. Some plays and my literary biography. Many say:
“Your autobiography isn’t very serious”. That’s quite right. I haven’t “academised” myself yet and
I’m not used to pampering myself, just as it is also true that my work interests me if it is cheerful.
The awakening and demise of several literatures, symbolists, realists etc., our fight against them
– everything that I’ve seen: it’s a part of our very serious history. We need it to be written. And I
shall write it.
De Onderneming
This collective of actors was formed in 1996 under the motto ‘life is short, art lasts a long time,
the opportunity passes quickly, experiments are dangerous and giving a verdict is hard’. The
core of the group is comprised of Waas Gramser, Kris van Trier, Günther Lesage and Ryszard
Turbiasz. The collective puts on spectacles in an autonomous way: without a director’s
intervention, with a minimum of means and a maximum amount of imagination – often in
collaboration with all kinds of companies and guests. Literary dramatic classics feature in their
repertoire (with new translations and caustic arrangements) alongside novels adapted for the
stage. De Onderneming (The Enterprise) gives of its best in the most varied of venues: in its
own premises in Hoboken, in unexpected places and, of course, in theatres and at festivals in
Belgium and abroad.
38

Théâtre/Theater/Theatre (Antwerpen)
Tg STAN
Poquelin (werktitel/titre de travail/working title)
Kaaitheater
21.22.23.24/05 > 20:30
Nl > Sous-titres/Ondertiteling/Subtitles: Fr
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Texte/Tekst/Text: Molière
Avec/Met/With: Natali Broods, Jolente De Keersmaeker, Sara De Roo, Damiaan De Schrijver,
Tine Embrechts, Adriaan Van den Hoof & Frank Vercruyssen
Mise-en-place: Matthias de Koning
Eclairages/Licht/Lighting: Thomas Walgrave
Costumes/Kostuums/Costumes: An D’Huys
Assistante costumes/Assistentie kostuums/Assistant costumes: Britt Angé
Rédaction/Redactie/Editing: Alexander Devriendt
Technique/Techniek/Technical Production: Raf De Clercq, Steve Romanus
Remerciements à/Met dank aan/Thanks to: l’équipe du/de ploeg van het/the team of the
Kaaitheater, Maatschappij Discordia, ‘t Barre Land
Traduction surtitres/Vertaling boventiteling/Translation surtitling: Martine Bom
Production/Productie/Production: Tg STAN (Antwerpen)
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Kaaitheater, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
STAN est/is: Raf De Clercq, Jolente De Keersmaeker, Sara De Roo, Damiaan De Schrijver,
Kristel Marcoen, Steve Romanus, Renild Van Bavel, An Van der Donckt, Frank Vercruyssen,
Thomas Walgrave
tg STAN est subventionné par/wordt gesubsidieerd door/is subsidized by: Het Ministerie van de
Vlaamse Gemeenschap
Création/Creatie/Creation
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 22/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 22/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 22/05.
39

Monsieur,
We make bold to obtrude ourselves on Your attention
even as You are very busy with Your glorious pursuits
and we are painfully aware of submitting to the country a
poorly balanced matter.
Nothing is greater or more splendid than the Name we
dare to mention at the head of this work and nothing is
baser than the latter's content.
Every one will judge this match quite strange and some
will even say, to hint at its flaws, that it is not unlike
crowning a terracotta statue with diamonds and pearls or
leading a visitor through impressive porticoes and
triumphal arches to reach a hovel.
And yet we dared, Monsieur, dedicate to You this nullity,
this entertainment that pales besides Your magnificence,
but that we contrived for Your amusement.
This paltry work was composed after the writings of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, the 17 th -century
playwright whom You probably know better as Molière.
In the light of Your glorious fatigue and Your victorious accomplishments it is only justice that
those who pretend to strut the stage work either to praise You or to amuse You. We have tried
to do so, in the humble and sincere hope that You will find it in your heart to feel kindly disposed
towards this modest work.
If we are unable to present You with an effort measuring up to Your resplendence, it will not be
owing to any imperfections on the part of the audience, nor to any lack of zeal or study on the
part of the thespians, but only to the mischance that often arises out of the best intentions, and
that doubtless distresses considerably.
Your most humble, most obedient and most faithful servants and subjects,
La Troupe imaginaire
Poquelin
or Les Fourberies de la Troupe imaginaire
created for the entertainment of Monsieur
in the month of May 2003, the 21 st
and given its first public performance in Brussels
at the Théâtre de la Lune
Arranged marriages, doomed love affairs, doctors, imaginary doctors, philosophers, imaginary
philosophers, good manners, imaginary good manners, cuckolds, imaginary cuckolds, adultery,
criticism, hiding and snooping about, asides, footmen and maids, feminists, misunderstandings,
dances, music, masks, floggings, ladies and gentlemen, wenches and women, rakes and
simpletons, apples and pears, misers and coffers, invalids and imaginary invalids, comedians,
one-act pieces and farce, comedy and ballet, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, sonnets
and poems, poetry and prose, letters and intrigue, assault and battery, eating and drinking,
stuffing oneself and stinking, wigs and bald pates, whiskers and beards, trial and error, tables
and chairs, sitting and reclining, enter and exit –
With, among others, Chrysalde, Philaminte, Ariste, Bélise, Armande, Henriette, Martine, L'épine,
Clitandre, Vadius, Julien, Organte, Géronte, Octave, Léandre, Silvestre, Hyacinte, Nérine,
Zerbinette, Lucile, Nicole, Cléonte, Covielle, Dorante, Dorimène, Argante, Béline, Angélique,
Béralde, Louison, Cléante, Thomas, Dom Louis, Elvire, Carlos, Alonse, Violette, Frosine,
Ragotin, Mathurine, Charlotte, Orgon, Elmire, Damis, Marianne, Valère, Dorine, Isabelle,
Léonore, Lisette, Julie, Andrée, Jeannot, Criquet
By Adrien Albert de La Cour-Jardin, Damis Albert Porte-Plume, François Gérard du Carrefour,
Miss Yolande Valentine Bougies-Faiteur, Miss Natalie Marie Brioche, Miss Sara Alphonsine la
Corbusière, Miss Christine Madeleine En-Bédroite.
40

Tg Stan
Toneelspelersgezelschap STAN was founded by four actors who graduated together from the
Antwerp Conservatoire in 1989. They did not wish to join any existing companies, in which they
seemed to perceive only an excessive aestheticism, unworldly formal experiments and the hand
of (all too) authoritative directors. They wanted to place the emphasis on themselves, as actors,
on their own abilities and manifest failings. They wished to blow up the illusion and to focus on
pure acting – if necessary in mutual contradiction –, on a highly personal and rigorous
commitment to the character and the story he/she has to tell.
Two keywords characterise Tg STAN: ‘actor-oriented’ and ‘undogmatic’. The undogmatic aspect
is reflected in the name – S(top) T(hinking) A(bout) N(ames) – as well as in the repertoire. This
is a hybrid collection of texts, invariably expressing social criticism, in which Cocteau and
Anouilh stand side by side with Chekhov, Bernhard next to Ibsen, and comedies by Wilde or
Shaw next to essays by Diderot. This diversity does not reflect the wish to offer something to
suit all tastes, but rather a deliberate and purposeful attitude towards repertory building.
For STAN the actor is the keystone. Although the company works without a director and refuses
to harmonise – or perhaps because of this headstrong attitude – the best STAN performances
have a powerful unity. The actors’ pleasure in their work makes the sparks fly, while
communicating forceful social or even political statements without ever moralising.
Their confrontational working method also prompts them to acquaint the most diverse audiences
(foreign ones, too) with their work, sometimes in several languages. In addition to the original, Dutch,
version a great number of their pieces are also performed in English and/or French.
Moreover they created several plays in a foreign language and in another country: Point Blank was
made in Lisbon (P) and One 2 Life in Oakland, California (USA) – both in English. Les Antigones,
created in Toulouse (F), was STAN's first such venture in French.
41

théâtre/theater/theatre (Bruxelles/Brussel – Paris)
Marcel Proust
Eric De Kuyper
Les intermittences du cœur
Eric de Kuyper, Les Intermittences du coeur
Eric de Kuyper (director), the KunstenFESTIVALdesArts, Polymnia and le Théâtre de
la Ville de Paris (producers) have decided to postpone the performances of Les
Intermittences du coeur to a later date (to be confirmed).
Spectators who have already bought tickets for these performances will be refunded.
Please contact the KunstenFESTIVALdesArts (02/226 45 88)
Théâtre Varia
4.5.8.9/05 > 20:30
10/05 > 19:00
75’
Fr > Sous-titres/Ondertiteling/Subtitles : Nl
€ 12,5 – 8,5
D’après/Naar/After La Prisonnière (Marcel Proust) & La Captive (Chantal Akerman)
Texte/Tekst/Text: Chantal Akerman & Eric De Kuyper
Mise en scène & conception visuelle/Regie & visueel concept/Direction & visual concept: Eric
De Kuyper
Avec/Met/With: Louis-Do de Lencquesaing & Lucie Valon & Adrian Johnston
Scénographie & lumières/Toneelbeeld & licht/Stage design & Lighting: Agathe Argod
Graphisme/Grafiek/Graphics: Eric vande Pitte
Musique/Muziek/Music: Adrian Johnston
Costumes/Kostuums/Costumes : Maïka Guezel
Direction de production/Productieleiding/Production manager: Catherine Serdimet
Production/Productie/Production: polimniA (Paris), KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Coproduction/Coproductie/Co-production: le Théâtre de la Ville à Paris & la Maison de la
Culture d’Amiens
Avec la participation artistique de/Met de artistieke deelname van/With the artistic participation
of: Jeune Théâtre National
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Création/Creatie/Creation
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 5/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 5/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 5/05.
Salon Proust, 10.11/05
Marcel va au Cinéma, 9.10/05
Eric gaat naar Sarma, 18/05
42

Is it necessary to adapt A la recherche du temps perdu [Remembrance of Things Past] for
cinema or theatre? No, but who would stop it when the adaptation contains both fascination and
love for Marcel Proust’s work? No-one would stop Stravinsky from re-working Pergolesi or
Ravel from paying homage to Couperin.
Besides couldn’t it be said that any theatrical production of a text – whether classical or not – is
in some respects a specific reading, a homage to this text?
Initially A la recherche du temps perdu was going to be called Les intermittences du cœur...
(The Intermittences of the Heart). The title has remained – or better, has been reused – for this
production, the genesis of which is convoluted. In the beginning there was a film by La Captive
(2000), a free adaptation of one piece of just one volume of La Recherche, La Prisonnière (The
Captive), and more precisely what lies at the heart of the novel, the relationship between the
narrator and Albertine.
Out of the screenplay Chantal Akerman and I wrote, a theatrical text was distilled. If the film was
just a small fragment of this marathon novel, in turn the theatrical text uses just one scene from
the film. As if the initial subject matter – baroque, dense and as complex as you like – obliged us
to reduce it at every stage, to make it more and more minimal.
The theatre text finds itself confronted by… the film. Text on text, from story to story, the cloth of
the fiction is woven. Crudely it’s called recycling, but a more skilful name could render this
activity with some nobility. So it’s a matter of work imposed by deciphering the palimpsest.
Traces of these passages, of these translations from one kind to another, from the novel to film,
from film to theatre, will remain visible in the production. Just as they form the very cloth of the
action. As if from one couple to the other, the one embodied by Stanislas Méhrar and Sylvie
Testud in Akerman’s film, then the one performed on stage by Louis-Do de Lencquesaing and
Lucie Valon, the story – from parting to reconciliation, from reconciliation to parting again – was
mirroring and repeating itself. A little like in Schnitzler’s La Ronde and Max Ophüls’s version.
In the encounter between the cinematic image and stage action, I’m not looking for a
synaesthetic or syncretic effect. It’s more about confrontation, at times a dialogue or a contrast.
The only possible or desirable link between the two: music perhaps?
Eric de Kuyper
Eric De Kuyper
Novelist (Aan Zee, De hoed van tante Jeannot amongst others), artist, essayist and film-maker,
Eric De Kuyper (Brussels 1942) worked at the BRT, taught film theory at the University of
Nijmegen and was assistant director at the Nederlands Filmmuseum (Netherlands Film
Museum). Mad about cinema and theatre, he has written countless articles and essays. He has
also made a few films (Casta Diva, Naughty Boys, A strange love affair and Pink Ulysses). In
1988, he made his debut with the first part of his extremely orchestrated autobiography.
Because of this work, the press sometimes calls him the “Flemish Proust”. And with good
reason, all the more so since he wrote the screenplay for the film version of Proust’s La Captive
with Chantal Akerman. This season he also worked with Guy Cassiers on adapting A la
recherche du temps perdu for the rotheater.
Chantal Akerman
The film-maker was born in Brussels and now lives in Paris. She is world famous for her
deconstructive style, her black humour and her keen view of identity, sexuality and politics. Her
first film, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), was heralded by the
New York Times as “the first female masterpiece in the history of cinema”. While Chantal
Akerman has made several full-length and short films, she has also made documentaries and
videos. Some of her most famous films are Saute ma ville; News from Home; Les Rendez-vous
d 'Anna; Je, tu, il, elle; Window Shopping; Toute une nuit; Les Années 80; Nuit et jour; D'Est;
Portrait d'une jeune fille de la fin des années 60 à Bruxelles; Un Divan à New York; and most
recently Sud and La Captive. Her video productions, recently shown at the Venice Biennale
2001 and at the Documenta in Kassel in 2002, like her documentaries carry the mark of an
intensely personal vision, a remarkable example of which can be found in her work Selfportrait /
Autobiography: Work in Progress.
43

Théâtre/Theater/Theatre (Rotterdam)
Marcel Proust
ro theater/Guy Cassiers
Proust 1: De kant van Swann
Proust 2: De kant van Albertine
Proust 1:
Kaaitheater
11.12/05 > 20:30
180’ with intermission
Proust 2:
Kaaitheaterstudio’s
17.19.20/05 > 20:30
18/05 > 15:00
Nl > Sous-titres/Ondertiteling/Subtitles: Fr
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Ro-theater/Guy Cassiers, Proust II
Due to an accident of leading actrice Marlies Heuer, the performances of Proust II have been
postponed until 11 and 12, 2003, at the Kaaitheaterstudios. The performances of Proust I (May
11 and 12 at the Kaaitheater) remain unchanged.
Spectators who have already bought tickets for the cancelled performances can either
change their tickets for June 10,11 or 12, or be refunded. Please contact the Kaaitheater
(02/201 59 59)
Ro-Theater/Guy Cassiers, Proust II > New dates: June 10, 11, 12 at 20:30 at the
Kaaitheaterstudios.
Proust 1 : De kant van Swann
D’après/Naar/Based on: Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu
Adaptation/Bewerking/Adaptation: Eric de Kuyper, Guy Cassiers, Erwin Jans
Traduction/Vertaling/Translation: Céline Linssen
Mise en scène/Regie/Direction: Guy Cassiers
Dramaturgie/Dramaturgy: Erwin Jans
Scénographie /Toneelbeeld /Set Design: Marc Warning
Conception Costumes/Kostuumontwerp/Costumes Design: Valentine Kempynck (BELGAT) en
collaboration avec/in samenwerking met/in collaboration with Erik Bosman
Conception Lumières/Lichtontwerp/Lighting design: Enrico Bagnoli
Concept video/Videoconcept/Video Concept: Marc Warning, Kantoor voor Bewegend Beeld:
Eelko Ferwerda, Jasper Wessels, Vincent van Duin
Vidéo/Video: Kantoor voor Bewegend Beeld
Jeu/Spel/Play: Paul R. Kooij (Marcel Proust adulte/volwassen/adult), Eelco Smits (Marcel Proust
jeune/jong/young), Joop Keesmaat (Pére de/Vader van/Father of Marcel + Baron de Charlus), Jacqueline Blom
(Mère de/Moeder van/Mother of Marcel + Mme. Verdurin), Marc De Corte (Dr. Percepied), Herman Gilis
(Swann), Marlies Heuer (Odette), Fania Sorel (Gilberte)
Musique/Muziek/Music: Quatuor Danel (Marc Danel – première violon/eerste viool/first violin, Gilles
Millet – deuxième violon/tweede viool/second violin, Tony Nys – alto/altviool/viola, Guy Danel – violoncelle/cello),
joue/speelt/plays Chostakovitch, Kurtàg, Webern, Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel & Raskatov
Technique/Techniek/Technical Production: Dennis van Geest, Sidney van Geest, Erik Hillen,
Arjen Klerck, John Thijssen (coordination/coördinatie/coordination)
Fabrication costumes/Uitvoering kostuums/Fabrication costumes: Karin van der Leeuw, Gerda
Knuivers, Sarah Hakkenberg, Roelie Westendorp (coordination/coördinatie/coordination)
Habillage/Kleden/Dressing: Mary-Jane Fernandes
Coiffure & maquillage/Kap &grime/ Hairdressing & Make-up: Cynthia van der Linden
(coordination/coördinatie/coordination)
Stagiaire scénographie/Stage toneelbeeld/Intern scenography: Wikke van Houwelingen
44

Stagiaire dramaturgie/Intern Dramaturgy: Remko Van Damme
Coordination/Coördinatie/Coordination Quatuor Danel: Catherine Lemeunier
Production/Productie/Production: Irene Pronk, Yvo Greweldinger, Bram de Ronde
(coordination/coördinatie/coordination)
Remerciements à/Met dank aan/Thanks to: Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijen Mauritshuis Den
Haag, Dien van der Wildt, Meneer C. Luybé, S Print St Niklaas, Oliva, Het muziek Lod.
Production/Productie/Production: ro theater (Rotterdam)
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Kaaitheater, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Proust 2 : De kant van Albertine
Création/Creatie/Creation
D’après/Naar/Based on: Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu
Adaptation/Bewerking/Adaptation: Eric de Kuyper, Guy Cassiers, Erwin Jans
Traduction/Vertaling/Translation: Céline Linssen
Mise en scène/Regie/Direction: Guy Cassiers
Dramaturgie/Dramaturgy: Erwin Jans
Scénographie /Toneelbeeld /Set Design: Marc Warning
Conception Costumes/Kostuumontwerp/Costumes Design: Valentine Kempynck (BELGAT)
Conception Lumières/Lichtontwerp/Lighting design: Enrico Bagnoli
Vidéo/Video: Kantoor voor Bewegend Beeld: Eelko Ferwerda, Jasper Wessels
Jeu/Spel/Play: Paul R. Kooij (Marcel Proust adulte/volwassen/adult), Eelco Smits (Marcel Proust
jeune/jong/young), Marlies Heuer (Albertine, Andrée, grand-mère/grootmoeder/grandmother), Fania Sorel
(Albertine)
Technique/Techniek/Technical Production: Diederik de Cock, Jos Koedood, Hein van Leeuwen,
Jaap Toet, John Thijssen (coordination/coördinatie/coordination)
Fabrication costumes/Uitvoering kostuums/Fabrication costumes: Erik Bosman, Karin van der
Leeuw, Roelie Westendorp (coordination/coördinatie/coordination)
Coiffure & maquillage/Kap &grime/ Hairdressing & Make-up: Cynthia van der Linden
(coordination/coördinatie/coordination)
Production/Productie/Production: Yvo Greweldinger, Jellie Schippers, Bram de Ronde
(coordination/coördinatie/coordination)
Remerciements à/Met dank aan/Thanks to: S Print St Niklaas
Production/Productie/Production: ro theater (Rotterdam)
Coproduction/Coproductie/Coproduction: KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Kaaitheater, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 12/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 12/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 12/05.
Salon Proust, 10.11/05
Marcel va au cinéma, 9.10/05
45

how Proust changed the ro theater
The English author Alain de Botton has written a book called How Proust Can Change Your Life.
Marcel Proust has certainly changed the life of the ro theater where director Guy Cassiers is
working on the start of a theatrical cycle inspired by the seven volumes of A la recherche du temps
perdu. He has adapted it for stage with film-maker and novelist Eric de Kuyper. This vast project
will materialise in four different productions spread over three seasons. The productions of Proust
1: du côté de chez Swann and Proust 2: du côté de chez Albertine are taking place this
season.
If it is fair to assert that every great work is a genre in itself and therefore unique, then this comment
especially applies to Proust’s novel. Indeed it is a novel with several definitions: a panoramic
documentary covering the last decades of the 19 th century and the first ones of the 20 th century, a
social satire on snobbery, a comédie humaine in the style of Balzac, the novel of a young man
learning to climb the echelons of society, the account of an initiation into love and its countless
mirages, jealousies and disappointments, a mystical poem celebrating timeless ecstasies, a
scientific encyclopaedia, a study on homosexuality and perversion, an artistic pamphlet and a
philosophical writing on time and the functioning of memory. A la recherche du temps perdu is all
that and much more besides.
To adapt it for theatre, radical choices had to be made. Some particular aspects were chosen to be
emphasised, some characters were reduced or combined. The stage version is concentrated on
the people developing at the heart of the novel’s most dramatic episodes: Swann, Odette and their
tempestuous love; Madame de Verdurin and the atmosphere in her society salon; Marcel, Albertine
and their equally tragic love story; finishing with Baron de Charlus and his dark sexual universe.
Through his characters, Proust brings to light the mechanisms determining life both at a social and
personal level.
At the same time as there are several themes, motifs and points of view flowing through
Proust’s work, also emanating from it is an appeal that is both simple and powerful. One of the
chapters in de Botton’s book, ‘How to Open Your Eyes?’, touches at the very heart of what Guy
Cassiers wants to take from it. Reflecting on his role as a writer, Proust wrote: “The writer’s work
is merely a kind of optical instrument that he offers the reader to enable him to discern that
which, without this book, he perhaps had not seen in himself.”
Proust’s writing is a lens of this kind, allowing people to look at themselves differently. As Guy
Cassiers puts it: “The final intention of our production is to stimulate the spectator’s imagination.
It will finally find its form in the head of the person watching it. Modern life has made us
receptive to a multitude of sensory impressions. People in theatre don’t worry, or at least not
enough, about society’s ability to do this. I want to give the audience the option of choosing from
an abundance of signs. In theatre we’re always endeavouring to refine everything, to adapt
everything for the group. For me Proust isn’t someone who’s trying to make everything
converge. Rather he’s trying to show what adapts with difficulty as a fact about human
behaviour. I also want to develop that aspect in the stage form of Proust using a number of
artistic disciplines.”
A la recherche du temps perdu is the story of the initiation of a young man, Marcel, into the
worlds of love, the aristocracy and art. However this initiation into love and passion is
transformed into an apprenticeship in jealousy, manipulation and perversion. In it, high society
unmasked reveals itself to be hypocritical, indifferent and immoral. Only art is saved in it from
dishonour.
In Proust 1: Du côté de chez Swann, Marcel remembers the three women who made a mark
on his early years: his mother, the love of his youth, Gilberte, and Odette Swann. Marcel
describes how, as a child, he used to wait vainly for the precious maternal kiss at night at the
hour that Monsieur Swann was visiting his family, and how he came to know his daughter,
Gilberte, and his wife, the beautiful and mysterious Odette Swann. Another character, and a
regular visitor to the house, Doctor Percepied is concerned about the failing health of the young
Marcel.
46

The interval takes us back twenty years earlier. We are received into the salon of Madame
Verdurin, frequented by Doctor Percepied and Baron de Charlus. Charles Swann and Odette
meet for the first time there. In contrast to the freshness of the love that Marcel felt for the
women of his youth, it is the maturity of the adult love of Swann and Odette that is recounted
here: a love that turns to jealousy and will vanish into indifference.
Proust 2: Du côté de chez Albertine deals with Marcel’s loves and with Albertine whom he sees
for the first time on the beach at Balbec, in the midst of a group of young girls. From the outset
Marcel is in love with all these girls in bloom before becoming attached to one of them: Albertine.
Marcel and Albertine’s love is tarnished by jealousy, lies and deep mistrust. Like Swann, Marcel is
tortured by the thought that his beloved might be a lesbian. When Albertine comes to join Marcel in
Paris, their love continues to deteriorate and Albertine finally becomes ‘his captive’. More than
Proust 1, Proust 2 deals with the intimate emotional universe of two human beings. To render this
complexity and confusion, the characters of Marcel and Albertine are each played by two actors, so
creating in the production an ethereal atmosphere as much as an oppressive one, where the
characters roam like memories of themselves.
Guy Cassiers considers imagination at work as the novel’s main theme: “Imagination is an
ambiguous and dual force with Proust. Especially when it concerns an affair of the heart. The
first phase of love is projection, fantasy; and imagination creates love, makes it possible. In a
later phase, imagination, still at work, destroys love as it now only focuses its powers on
jealousy, adultery and everything that spoils and ruins it. Artistic imagination emerges and
transcends everything outside time, lifting the story above the failings of existence.”
Following on from Rotjoch, De Wespenfabriek, The Woman Who Walked into Doors and Lava
Lounge, Guy Cassiers works with several different media: actors, costumes, theatrical form, the
story, live music, video images and the projection of texts. The combination of these media creates
an atmosphere where past and present, imagination and memory, alternate endlessly in fade-ins
and fade-outs. With Proust, time is not linked to chronology. Marcel Proust is both young and old
simultaneously: he is turned towards the future and plunges back into his past. When young he
endures the world of adults in silence. As the narrator, he reigns supreme over words. To give
concrete expression to this perpetually moving perspective, the character of Proust is played by two
actors: young Marcel and Proust the adult writer.
The theatrical and multi-disciplinary form of the two Proust productions creates a space suited to
Proust’s language, retaining his strength of expression and evocative power. It is through his words
that Proust’s world acquires a presence on stage. Guy Cassiers: “On the power(lessness) of
language, Proust’s work is the most extreme example I know: thousands of pages of perfect writing
to say that words are not enough.” It is on this border between the two that Guy Cassiers is
constructing his production: where words are powerfully present and powerless at the same time,
where images compensate for this weakness and, in turn, require words in order to exist.
Guy Cassiers
Guy Cassiers is one of the leading directors of the moment. During his career, he has carried off
a series of illustrious awards. After his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp), Guy
Cassiers quickly accomplished his first theatrical projects – primarily working with children and
young people. Following that, he worked on a freelance basis for a time and then entered the ro
theater. In 1998, he became artistic director. It is also there that he began to explore the
possibilities of multimedia techniques in the theatre. The result was that he accomplished
various technical feats (De sleutel, De wespenfabriek, La grande suite, The woman who walked
into doors and Rotjoch, guest at the KunstenFESTIVALdesArts 1998). His approach to theatre
is increasingly marked by a surprising and irreverent ludism, which give a definite character to
his work. From 2006, Cassiers will take over the running of the Toneelhuis in Antwerp.
ro Theater
The ro theater was created in 1976. It is one of the great Dutch theatre companies in the
Netherlands, situated in Rotterdam. In addition to its classical and modern repertoire, its musical
47

theatre and its family shows, the ro theater presents shows based on literature, visual arts or
video. The ro theater presents 6 to 8 productions a year in Rotterdam, on its own premises or at
the Rotterdam Theatre or on site. Additionally, the ro theater is frequently produced in Flanders
over these last few years and has achieved unequivocal success in Edinburgh, Vienna and New
York. The artistic direction of the ro theater is in the hands of Guy Cassiers. Alize Zandwijk is
the appointed director of the company.
48

théâtre/theater/theatre (Buenos Aires)
Mi Buenos Aires Querido
Daniel Veronese
Open House
Chapelle des Brigittines/Brigittinenkapel
3/05 > 22:00
4/05 > 18:00
6.7/05 > 20:30
80’
Esp/Sp > Sous-titres/Ondertiteling/Subtitles: Fr & Nl
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Mise en scène & Dramaturgie/Regie & Dramaturgie/Direction & Dramaturgy: Daniel Veronese.
Acteurs/Actors: Melina Milone, Eugenia Iturbe, Julieta Petruchi, Mariana Paz, Nayla Pose, Juan
I. Alvarez, Olga Nani, Natalia Segre, Gustavo Antieco, Martin De Goycoechea
Assistants à la mise en scène/Regie-assistenten/Assistants to the Director: Gonzalo Martínez,
Marcelo Alcon
Conception lumières/Lichtontwerp/Lighting design: Gonzalo Córdoba
Graphisme/Grafiek/Graphics: Gonzalo Martínez
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Les Brigittines-Bruxelles, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 4/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 4/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 4/05.
Salón Argentino, 17.18/05
Mi Buenos Aires Querido (films), 16-24/05
49

“It’s about solitude and abandonment, a subject painful for them to broach. Life is busy and fastmoving,
they don’t have a lot of time for things they don’t feel deeply about. They are part of
Open House.” (Daniel Veronese)
For their first appearance on stage these ten very young actors approached Daniel Veronese, a
leading Buenos Aires writer and a director-founder of the group El Periférico de Objetos. They
modestly venture to break the silence. With guitar, piano and at the microphone, they sing and
murmur about being cast adrift. But they are still floating. Accompanied by the voices of Lou
Reed and John Cale and made iridescent by Starlight, these sensual and fragile young actors
are wandering somewhere over the rainbow…
... MACHINES OF POETRY...
(Reflections at the end of a troubled afternoon. 15/5/01)
This is what Karl Kraus says about logic: “Logic is the enemy of art. But art needn’t be the
enemy of logic. Logic has to have been savoured at least once by art and totally digested by it.
To assert that 2 X 2 = 5, you have to know that 2 X 2 = 4. But someone who only knows the
latter statement will doubtless say that the former is incorrect.”
I’ve thought a bit about this. I think we should try and create a machine of poetry. A machine for
constructing perceptions, for creating feelings removed from logic. A machine for making 2 x 2 =
5.
We would have to build an individual machine in each of our hearts. The performance could be
the entire machine, all of it. I’ve always liked defining performances as machines for producing
perceptions. Let’s try not just to think of coldness when we think of a machine.
What are the machines like?
We could see them as a concentration of functions (or dysfunctions) that produce theatrical
actions. Action is everything that allows me a state of change according to the probable (don’t
confuse ‘the probable’ with ‘the possible’) and according to the necessary. Leave to one side
what’s necessary for achieving a particular aim, beautiful as it is. Action has to produce a
disequilibrium of forces. Action as a quality giving colour to and making an impact on what the
spectator perceives. It’s good always to think about what the spectator perceives. To put
yourself in his place. He’s going to take everything as if it were coming from the character (even
if we do nothing other than stage our own moment of uncertainty, confusion and improvisation).
Tumult and physical movement don’t always mean development or dramatic growth. This
change has to produce something. If you do nothing, if you don’t move, equilibrium remains
static. And you get bored – it’s as simple as that.
If I elaborate speech X, I can entertain (or not). If I add my personal secret to it, which comes
and goes like a wave in the spectator’s perception, I can say that I’m beginning to create a
machine of poetry. Something that covers up and reveals almost at the same time is going to
impress the spectator. His way of thinking is going to be on the alert. Playing with the meaning
of the text and the revelation of the secret. Playing quite simply means deceiving. When the
spectator stretches out in his seat, thinking he has already understood and is understanding the
game… you have to upset him. Change the rules of the game. Begin to reveal the game. Or
hide it. Maybe it’s also the moment to show this talent you’re so proud of. Or maybe you’ll try to
make sure he has no idea about this game being played out in front of him.
Everyone’s waiting for ‘the idea’ or at least ‘a clear idea’. Shatter expectations. Peel the onion.
Put it back together. Make its layers disappear. Find things in order to deceive, so that the
machine starts running and doesn’t stop. Not stopping the machine doesn’t meant that it always
has to be moving. The machine has more to do with the spectator’s perception that with our own
perception of time and space. We need to think that the lady or gentlemen in this seat sees,
hears, thinks, distrusts, decodes, tries to anticipate events, to find references in this group of
expressions that I am, with my body, my voice, my clothes, my objects, my music, but also with
my silence and my immobility. It shouldn’t be forgotten that a shout can be heard more clearly in
50

silence. A hand aimed at the face of an actor for minutes on end provokes more tension than a
gunshot. Manipulate suspense to increase the need to know something not yet known. This
way, the spectator is led by the nose right to the end.
I thought of the stage and I thought of you. You absolutely have to be there. It’s a serious
situation. The School demands it and expects it of you. Sufficiently full of pathos. Don’t stage
pathos. Let it flow like a feeling in the look of the person looking at you. Put yourself beneath the
audience. Be inferior. Or at least don’t claim to be more intelligent than the audience. They’ll like
you more. Don’t forget that every actor needs solidarity from the other side. Let the audience put
themselves on the side of the weakest.
I thought of an onion skin that might enclose the entire performance. And then peel itself. This is
how it is: be an actor for the first time. Wouldn’t that be touching? This time when you get on
stage, feel it as if it were the first time. You’re not stupid, you’re not shy. It’s just that you don’t
know how you have to act, or how to act in a situation like this. Or you realise that the way learnt
at School for so many years is wiped out by the strength of the great fear. The terror of the
moment. More or less controlled petrifaction. I’m hardly breathing. Fear of and admiration for all
these people who’ve come to see us. I can’t help looking at the audience with admiration,
surprise and respect. Thanking them? I’m humble since I’m going to begin something and I’m
going to do my best: I’m scared because I don’t know if I’ll be able to meet so many
expectations. The audience is impressive, I’d never felt it. I’d imagined it otherwise. Different.
Different? How?
So the person himself, and not the character, is confronted with the audience. I’ve made the
words I’ve read my own. The audience can’t know that they’re not mine. I have to deceive them.
But to do that I have to be sincere. It’s a cruel paradox. I don’t have to act. I don’t know how to
anymore. But they’re there. They have to accept me. I’m prepared to do whatever it takes. I’m
prepared to pay the price whatever it is. The audience can’t think that we are a company of
actors from the sticks that’s rehearsed for years in front of a mirror and that now, thanks to I
don’t know what stroke of luck, is here in a theatre in the heart of the capital. I look at my
friends. I sense that our time for acting is limited, we don’t have the notion of theatrical time.
We’ve been alone, facing ourselves like mirrors, imagining splendid sets and beautiful dialogue.
I don’t know what a conflict is anymore. I’ve just got this text in my head and luckily I’ve also got
my secret and one or other talent revealed when I was small and which I really enjoyed showing
off at family get-togethers. And I have – what keeps me going – this profound intention laden
with mystery and fear before this monster that seems to want to devour me while watching me
with thousands of eyes.
I have this space where I can remain all the time I need, I have this audience like a new
prosthesis. They’re not just my own prosthesis, it’s not right for me. They’re a place I can cling
on to, I can lean against. They’re a lunar landscape, they’re the lover that exceeds all desires
ever dreamt of. And we don’t know if they’re going to embrace us or send us packing. I don’t
speak to them, I speak for them. I’m capable of abandoning myself to the most dreadful
confessions, to the most incredible displays in order to be able to love and be loved. To finally
transform my daily, mundane existence into a true machine of poetry. And to share it. But to
really share it. That’s why I’m here. If not, I’m off. So I think that machines of poetry should
belong to that celestial category of machines of truth. I can’t only think of machines to portray.
It’s possible to be sincere on stage without acting. Or without portraying a character.
Isn’t it worrying to think of yourself as a machine for creating profound, beautiful and strange
perceptions? You have to begin by trying to imagine it, like I’m doing. At the moment it only
exists in my imagination. We won’t know if the machine will start running until we’re on stage.
Beyond this, we can’t verify anything. Otherwise anyone could do it. And the life of an artist
would be a lot easier. (Daniel Veronese)
51

théâtre/theater/theatre (Buenos Aires)
Mi Buenos Aires Querido
Tantanian, Macchi & Rudnitzky
CARLOS W. SÁENZ (1956 - )
de bottelarij
10.13.14/05 > 20:00
11/05 > 15:00
60’
Eng, Fr, Nl
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Conception/Concept/Conceived by: Alejandro Tantanian, Jorge Macchi & Edgardo Rudnitzky
Avec/Met/With: Ernesto Berardino, Hendrik De Smedt & Alejandro Tantanian
Texte & Mise en scène/Tekst & Regie/Text & Direction: Alejandro Tantanian
Traduction/Vertaling/Translation (ESP>EN&D): Silvia Fehrmann
Conception sonore & Compositeur sur la scène/Geluidsontwerp & Componist op de
scène/Sound design & Composer on stage: Edgardo Rudnitzky
Voix préenrégistrées/Opgenomen stemmen/Recorded voices:Maria Marta Colusi, Luciano
Suardi, Galin Stoev
Conception de l’espace, objets, photos & videos/Ontwerp ruimte, objecten, foto’s en video’s/
Space design, objects, photos & videos: Jorge Macchi
Lumières/Licht/Lighting: Alejandro Le Roux
Acknowledgements: KunstenFESTIVALdesArts – Hebbel-Theater team – Mousonturm team –
Akademie Schloss Solitude team - Tiziano Manca – Maria Marta Colusi – Silvia Hilario –
Ernesto Donegana – Eduardo Gazzotti – Miguel Rothschild - Luciano Suardi – Haiku – Estomba
Apartments – Rosetti Apartments – Maza Apartments and Ateliers – Judith Augustinovic –
Martina Pickhardt – Christine Meisner – La Nely at Martinez’s port – María Elena Portantiero –
Klaus Fehling
Coproduction/Coproductie/Co-production: Hebbel Theater (Berlin), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm
(Frankfurt/Main), KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Avec le soutien amical de/Met de vriendelijke steun van/Friendly supported by: Akademie
Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart)
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: KVS/de bottelarij, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Création/Creatie/Creation
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 11/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 11/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 11/05.
Salón Argentino, 17.18/05
Mi Buenos Aires Querido (films), 16-24/05
52

Carlos W. Sáenz was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 29 May 1956.
He has developed an enormous body of work since the 1970s. All have been works in progress
and developments for a big piece of art that seems to be uncompleted – The Theatre of
Melancholy, an enormous building to be constructed in the city of Buenos Aires. He rehearsed
for this undertaking in different fields: music (he has composed an opera, some songs and a
large amount of instrumental music), literature (he has written the lyrics to his own songs, the
libretto for his opera, some essays on scientific research, etc.) and visual arts (he has done
several sound installations, some pieces of video art, more than three hundreds drawings, etc.)
Facts concerning his fate are confused. He has disappeared from the city of Buenos Aires.
Following this, three theories have been constructed with regard to his masterpiece, The
Theatre of Melancholy: 1) that the theatre has never been built; 2) that the theatre has finally
been constructed in a specific part of the city; 3) that the theatre is the city itself and the pillars
of the building are hidden in seven sites in central Buenos Aires.
These questions – posed by the KunstenFESTIVALdesArts’ dramaturgy department – were
sent to Sáenz and he sent us an e-mail with his answers on 31 March. He also told us – in the
same e-mail – that he is really proud to know that his work is finally going to be shown to an
audience and apologises for not coming to Brussels. He did not reveal where he actually is – he
is still an enigma.
Macchi, Rudnitzky & Tantanian.
What was it exactly that you experienced, read or saw that triggered off the idea behind
your creation?
Sadness. That’s what’s behind it. My project has always dealt with this problem – it’s not a new
one for humankind. Everything seems to be corrupted by sadness; we are obliged to live in its
kingdom. Sadness is my first and only ally. I have worked, am working and will work for it and
against it.
Is the project positioned literally or metaphorically in the context of the society in which
you live?
Literally. Metaphors are the property of cowards.
If it is, in what way?
I will answer this with another question (and forgive my bad mood). Are you happy? If your
answer is YES, then you’re not part of this world. If your answer is NO, then you will understand
perfectly well how my project is positioned in the context of society.
How is the performing arts scene organised in your country?
I have no country.
Where do you fit in this scene?
I am out of everything.
That was my problem, now it’s to my benefit.
If the starting point for your project is a piece of writing, what was it that triggered this
choice of writer?
My sources are those existing under the memory of humankind. I never ask myself about my
triggers (as you say).
I have no explanation for my acts: we do not explain to ourselves the law of gravity, we only
have a name for it.
And my name is Carlos W. Sáenz. I cannot explain what is beneath the name.
Allow me to give you another quotation: “What is the remnant of an antique and disappeared
rose? Only its name. And that is what we have: only names, naked names.”
If you are working with a piece of writing that doesn’t originally belong to theatre, how are you
dealing with it to turn it into language for theatre?
53

That is the problem of theatre makers. I am a name, a naked one. There is no image for
this name. So, it will be hard to find actions coming from a name. I am these words,
nothing else.
What is the common theme running through your stage adaptation?
Melancholy is the blood running through our veins. And violence. And sadness. I hope the
theatre adaptation (if there will be something like that) will take care of these different sorts of
blood. Even further: I hope there will not be ‘a stage adaptation’, I would love to be presented as
I am. I know you will ask me now: “And how are you?” But, unfortunately, I have no answer to
that question.
What do you envisage having to do in order to best convey to the audience the content of your
project? In other words, what do you consider to be important for exploring here in the theatrical
form this project is assuming?
This project, as far as I know, is taking the form of a conference. These Argentine
“artists” will talk about me and my work. I hope that the audience can enter into my work
and share with me this eternal discontent. The content is myself. And my work speaks
eloquently about me: this is not a common statement nowadays. I can not be divided
from my work.
What means are you calling on for this?
The means are decided by the ‘artists’. I am the subject of their work. I cannot decide anything, I
am a trace of myself. My only means is my way of being: invisibility.
What is it that you hate on a theatre stage?
Lies. People pretending to convince me they are other people. We are surrounded by that.
What’s the point of going into a place and spending money in order to see what we are really
tired of seeing?
What takes your breath away, what do you find most appealing about it?
The will of the audience pretending to believe in illusion.
What kind of relationship do you want there to be with the audience?
I want them to construct the final steps of my Theatre with me.
In your opinion, what role ideally should theatre have in contemporary society?
Ideally... it comes from idea. That is my answer to your question.
Why have you specifically chosen the theatre as a means of expression?
I have been chosen for theatre. I am not fond of it. These Argentines decided to present my
work in the frame of a theatre festival. You should ask to them... I’m sure they won’t have an
answer either.
What do you value most in human nature?
Machiavelli told me that the Prince should be half lion and half fox: the lion will give the Prince
the force, but not the wisdom; and the fox will give the Prince the wisdom for using the force the
lion gave Him.
What do you hate the most?
Avoiding life.
What do you consider to be the lowest level of deprivation?
Not to taste the flavour of the bitter tears that Melancholy brings to their sons.
Walking in life with an eternal smile, not even asking yourself why are you smiling.
Being deprived of sadness.
What do like doing most?
Inventing myself every day.
How do you see our world?
54

Through ashes and through small pieces of broken glass.
Carlos W. Sáenz has given us an e-mail address.
You may contact him if you wish, as he won’t be coming to Brussels.
He has told us that he would be delighted to receive any comments or messages you wish to
send and would be proud to reply to them.
Please contact Carlos W. Sáenz at cwsaenz@yahoo.com
Jorge Macchi, Edgardo Rudnitzky and Alejandro Tantanian developed several
projects in collaboration: Edgardo Rudnitzky was the creator of the original music of some
shows directed by Alejandro Tantanian (Un cuento alemán and Unos viajeros se mueren,
among others). Jorge Macchi (as a visual artist) and Alejandro Tantanian (as a playwright) were
summoned to the Workshop of Scenic Experimentation directed by Rubén Szuchmacher and
Edgardo Rudnitzky and organized by Fundación Antorchas of the city of Buenos Aires. And this
was the beginning of this ‘artistic society’ that knows such results as: Cine Quirúrgico
(2001) (directed and conceived by Edgardo Rudnitzky, written by Alejandro Tantanian and
spatially conceived by Jorge Macchi) and a particular version of Miss Julie by August Strindberg
– re-called Julia / Una tragedia naturalista – which Tantanian adapted and directed for Teatro
San Martin of the city of Buenos Aires (2000); the sound design of that performance belonged
to Rudnitzky and the spatial work and projection were Macchi’s responsibility. Carlos W. Sáenz
(1956 - ) enrolls, then, in the line of work of these three artists: an attempt to an
interdisciplinary crossing and a work clearly directed towards experimentation.
55

théâtre/theater/theatre (La Plata)
Mi Buenos Aires Querido
Beatriz Catani
Ojos de Ciervo Rumanos
L’L
14.15.16.18/05 > 20:30
17/05 > 18:00
80’
Esp/Sp > Sous-titres/Ondertiteling/Subtitles: Fr & Nl
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Texte & mise en scène/Tekst & regie/Text & Direction: Beatriz Catani
Assistante à la mise en scène/Regie-assistent/Assistant to the Director: Jazmín García Sathicq
Acteurs/Actors: Ricardo González, Paula Ituriza, Blas Arrese Igor
Scénographie/Scenografie/Set Design: Beatriz Catani, Andrea Schvartzman
Lumières/Licht/Lighting: Gonzalo Córdova
Musique/Muziek/Music: Carmen Balliero
Technique/Technique/Technical production: Margarita Dillon
Coproduction/Coproductie/Coproduction: Teatro General San Martín (Buenos Aires),
Theaterformen 2002 (Hannover)
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: L’L, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 15/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 15/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 15/05.
Salón Argentino, 17.18/05
Mi Buenos Aires Querido (films), 16-24/05
56

“We are survivors on the verge of a scandal”, says Beatriz Catani, La Plata, Argentine.
The remains of a plantation. Drowned deer on the paths. Ailing nature.
A girl born of her father’s thigh. He waters her and cares for her as if she were an orange tree.
She is searching for the song of her dead mother, a Romanian woman with eyes of different
colours.
Packed with ancient myths, Ojos de ciervos rumanos (Eyes of a Romanian Deer)
reels off the strange transformations of a distressing and alienating search for identity.
What was it exactly that you experienced, read or saw that triggered off the idea behind
your creation?
The question seems simple, but it isn’t at all. I’m not actually sure that I can answer it. I was
actually stimulated by several elements simultaneously. Ojos combines my personal experience
and more diffuse perceptions of some ancient Greek myths (particularly Bacchae by Euripides).
These elements have merged intuitively.
Perhaps the images and associations that appeared to me while reading Euripides made me
understand that I wanted to do something around the beginning, birth, woman’s main identity
and a country’s political identity.
Yes, my own experience was in it at the start, but that doesn’t mean that this work is
autobiographical. But it does recreate feelings and perceptions I have experienced myself.
I say ‘recreating’ because I’ve tried formally to invent a theatrical reality that doesn’t either
represent or reproduce real life. I’ve looked for an intense relationship between reality and
fiction. It has taken concrete form in a real space: natural plants, fruit juice, the ‘real’ use of
bodies, etc. But the story is pure fiction, an extreme fiction with a fantastical feel to it. I looked
for a ‘reality’ suitable for theatre without leaning too much on action, generating a poetic link
between the characters and the context.
Is the project positioned literally or metaphorically in the context of the society in which
you live?
I only really understood the meaning behind Ojos after events that recently happened in my
country. The premiere for Ojos was on 26 December 2001, some 20 metres from the epicentre
of the crisis: the Obelisk in Buenos Aires. Preparations for it had been going on for a year. At
the same time my father was struggling to save his business which had fed our family for years.
At the time we weren’t then aware of the difficulty we had in understanding our country and the
paradoxical and ambivalent way in which we saw ourselves. Consequently the metaphorical
levels in Ojos were still invisible. They only became obvious later.
Ojos evokes a family with a splendid past. It had placed all its confidence in the ‘blessed’ earth
of its country and now this earth is reduced to an apartment where just a few plants are alive
and they are drying out because of a pest. This pest progresses until it makes the father, the
farmer, fail. Ojos handles the ambiguities and the views encountered: two arguments are
superimposed on it, two countries, two mothers, two children.
In the context of the Argentine crisis the play took on another twist, its metaphor began to
breathe differently:
1. Impoverishment, asphyxia and the permanent reduction of space and meaning:
The future as an idea of reduction: plantations reduced to orange trees in pots. The mother
reduced to one eye. Childbirth to menstruation. The catastrophe of a fire to a pest. The needs of
man to the obsession for food. The last space: a woman’s breast (daughter-mother-sister).
The present? A reduced, damaged time, occupied by the past.
2. The view that we Argentines have on things. A paradoxical view that reflects a badly
organised identity, even in times of crisis.
For the daughter, the ‘mother’, the great absent one (also associated to the earth), is a totally
idealised Romanian singer. For the son, she’s a drunk. For the father, she’s a stubborn and
57

dangerous woman, all the more so because she is foreign. References to Romania are
themselves also laden with ambiguity. Romania is an accursed country, yet idealised at the
same time, both close and eccentric, incomprehensible for us – just like Argentina.
How is the performing arts scene organised in your country?
On the theatrical landscape, three levels co-exist defined by their degree of subsidy. Based on
the laws of supply and demand, commercial theatre offers entertainment. Subsidised by the
state, official theatre responds to the criteria of ‘cult’ or ‘serious’ theatre and often presents old,
boring plays even if some official theatres – often the poorest – also offer experimental plays.
Independent theatre doesn’t depend either on ticket sales or official contracts. It receives
assistance from private or international institutions.
It’s at this last level that theatrical experimentation takes place.
These small independent companies attempt to deal with the lack of funds by investigating new
possibilities of expression. This doesn’t mean that I’m a believer in a lack of funds – this isn’t
where the merit of experimental theatre lies, even though obstinacy and the courage to take
risks are commendable characteristics. Because independent theatre also produces plays that
don’t ask too many questions, copies of existing models. In others words it’s not because a play
takes place outside commercial or official circuits that interesting artistic work is guaranteed.
Where do you fit in this scene?
With independent companies. I worked with the Teatro San Martín for Ojos and some other
projects and received some subsidies. But, as I already said, the term ‘independent’ is too
general and comprises an enormous range of works of different quality. I prefer the term
‘experimental theatre’ for it, a theatre conducting daring experiments.
I’m trying to work in the town of La Plata, preferably with people who are still not yet part of the
established scene. I prefer working on the periphery.
Why have you specifically chosen the theatre as a means of expression?
I don’t really know. I started off by acting and writing stories. One way or another, these two
things came together in theatre. What interested me more than anything was the capacity of the
actor’s body for communicating. The physical ‘presence’ of the actors and the audience. At the
same time I feel in conflict with theatre because theatrical conventions demand too much of the
spectator, unlike other disciplines such as cinema for example: a space that ‘isn’t’, a time that
‘isn’t’ either, people who pretend to be someone else. That’s why I’ve recently been trying to
reduce the margins of the ‘spectacle’.
What do you consider to be the lowest level of deprivation?
I’d like to answer this question with an image.
Constitución (the train station in Buenos Aires, in the Ramal La Plata zone where I live). A
family on the ground. Mother lying on top of the father. They are eating something that I can’t
quite see. The baby’s crying in a cardboard box used as a cradle to protect him from the cold.
There’s an infinite number of terrible situations here that I can only understand by using reason
as it’s only a very limited zone of consciousness.
‘Seeing’ or ‘feeling’ impoverishment is a completely different way of understanding things.
That’s why I wanted to describe this image, that’s why everyone must have their own images.
What relationship would you like to establish with the audience?
An intellectual and sensitive communication. I like an active and attentive audience.
In any case, as Tarkovsky said, an image is only powerful when the author and spectator share
the same joy and the same difficulty in creating this joy.
58

Beatriz Catani
Beatriz Catani was born in La Plata, a province of Buenes Aires in 1955 and belongs to a new
generation of Argentine directors. She studied history and dramaturgy; she has worked as a
director since 1998 and often acts in her plays. As a director she has defined herself through
innovative and experimental projects, which have a very individual artistic and political
approach. Alongside her work as a director and dramaturg, Beatriz Cantani also teaches drama,
giving workshops at places such as the national University of La Plata. In the last few years
Beatriz Catani has made a name for herself in Europe by showing her work at various festivals
like the Theaterformen in Hannover and the Wiener Festwochen. Her plays include Todo
Crinado, Perspectiva Siberia, Ojos de Ciervo Rumanos and Cuerpos (a)banderados.
59

théâtre/theater/theatre (Buenos Aires)
Mi Buenos Aires Querido
Federico León
El Adolescente
De Kriekelaar
21.22.23/05 > 20:00
24/05 > 18:00
Esp/Sp > Subtitles: Fr & Nl
€ 8,5 – 12,5
Dramaturgie & Mise en scène/Dramaturgie & Regie/ Dramaturgy & Direction: Federico León
Assistante à la mise en scène/Regie-assistente/Assistant to the Director: Tatiana Saphir
Musique/Muziek/Music: Carmen Baliero & “El adolescente”.
Acteurs/Actors: Julián Tello, Emanuel Torres, Ignacio Rogers, Miguel Angel Olivera, Germán
De Silva
Scénographie, Objets & Régisseur de plateau/Scenografie, Objecten & Toneelmeester/Set
Design, Objects & Set Manager: Ariel Vaccaro
Conception Lumières/Lichtontwerp/Lighting Design: Alejandro Le Roux
Entraînement physique/Fysische training/Physical Work: Mayra Bonard
Costumes/Kleding/Costumes: Gabriela Fernandez
Production/Productie/Production: Complejo Teatral Buenos Aires
Producteur délégué/Uitvoerend Producent/Executive Producer: León - Saphir
Coproduction/Coproductie/Coproduction: Festival d'automne à Paris, Holland Festival
(Amsterdam), Hebbel Theater (Berlin), Theatre Garonne, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: De Kriekelaar, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Création/Creatie/Creation
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 22/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 22/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 22/05.
Salón Argentino, 17.18/05
Mi Buenos Aires Querido (films), 16-24/05
60

In 2001 the young Argentine writer and director Federico León was invited to the
KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
with Mil quinientos sobre el nivel de Jack, in which all the action took place in a
bathroom, its bath full of water from his mother’s tears. León is now returning to Brussels in
2003 to create El adolescente here.
“I like a work to be able to find its form organically. Everything should be open to being changed
which is why the creative process becomes long and unpredictable. Each element has pass
through the filter of a test: the indispensible “verification” performed by actors and directors
during rehearsals. As far as I’m concerned research is very important. Indeed I choose the
process that we’re going to have to go through first before picking a text or the actors. The play
is always a reflection of this process which reveals how the play is shaped.
I do intimate theatre. It is performed in small spaces for a limited number of people. Proximity is
crucial. The spectator has to have the feeling that he is almost part of the stage and that an
interaction is being created between the actors and the audience. The spectator has to be
aware that what he is seeing is taking place at that very moment and will doubtless never be
reproduced.
On the other hand, I strive to create “small-scale” works that don’t project themselves noisily.
They force the spectator to get close and make the effort to gain access to what he sees. This
happens rarely, if at all, in large theatres where the spectator is totally separate from the stage,
unable to take part in this interaction. There the play is unleashed on the spectators who don’t
have to do anything: it’s served to them on a plate as a smooth and finished product.
As I consider that an actor has to feel his way, as it were, and find his bearings in unexpected
situations, it is up to the director to keep a check on himself, to go against his own tendencies
and create a lively interaction with the actors, assistants, set and lighting people, musicians etc.
This is the first time that I’ve worked with a text that I haven’t written. El adolescente is based on
the one hand on notes taken over the past seven years in the margin of fragments I’ve
unearthed from novels by Dostoyevsky (The Devils, The Brothers Karamazov, The Adolescent,
The Idiot, The Insulted and Injured, The Eternal Husband and The Double) and, on the other,
the actors’ improvisation work.
The play depicts two adults who insinuate themselves amongst young people, attempting to
forcibly recapture their youth at any price. They put themselves to the test under the watchful
gaze of the others to regain this “state of grace” of puberty, this energy that allows them to
sweat again, to believe in something, to go mad and to fall in love. It’s an artificially recaptured
second puberty.
It was not my intention to reproduce Dostoyevsky’s stories, but rather to base it on his way of
doing things, his poetry and therefore the way he constructs a work. One of the fundamental
characteristics of Dostoyevsky’s novels is their polyphony of autonomous voices and
independent consciences. This concept of polyphony is translated by the way in which we
develop the play. I suggest a text and then this text is experienced by different actors of different
ages, each with their own style of acting and their own way of thinking. We are not a readymade
theatre company. We don’t have a common view of theatre. This diversity, this polyphony
creates the cocktail of the approach I take first, mixed with innovations added by the actors.
Dostoyevsky’s characters conduct themselves like immature adolescents in search of
confrontation. They put themselves to the test, preparing for their grand entrance into the world.
Another fundamental characteristic is that these people turn themselves into the novel’s masters
by writing it themselves. What animates Dostoyevsky’s novels is what happens to the
characters rather than the story itself. The story is influenced by the characters’ whims or rather
the characters’ logic. Dostoyevsky’s project to a large extent is to camouflage, lose and merge
himself into his characters.
61

All these strategies come together into the idea of creating the “instant present”: the present of
the novel (the feeling that the characters are taking shape as we go along and which the reader
is called upon to witness). I want to find this same “present” in theatre.
For my part, the fact of writing is not distinct from directing. I always write for me and what I
write depends very much on what is happening on stage. I write my plays according to the
actors, their abilities and their limits.
In recent years theatre has let itself be invaded by the idea that God doesn’t exist – omnipresent
cynicism. I think that believing again, defending an idea, however small, is a lot more daring. On
principle I believe in the power of acting in theatre. I believe that a work has the power to
disturb. The complicit nod in the direction of the spectator is an empty gesture. And Godot has
to make his entrance. I still see a work as a train that never arrives and God does not exist, so
we converse. I can allow myself anything, I can navel-gaze: the only thing I’m interested in is
knowing that my work is read because it’s me who has written it. We always begin by doing
things for a handful of individuals, for ourselves. It’s hard here to construct a theory today that
won’t collapse tomorrow. But I believe in acting, I believe that something happens between the
spectator and the actors and that something shifts.
The work after the premiere is just as vital. It’s important to study the relationship between the
audience and the play and how this relationship is going to change according to different
perceptions of the play.
I also like working with elements that, repeated, present a certain risk. The aim is to construct
controlled chaos, a world of uncontrollable elements; find the logic in it and repeat it; create
situations that are hard to grasp in a hyper-controlled structure. Make a dog act, endlessly
having to repeat the same thing, and on the other hand create a world where it is possible to
forget that there is a dog at all. Let this dog become part of the fiction, let it stop being a dog, let
it become instead “the dog in the play”.
I don’t ask myself what story I’m going to tell or what I want to say before starting rehearsals for
a play. I rehearse in Buenos Aires and experience at first hand what is going on there. It
permeates my creations and inspires them. Argentina is a country where rules change from day
to day. Nothing can be predicted. The same goes for creating.
In spite of the current situation in Buenos Aires, there’s a lot going on in the world of theatre and
film. We still have the desire to come together to rehearse new plays, even if we don’t know
where they will be performed.
This absence of a framework of production for any creative process, and the fact that it is
impossible for us to think there will be any kind of financial continuity to feed it, generates plenty
of alternative propositions.” (Federico León, March-April 2003)
Federico León
Federico León (1975) completed his studies in dramaturgy at the Escuela Municipal de Arte
Dramático in Buenos Aires in 1998 and took a film director’s course. His first work included Del
chiflete que se filtra (1995) and El líquido táctil. He was invited to the Berlin and Madrid
Festivals with his presentation of Cacheto de campo (1997), the very first piece he wrote and
produced. 1500 metros sobre el nivel de Jack marked his debut on the major international
scene, touring Europe and featuring on the programme at the KunstenFESTIVALdesArts in
2001. León has always worked with texts he has written himself, even in his later productions,
but he has abandoned this principle for El adolescente, presenting for the first time a production
based on texts by another author: Dostoyevsky.
62

Danse/Dans/Dance (Brussel - Amsterdam)
Ultima Vez & Toneelgroep Amsterdam / Wim Vandekeybus
Sonic Boom
Kaaitheater
3.4/05 > 18:00
5.6/05 > 20:30
Nl > Sous-titres/Ondertiteling/Subtitles: Fr
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Chorégraphie & Mise en scène/Choreografie & Regie/Choreography & direction: Wim
Vandekeybus
Créé & interpreté par/Gecreëerd en uitgevoerd door/Created with & performed by: Joop
Admiraal, Kitty Courbois, Titus Muizelaar & 8 danseurs de/dansers van/dancers of Ultima Vez:
Laura Arís Alvarez, Elena Fokina, Jozef Frucek, Ina Geerts, Robert M. Hayden, Germán
Jauregui Allue, Linda Kapetanea, Thomas Steyaert
Egalement créé avec/Eveneens gecreëerd met/Also created with: Thi-Mai Nguyen
Musique originale/Originele muziek/Original music: David Eugene Edwards (16 Horsepower)
e.a./a.o.
Texte/Tekst/Text: Peter Verhelst & Ultima Vez
Textes supplémentaires/Bijkomend tekstmateriaal/Extra texts: Ultima Vez, Joop Admiraal, Kitty
Courbois en Titus Muizelaar
Assistant artistique/Artistiek assistent/Artistic assistant: Eduardo Torroja
Scénographie/Scenografie/Scenography: Wim Vandekeybus
Assistant scénographie/Assistent scenografie/Assistant scenography: Daniel Huard, Sascha
Van Riel
Conception Lumières/Lichtontwerp/Light design: Wim Vandekeybus & Ralf Nonn
Styling & costumes/kostuums/costumes: Isabelle Lhoas
Assistant/Assistant/Assistant styling & costumes/kostuums/costumes: Frédéric Denis
Assistante de/Assistente van/Assistant to Wim Vandekeybus: Greet Van Poeck
Coordination technique & Ingénieur Lumières/Technische coördinatie &
Technicien supplémentaire en tournée/Extra technicus op tournee/Extra technician on tour: Jan
Olieslagers
Lichtingenieur/Technical coordination & light engineer: Ralf Nonn
Régisseur de scène & Accessoires/Toneelmeester & rekwisieten/Stage manager & props:
Daniel Huard
Conception Son & Ingénieur Son/Ontwerp geluid en klankingenieur / Sound designer & sound
engineer: Benjamin Dandoy
Habilleur/Kleder/Dresser: Gavin Janet
Décor réalisé par/Decor uitgevoerd door/Set realised by: Atelier Toneelgroep Amsterdam (Alex
Daas, Jan Van Dalfsen, Rob Stoffers Joop Reesen, Theo Van Rooy, Ellen Windhorst, Karin
Heslinga)
Costumes réalisés par/Kostuums uitgevoerd door/Costumes realised by: Atelier Toneelgroep
Amsterdam (Farida Bouhbouh, Wim Van Vliet, Renske Kraakman)
Directeur de Production/Productieleiding/Production management: Harm Witteveen
Photographie/Fotografie/Photography: Chris van der Burght
Stagiaire/Trainee: Maaike Loncke
Remerciéments à/Met dank aan/Special thanks to: Philippe Vandendriessche, Femke Van der
Fraenen
Production/Productie/Production: Toneelgroep Amsterdam & Ultima Vez
Coproduction/Coproductie/Coproduction: Festival de Marseille, PACT/Zollverein
Choreographisches Zentrum NRW (Essen) & Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Kaaitheater, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 4/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 4/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 4/05.
63

There are two plane trees on a square.
Nobody remembers who planted them.
Perhaps, on this square once, there was a girl and a boy.
Perhaps their eyes met, like two swans with undulating necks, magnetised by each other, in the
midst of the others.
They are in the square, the boy is motionless, the girl, her back turned to him, is facing a house
and watches the reflection of the boy in the glass.
The boy smiles and his smile spurs the girl into action. She lets herself fall backwards, as if in
slow motion. Just to the point where the boy can catch her.
No longer.
There, where their steps came to a standstill, two trees have grown.
Much later on, their tops have interlaced.
There, where they touched for the first time, resin falls drop by drop onto the stones.
The heat is stifling, almost too hot to want to move. The night craves the coolness of the sea,
but in vain. On a square, a young woman asks a man for money. She has to take the boat. The
man gives her money and asks if she is really going to go on board. He decides to follow her.
In a hotel room, an old man is waiting for a woman. Many years ago they spent long nights
together as lovers. The woman had asked him for money and he had followed her. The feverish
heat prevails. They wait for night to fall before they risk going outside. They meet on the square,
by the sea wall and later in hotel rooms. The radio plays continuously in the background.
Nobody knows any more what is reality and what is hallucination.
In the autumn of 2001, Ivo Van Hove, director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam, invited Wim
Vandekeybus to direct the actors of his Dutch theatre company. For this unique project – which
at the beginning was given the provisional title of Metamorphosen – Vandekeybus chose three
experienced actors from Toneelgroep Amsterdam and eight members from his own company,
Ultima Vez. The script is written by the poet and author Peter Verhelst, who also wrote the
Ultima Vez productions Scratching the Inner Fields and Blush.
David Eugene Edwards, singer-songwriter for the American band 16 Horsepower and for his
solo project Woven Hand, has written the music. Some existing pieces from different groups
and artists are integrated into the performance soundtrack.
At the outset, the production addresses two entirely independent phenomena: supersonic boom
and night radio: image is faster than sound. The sound coming from late night radio evokes
images. Voices and sounds enhance the imagination. Stories and memories merge. Everything
is transformed.
In Sonic Boom, Vandekeybus bridges the gap between raw emotion and imagination, between
the physical and the verbal, between images and stories, between dance and theatre.
Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Toneelgroep Amsterdam, resident company of the Amsterdam Municipal Theatre, is one of the
biggest theatre companies in the Netherlands. There are around twenty actors and actresses in
the group. For nearly 15 years, the company performed under the artistic direction of Gerardjan
Rijnders. On 1 January 2001, the Flemish director Ivo Van Hove succeeded Rijnders as director
of Toneelgroep Amsterdam. When he was appointed director, Hove said about the company, "I
feel that our era is marked out by the merging of cultures, boundaries fading away and an
economy which is imposed upon us 24 hours a day. This progress is overshadowing the poetry
of unknown or lost worlds. The theatre can give a voice to these worlds once more. In my
opinion, theatre should not change everyday reality, I believe that the power of theatre consists
in questioning the underlying motives that drive people, instincts, anxieties and utopian views. In
our theatre, the lost paradises of the human being find a face and a voice. The pace of reality
can be paused here for a moment and opinions can be offered up for discussion."
Besides the productions of Ivo Van Hove and of the company director and writer Gerardjan
Rijnders, Toneelgroep Amsterdam has performed productions by visiting directors, such as
64

Pierre Audi (Nederlandse Opera) and Ola Mafaalani. Van Hove also seeks out artists from other
disciplines, such as the choreographer Emio Greco, the visual artist, Aernout Mik, the filmmaker
Cyrus Frisch and the musicians Harry de Wit and Stef Kamil Carlens. It is for this reason, that
he invited Wim Vandekeybus to direct a new project. Vandekeybus then decided to combine
eight young members of his company, Ultima Vez, with three coryphaei of the Nederlandse
theatergezelschap: Joop Admiraal, Kitty Courbois and Titus Muizelaar.
Wim Vandekeybus / Ultima Vez
Wim Vandekeybus is a director, choreographer, actor and photographer. He worked for two
years as an actor with Jan Fabre before setting up his own company, Ultima Vez. Soon after, he
made his international breakthrough with his first choreographic production What the Body Does
Not Remember (1987). In 1988, Wim Vandekeybus won the Bessie Award in New York, where
he was honoured for "a brutal confrontation of dance and music: the dangerous, combative
landscape of What the Body Does Not Remember." At the heart of his work is the instinctive
body; the restless, unpredictable body, strong and vulnerable at the same time; the body of
reflexes. Since his first production, music has been a very important and inherent factor in all his
performances. Therefore, Vandekeybus has asked Peter Vermeersch, Thierry De Mey, David
Byrne, Marc Ribot, Eavesdropper and David Eugene Edwards amongst others to compose the
music for his shows. In his films and videos, Vandekeybus' creativity takes on a very original
form. By integrating cinematic productions into his performances, he introduces what is often a
complex relationship between the screen and the stage. Besides the short films and the video
extracts which are an integral part of his performances, Vandekeybus also adapts some of his
dance productions for video, working with Walter Verdin and Octavio Iturbe amongst others.
Vandekeybus is at present working on the screenplay of his first feature film with the writer
Peter Verhelst.
Peter Verhelst
Peter Verhelst (1962, Bruges) writes poetry, novels, short stories, narratives, plays and
screenplays. He has been awarded several prizes in Flanders and the Netherlands both for his
poetry and for his prose and theatre works. He wrote the poem which was used as the theme at
Bruges 2002, Cultural Capital of Europe and enriched it until it became the narrative which
decorates the back of the chairs of the new Concertgebouw. Amongst the titles of his
impressive works are Obsidiaan (poems, 1987), Verhemelte (Palais (bouche)/Dais, poems,
1996), Vloeibaar Harnas (Liquid armour, novel, 1993), Tongkat, een verhalenbordeel (Tongue
Cat, 1999) and Memoires van een Luipaard (Memories of a leopard, short story, 2001). His
plays and theatre adaptations have been a great success in Belgium and abroad; he has
worked with directors such as Jan Ritsema, Ivo Van Hove, Erik Joris and Luc Perceval. He
writes and translates for de Roovers and the Prometheus Ensemble and for the Toneelhuis and
Zuidelijk Toneel Hollandia.
In May 2002 Het Sprookjesbordeel (The Fairy Tale Brothel, Het Toneelhuis) opened at Bruges
2002; Verhelst came up with the concept, wrote the script and directed it. In 2001 he rewrote
some of the stories from Zwellend Fruit (Swelling fruits) for the choreographer Wim
Vandekeybus to be used for the dance production Scratching the Inner Fields (Ultima Vez). In
2002 he worked with these stories again for the play Blush.
David Eugene Edwards
David Eugene Edwards was born in 1968. In 1982 he started his first group, RMC (Restless
Middle Class). Two years later he became the guitarist of Pavillion Steps, the first band of
Jeffrey-Paul Norlander. In 1986, Edwards, Norlander and Slim Cessna became members of the
group Bloodflower. They left Colorado to settle in Revere, a suburb of Boston, but found
themselves back in Colorado the same year. In 1987, they made Come, Faithful and True. In
1988, Norlander started the band Denver Gentlemen but to start with, only Edwards was a
member. In 1990, Norlander, his brother and Edwards moved to Los Angeles where they met
Jean-Yves Tola and Pascal Humbert from the alternative rock group Passion Fodder. Tola
joined the Denver Gentlemen. In 1992, Edwards started 16 Horsepower with Pascal Humbert.
65

Tola joined the group. After a short period in Los Angeles, Edwards and Tola returned to
Denver. Humbert stayed in Los Angeles and was replaced by the bass guitarist Keven Soll. In
1996 they released their debut album Sackcloth ‘n’ Ashes. As guest musician, Gordon Gano
(Violent Femmes), played fiddle on the album in a style entirely typical of the deliberately
traditional instrumentation of the record (bandoneon, banjo, bass, accordion). The same year,
Humbert rejoined the band. After a few changes in the composition of the band, their second
album, Low Estate, came out in 1997. In July 1999, 16 Horsepower signed a record contract for
Europe with the independent label Glitterhouse Records. Later in the year, they signed another
contract with Razor & Tie, this time for America. Their third album Secret South was released in
March 2000.
In September 2001 Glitterhouse announced the release in 2001 of the album Woven Hand, the
new solo project of David Eugene Edwards. Woven Hand made its live debut in Denver in
October 2001. The Woven Hand album came out in March 2002 followed by a tour by the four
musicians (David E. Edwards, Daniel McMahon, Ordy Garrison and Paul Fonfara). Folklore, 16
Horsepower's new album was also released by Glitterhouse in June 2002. The European tour of
this album recently came to an end with a concert at the Cirque Royal in Brussels (Les Nuits
Botanique).
In February 2003, the second Woven Hand CD was released, Blush music, based on the
production Blush, for which, invited by Wim Vandekeybus/Ultima Vez, David E. Edwards had
composed the music. The new CD includes the music score as well as reworked material for the
production.
66

danse/dans/dance (Bruxelles)
Compagnie Michèle Noiret
Sait-on jamais ? (Prospective III)
De Kriekelaar
9.12.13/05 > 20:00
10.11/05 > 18:00
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Chorégraphie/Choreografie/Choreography: Michèle Noiret
Créée & interprétée par/Gecreëerd & uitgevoerd door/Created & danced by: Michèle Noiret &
Sarah Piccinelli
Assistant artistique, images & régie vidéo/Artistieke medewerker, beelden & video/Artistic
assistant, Images & Video: Fred Vaillant
Son, interactions & régie son/Klank, interacties & geluidsregie/Sound, Interactions & Sound
direction: Todor Todoroff
Lumières/Licht/Lighting: Xavier Lauwers
Réalisation scénographique/Decor/Set design: Wim Vermeylen
Costumes/Kostuums/Costumes: Azniv Afsar
Coordination technique & régie lumières/Technische coördinatie & lichtregie/Technical
coordination & lighting: Philippe Warrand
Photos/Foto’s/Photos: Sergine Laloux, Fred Vaillant
Promotion/Promotie/Promotion: Alexandra de Laminne
Administration/Administratie/Administration: Cathy Zanté
Production/Productie/Production: Cie Michèle Noiret/Tandem asbl
Coproduction/Coproductie/Coproduction : Théâtre Les Tanneurs (Bruxelles/Brussel), La Ferme
du Buisson - Scène Nationale de Marne-la-Vallée, Théâtre d’Angoulême-Scène Nationale,
KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Avec de l'aide du/Met de steun van/Supported by: Ministère de la Communauté française de
Belgique-Service de la Danse
Michèle Noiret est en résidence au/is in residentie bij het/is in residence at the Théâtre Les
Tanneurs
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Théâtre Les Tanneurs, De Kriekelaar,
KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Création/Creatie/Creation
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 10/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 10/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 10/05.
67

Then one day a rumour went round that there was a place somewhere where no-one was
allowed to go. Do we ever know what kind of desires can enter people’s heads? (From “Stalker”
by Andrei Tarkovsky)
There are several ways of combining dance and technology. For several years now, Michèle
Noiret has been honing the sensitive area of how they might interact. Technology is not an end
in itself but the means – a way of creating strange new depths from the spatial confines of the
stage and refracting secret resonances from the dancers’ bodies. Working very closely with her
co-creators on sound and image, she is continuing her fruitful prospecting here with more
intimate forms called... Prospective(s). This is her third one: Do we ever know?
The inspiration for Sait-on jamais? came from Andrei Tarkovsky’s work. Begun towards the end
of 2002, this piece of research comprising two performers has been developed during short
residences at La Ferme du Buisson (Marne-la-Vallée) and the Théâtre d'Angoulême. The
results of this research, co-produced with the Théâtre Les Tanneurs where the company is in
residence, are being presented in Brussels from 9 to 13 May 2003 at the
KunstenFESTIVALdesArts.
How could I know or even name what I desire? Or be really certain not to want what I don’t
desire? These are elusive things. You only have to give them a name for their meanings to fade,
evaporate and disintegrate. Like a medusa in the sun. But what is it that I really want? What do I
want?! (Excerpt from the screenplay to “Stalker” by Andrei Tarkovsky).
According to Andrei Tarkovsky, “the aim of art is to shed light on the meaning of life for you and
for others”. This creation therefore is an exploration of life where an attempt is being made to
convey its subtle connections and profound phenomena in all their complexity and truth. We
seize what emerges from the poetic organisation in our everyday lives to go beyond its linear
logic and to stimulate the imagination. The performance becomes a metaphor of the world –
trying to awaken surprise, amazement and above all emotion in us. What we see repositions
how we see ourselves. But do we recognise ourselves? Why is there this difficulty in saying and
understanding things? We live in the fragility of the moment and we ask how and why in an
instant we can be so easily shaken from a feeling of intense happiness to an equally strong one
of confusion, pain and sadness.
“Choreographic sequences take place, unfold and diffract behind screens in a very compelling
effect of fictionalisation suffused with fantasy. Michèle Noiret’s own dancing and that of Sarah
Piccinelli is – essentially – of an insanely elegant maturity smashed down on the bones of
narrative suggestion”. Mouvement.net (interdisciplinary site for living arts), Gérard MAYEN, 7
February 2003
PROSPECTIVE(S) has developed through evolutionary forms, research and experiments that
have been welcomed and shown at different venues and by partners in Belgium and abroad
during the 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 seasons.
PROSPECTIVE(S) intensifies research into the decomposition of space and the integration of
new interactive sound and image technologies which the choreographer began several years
ago. Here Michèle Noiret has chosen time as her subject: new technologies induce a more
complex relationship with creation, they modify the performer’s role and function and therefore
require a specific period of research for the theme of each work. In accordance with the theme
of work chosen, PROSPECTIVE(S) convenes an encounter with new artistic propositions,
reinvented according to the venue welcoming them and the fruit of previous research. The
research compiled on the interaction between movement and a specific medium (image, sound,
text, music, stage design) comes across as many constituent reflective moments from
choreographic projects of the present and of the future.
68

Michèle Noiret
dancer-choreographer
The daughter of Joseph Noiret, the poet, writer and co-founder of the experimental movement
COBRA, Michèle Noiret established her company in 1986. Without freezing dance in one
technique, her choreographic work develops a rigorous command of the body serving an
inventive imagination. Her dance invites you on a journey, dropping the spectator into strange
and poetic mazes in which the dancers evolve with an extreme precision and an oblique, almost
theatrical presence. Michèle Noiret likes to surprise the spectator and surprise herself in
continually reinventing her vocabulary. Interested in the new technologies, she puts them to the
service of dance and imagination without every succumbing to the temptation of being
demonstrative.
Michèle Noiret studied at Mudra, established in Brussels by Maurice Béjart. It was here that she
met the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Their close collaboration over more than 15
years not only put her to the test of an immense musical personality, but also allowed her to
explore physically the system of notation that the composer invented. Her transition from
performer to choreographer also took place with a mark of experimental research and rigour.
Characteristic of her work too is an openness to other artistic disciplines such as visual arts, the
metamorphosis of space on stage, a curiosity for the new media of sound and image and
original musical compositions. Michèle Noiret has to her name some twenty choreographic
productions in which her encounters with other artists have been striking.
Sarah Piccinelli
dancer
Born in Paris in 1972, Sarah Piccinelli began studying classical dance in Italy. A recipient of
several scholarships to study, she made her debut as a performer with Luc Bouy and Sacha
Ramos. She left Italy to work in the Maguy Marin company and then became involved in
different companies in Belgium: Michèle-Anne De Mey, Matteo Moles, Fernando Martin and
now Michèle Noiret. In parallel she also works in opera with Lucinda Childs and Bob Wilson.
Fred Vaillant
Artistic assistant and images
Fred Vaillant is a self-taught dancer enriched by everyday work and encounters from time to
time with different choreographers (Georges Appaix, Hélène Cathala, Fabrice Ramalingom).
From 1986 to 2001 he taught in a number of different places and dance companies in France,
Canada, Morocco, Egypt and Belgium. He met Michèle Noiret in 1998 and danced in her
production . His journey then continued as assistant choreographer at the Cairo Opera
alongside Walid Aouni before he met up again with Michèle Noiret as assistant choreographer
in her creation Twelve Seasons (May 2001). Today he is the artistic assistant and image creator
(video-maker) on the projects Mes jours et mes nuits (April 2002) and Sait-on jamais?
Todor Todoroff
sound and interactions
Having researched voice analysis and synthesis at the “Laboratory of Experimental Phonetics at
the Free University of Brussels, Todor Todoroff spent five years directing research in musical
computer science at the Faculté Polytechnique in Mons. There he developed programs in
synthesis, analysis and sound transformation, as well as spatialisation tools in real time
intended for composers of electro-acoustic music.
He continued his research at ARTeM where he developed a matrix of spatialisation and
interactive systems for sound installations and dance. His electro-acoustic music marks a
particular interest in multiphonia and the issue of managing sound space, as well as research
and experimentation in new methods of transforming sound. His collaboration with Michèle
Noiret began in 1998 on the production . Since then he has created the sound and
interactive universe for In Between (March 2000) and Twelve Seasons (May 2001) echoing
Stockhausen’s score for Tierkreis. Today, in Mes jours et mes nuits (April 2002) and Sait-on
jamais?, he is continuing to develop different research he started with the choreographer in
earlier productions on pressure sensors, microswitches and ultrasound sensors.
69

Xavier Lauwers
lighting
Successively stage manager at Auditorium 44, the Théâtre de l'Atelier Sainte-Anne and the
Théâtre de Poche, Xavier Lauwers is now head of technology at Théâtre 140.
First working his magic on light for theatre, opera and concerts he then moved on to
experimenting with the world of dance. His collaboration with choreographer Michèle Noiret
began in 1990 on the production Louisiana Breakfast. Since then the strange and surreal worlds
of Xavier Lauwers have continued to light the choreographic pieces subtly, notably L’Espace
oblique, Avna, Tollund, Les Plis de la Nuit, Solo Stockhausen and most recently In Between and
Twelve Seasons. Ever the collaborator, Xavier Lauwers has contributed his research into light
on Mes jours et mes nuits (April 2002) and Sait-on jamais?
70

Danse/Dans/Dance (Solo - Java)
Mugiyono Kasido
Mencari Mata Candi
Chapelle des Brigittines / Brigittinenkapel
16.19/05 > 20:30
17.18/05 > 18:00
50’
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Conception & Mise en scène/Concept & Regie/Conceived & Directed by: Mugiyono Kasido
Interprétation/Performer: Mugi dance-indonesia
Compositeur/Componist/Music composer: Antonius Wahyudi Sutrisna
Scénographie, son & lumières/Decorontwerp, geluid & licht/Set Designer, Sound & Lighting:
Iskandar Kama Loedin
Images & multimédia/Beelden & multimedia/Visual art & multimedia: Edi Priambudhi
Musiciens/Muzikanten/Musicians: Antonius Wahyudi Sutrisna, Sunardi, Sri Mulyana
Photographe/Fotograaf/Photographer: Yanuarius Hari Sinthu
Conception costumes/Kostuumontwerp/Costume Designer: Bambang Mbesur Suryono &
Mugiyono Kasido
Coordinateur de production/Productiecoördinator/Production coordinator: Honggo Utomo
Production/Productie: KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Avec le soutien de/Met de steun van/Supported by: Ambassade d’Indonésie à Bruxelles
Remerciéments à/Dank aan/Special thanks to: Mie Cornoedus, Joker Toerisme
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Les Brigittines-Bruxelles, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Création/Creatie/Creation
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 17/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 17/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 17/05
71

What was it exactly that you experienced, read or saw that triggered off the idea behind
your creation?
For Mencari Mata Candi I was inspired by own experience and in particular the experiences I
had when I was heavily involved in a research project led by university researchers from Europe
and Asia 1 with Professor Edi Sedyawati of Jakarta University. It was a two-year project on the
reconstruction of danced movements engraved into the wood on the outer balustrade of Candi
Loro Jonggrang in the Prambanan temple complex.
As a dancer and choreographer I joined this inter-university project in 2000 and studied the
temple’s bas reliefs under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Edi Sedyawati. This space in the temple
with its specific atmosphere became a kind of natural studio for my work. Here I practised
understanding the reliefs by testing the sensitivity of my own body and all I had acquired during
five years of following a creative process and training.
The inspiration for Mencari Mata Candi (Looking for temple eyes) comes from a three-way
experience: reading, watching and ‘communicating’. This process of absorption was very
strange: it was about creating and recreating a new idiom of dance from within my own body. A
sufficiently flexible idiom to incorporate past and present, an idiom that also enabled me to
respond to the demands of a contemporary audience preoccupied with the desire to forge
continuous links between yesterday and today.
Why did you focus specifically on the bas reliefs on the outer balustrade of the Candi
Loro Jonggrang?
The bas reliefs carved on the temple balustrade play an important role in inspiring my
choreography. They don’t actually tell a story but represent a series of dance poses. During my
research I tried to combine the postures in these bas reliefs like words in a choreographic
phrase, and I transformed them into living movements. They aren’t stories but represent worlds
visualised by the temple’s architecture. The Prambanan temple is divided into three vertical
parts:
a. the base of the temple which describes ‘the lower world’, where man is gnawed at by
vices
b. the main part of the building that describes ‘the middle world’ where man says goodbye
to his profane life
c. the top of the temple depicting ‘the upper world’ where the gods live.
I tried to visualise this notion, imagining the story of the life cycle of a human being.
In Mencari Mata Candi you also include the Indonesian tradition of shadow theatre. What
do these shadows represent, which figures, which characters and what story do they
tell?
I actually use shadow theatre to develop the plot of this story, but I also use its codes as
symbols and metaphors. The presence of Gunungan at the beginning of my production is an
example of this. In shadow theatre the puppeteer always brings on Gunungan first to begin the
story. His appearance marks the start of the performance. I’ve adapted this type of concept in
Mencari Mata Candi to visualise the first stage of a person’s life: birth.
In another scene I introduce the legendary character of Shiva. In shadow theatre shows the
appearance of this figure always provokes destruction, misery and death to lots of people.The
diversity of danced movements in Mencari Mata Candi is actually based on the bas reliefs of the
Shiva temple in Prambanan, but my production and its props were inspired by other temples.
72

Can you remind us who Shiva is, what his story is and his importance in Indonesian
culture?
According to the Trimurti doctrine of Hinduism, the most respected god is Brahma as the creator
of the universe, then there is Vishnu as the protector, and lastly Shiva as the destroyer of the
universe. However in Indonesia Shiva is the most popular god. In Java he is assumed to be the
highest god amongst gods which is why some believers see him as the Mahadewa.
Shiva the Mahadewa is characterized by having several attributes. His throne is embellished
with a skull figuration above a crescent moon. He has a third eye above his forehead and four
hands. He wears a snake shoulder belt as his caste symbol and wears a tiger skin shirt. His
hands hold a trident, a fan, a rosary, a lotus and a circular object which is assumed to be the
seed of the universe.
Is Mencari Mata Candi positioned literally or metaphorically in the context of the society
in which you live?
Both.
In what way?
LITERALLY
I come from Indonesia and have always been aware of the Prambanan complex. My body and
mind were conditioned to absorb literature about temples and their bas reliefs which contributed
positively to my movement memories later on. Most of the movements used in this work are the
expression of the ‘translation’ of these memories: there are therefore lots of opportunities for
these variations of movement to be the natural combination of different elements of my
Indonesian culture.
METHAPHORICALLY
The metaphor is contained in the concept of the plot and the story of Mencari Mata Candi.
Can you tell us what the importance of the Prambanan Temple is in your culture?
It is clear that the existence of the Prambanan temple and other temples is a scientific asset that
ought to be studied much more deeply. This historical heritage maintains an essential
relationship with Indonesian culture. Unfortunately today it is more of a tourist attraction than a
cultural one.
Why have you specifically chosen dance as a means of expression?
I come from a puppeteer family. Before attending high school I joined my grandfather’s shadow
theatre group. I often think about how difficult and hard it is to be a puppeteer. Every time my
grandfather was asked to be a puppeteer he had to prepare a lot of equipment, such as the
gamelan puppet. And to perform the shadow show you need a lot of people, especially
musicians. My decision to choose another discipline was influenced by being aware of these
difficulties, and dance became my means of expression. The main instrument is our own body
and we can always use it anytime and anywhere. This was the simple thought I was concerned
with at the start, without considering that sometimes we need other people’s support to visualise
our own expression and make it happen.
73

In your opinion what should the ideal role of dance be in contemporary society?
I think dance should be able to develop without this development being subjected any kind of
restrictions or rules.
What do you value most in human nature?
Simplicity.
What do you hate the most?
Bureaucracy.
What do you consider to be the greatest frustration?
Losing your rights.
What do like doing most?
This is a very simple question but I need time to reply.
1 With Dr Alessandra Lopez y Roy Iyer (Senior Lecturer in Dance at the University of Surrey, Roehampton), Dr. Pinna
Indorf from CASA, National University of Singapore (NUS), and Dr John Miksic from the Southeast Asian Studies
Program of NUS. They had been awarded a research grant to work with Dr Edi Sedyawati, Director of the Center for
Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences of the University Indonesia, Jakarta.
Mugiyono Kasido
Born in 1967 at the Java Centre, Mugiyono Kasido grew up in a world of puppet shows. During
his studies at the Indonesian College of Arts and the Mangkunegaran Palace, he became
familiar with traditional dance and ritual movements. In Indonesia he became a choreographer
and dancer of the highest distinction. Several of his works, such as Kabar Kabur, Bagaspati,
Kosong and Amorpheus, have been shown at various festivals in Europe. They reveal a cross
of cultures because he has worked with the choreographers Denise Reyes (Philippines), Waguri
(Japan), Osama (Japan), Ria Haggler (Netherlands) and Lane Savador (USA).
74

Danse/Dans/Dance (Paris)
Compagnie FV/François Verret
Chantier Musil
Halles de Schaerbeek
22.24/05 > 20:00
23/05 > 22:00
60’
€ 12,5 – 8,5
à partir de la lecture de/ op basis van de lectuur van /based on the reading of: Robert Musil, Der
Mann ohne Eigenschaften
Mise en scène/Regie/Direction: François Verret
Avec/ Met/With: Mathurin Bolze, Dimitri Jourde, Irma Omerzo, Vincent Fortemps, Christian
Dubet, Jean-Pierre Drouet, Alain Mahé, Gaëtan Besnard, François Verret
Scénographie/Toneelbeeld/Set design: Claudine Brahem
Elements scénographiques/Scenografische elementen/Scenographical elements: Zouzou
Leyens
Musique/Muziek/Music: Jean Pierre Drouet, Fred Frith
Partition sonore/Klankpartituur/Sound score: Alain Mahé
Plasticien/Beeldend kunstenaar/Visual Artist: Vincent Fortemps
Collaboration artistique/Artistieke medewerker/Artistic collaborator: Sylvie Blum
Montage video/Videomontage/Video Montage: Françoise Arnaud
Régie vidéo/Videoregie/Direction video: Gaëtan Besnard
Lumière/Licht/Lighting: Christian Dubet avec/met/with Gwendal Malard
Régie générale/Technisch directeur/Technical director: Jean-Noël Launay
Construction décor/Decoropbouw/Construction Set: Vincent Gadras, Stéphane Potiron
Remerciements à/Met dank aan/Thanks to: Atelier Proscenium - Rennes
et pour les voix/en voor de stemmen/and for the voices: Paulette Beffar, Sylvie Blum, Gaëlle
Héraut
Coproduction/Coproductie/Coproduction: Théâtre National de Bretagne/TNB (Rennes),
Compagnie F.V. (Paris), Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Festival d’Avignon 2003, Le Cargo-Maison
de la Culture (Grenoble),Théâtre des Salins - Scène Nationale de Martigues
Avec le soutien de/Met de steun van/Supported by: Parc de la Villette dans le cadre des
Résidences 2002 et de la résidence de La Fonderie / Théâtre du Radeau - Le Mans
avec le concours du Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication dans le cadre du dispositif
DICREAM et du Conseil Régional d’Ile de France, l’Association Française d’Action Artistique
(AFAA) et le service de coopération et d’action culturelle de l’ambassade de France à Bruxelles,
KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Halles de Schaerbeek, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
La Compagnie FV est soutenue par/wordt gesteund door/is supported by: la DRAC Ile de
France, Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication & le Conseil Général de Seine Saint-
Denis
L’ouvrage de Vincent Fortemps Chantier-Musil (Coulisse) paraîtra en juin 2003 aux Editions
FRMK / De publicatie van Vincent Fortemps Chantier-Musil (Coulisse) zal verschijnen in juni
2003 bij Editions FRMK / Vincent Fortemps publication Chantier-Musil (Coulisse) be published
in june 2003, Editions FRMK – (28€)
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 23/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 23/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 23/05.
75

NOTE OF OUR INTENTION
Our work begins with a reading of Musil’s The Man Without Qualities, a fictional account centred
on the character of Ulrich. Through Ulrich’s eyes, Musil’s intention is to re-present reality in its
entirety in the context of a changing future. For this reason it is destined to remain an unfinished
fragment with no middle or end.
He affirms the multiple, shifting nature of reality, the inexistence of reality or a given truth,
whereas for him there is only the game of the gods with dice, the endless merry-go-round of all
the interpretations possible, the changing colours of possibilities. Reality is an infinite series of
centres similar to the complex, anonymous and multiple physiognomy of the city described at
the beginning of The Man Without Qualities.
Like all big cities, it was made of irregularities and changes, of things and matters slipping one
in front of the other, refusing to go at a walking pace, banging into each other, intervals of
silence, major routes and a wide-ranging rhythmical heartbeat, eternal dissonance, eternal
disequilibrium of rhythms.
This is a sphere of relationships that is immense and changing, governed by the principle of
indecisiveness, continually modified by the observer who wants to grasp it and, therefore, alter
it, or by the narrator whose words don’t have an organic totality to represent but a dispersion
that is open for an indefinite period of time.
The place where the story is located is Cacanie, a big city full of people of all kinds, men and
women of quality, people who have professions, status, identities, property, certainties, things to
do that, with every action, fill the space they pass through with a sort of frenetic activism. And
then there are men and women who challenge this mode of how to relate to reality, notably
Ulrich, ‘the man without qualities’, Agathe his sister, the murderer Moosbrugger (but is he an
identity?) and Clarissa who is said to be mad.
In short, lots of motifs, a constellation of characters, narrative lines autonomous from each other
that develop and overlap according to different inner rhythms.
The narrative (if there is one) tells the story of Ulrich, the man without qualities, his journey
(linked to critical thought), indissociable from the context (landscape-environment) in which he is
living, or how this man passes through reality, how he perceives reality, what he sees, what he
hears, what he thinks, whom he meets, what is going on around him, what surrounds him, what
he does. Of course examples of events give emphasis to the narrative. The paradox is that
despite this in a way nothing happens. If nothing happens it is because “it is always the same
story” and because from Ulrich’s point of view, the elements coming into his experience do not
have any real value as events.
Moreover it is not objective events that govern the temporal structures of the narrative, but the
unpredictable chain of Ulrich’s thoughts and memories that has lost its narrative sense i and
perceives itself as a place where a flow of sensations passes by. In his writing, Musil applies the
physicist Heisenberg’s Principle of Uncertainty to reality. He develops a perpetually changing
optical process that allows him to shift his gaze, apprehending reality in different ways and
questioning it indefinitely. Without stopping he changes directions as he writes. It is constructed
with fragments. It is not linear. It is complex.
Ulrich can only give discontinuous or incomplete images of reality, where the narrative’s linearity
is constantly broken, where attention jumps from one subject to another. The narration, if there
is one, is no longer done from a single point of view, but from narrative perspectives and
discursive positions that are mutually relative. It is from this view-thought of Musil-Ulrich’s that
we will be inventing a text for stage.
We will not be looking for a unitary style capable of giving us an all-encompassing vision that a
“conscious subject” would have of the world he is passing through, but as the subject discovers
that he is no longer the unitarian centre synthesising and organising things into a hierarchy, but
the chaotic and incoherent place where contradictions encounter each other, overlap and
76

merge, we will be inventing a form of writing that through its own dislocation, anarchic
multiplicity and plurality of styles will give an effective account of a dispersion that is open for an
indefinite period of time, a definitive dislocation of reality.
To do this we will be inventing the tools – a mechanical cinema 2 , a space for wires, a table with
rolls 3 , figures-mannequins – that seem to us capable of translating into action our vision of the
universe created by Musil.
The stage will be the place where a language is invented that cuts across a multiplicity of
viewpoints, but also a plurality of styles linked to different subjective visions borne by the artists
without any homogenising desire to incorporate all these points of view into “stylistic cohesion”.
François Verret
1
In Chapter 122 of Volume 1, Musil tells of how impossible Ulrich feels subscribing to the conventions of classic
narration to be.
It suddenly came to him (it was one of these apparently displaced and abstract thoughts that often took on such
immediate meaning in his life) that the law of this life, to which one aspires when one is overburdened with tasks and
when one dreams of simplicity, was nothing other than the law of classic narration! Of this simple order that enables it to
be said: “When that happened, this took place!” It is pure and simple succession, the reproduction of life’s oppressive
diversity in a one-dimensional form as would be told by a mathematician to reassure us; the alignment in space and
time of everything that has happened along a thread, precisely this famous “thread of the story”, with which the thread of
life ends up becoming confused. Happy the one who can say “when”, “before” and “after”! He may have been struck by
misfortune, he may be writhing in the worst agonies, but as soon as he is in a position to reproduce events in the
succession in which they occurred in time, he feels as good as if the sun were shining on his belly. This is what the
novel has benefited from skilfully: the traveller can move through countries under downpours of rain or make the snow
crunch under his feet at minus 20°, and the reader feels at ease. It would be quite hard to understand if the narrative
art’s never-ending piece of trickery, to which even wet nurses turn to calm children, if this “perspective of intelligence”,
this “shortening of distances” were not already an integral part of life. In their fundamental relationship with themselves,
most men are narrators. They don’t like poetry or only occasionally. Even if some “because’s” and “so that’s” blend in
with the thread of life here and there, they nevertheless have a horror of any reflection that tries to go beyond it. They
like a well-regulated succession of facts because it has all the appearance of necessity, and the impression that their life
is following a “course” is like shelter from chaos for them. Ulrich was noticing now that he had lost the meaning of this
primitive narration to which our private life still remains attached, although everything in public life has already escaped
narration and, far from following a thread, is spreading out on a subtly interwoven surface.
2 Mechanical cinema
It is a kind of Méliès-type DIY bringing mental landscapes to life in movement. With the use of tools, the reveries
combine the transparent celluloid on which Vincent Fortemps draws with his soft lead lithographic pencil and a sheet of
glass through which a camera films in real time what is being drawn. In this space currently being constructed,
deconstructed and reconstructed, Christian Dubet intervenes with several sources of light to make the internal life of the
landscapes, spaces and associations that Vincent is drawing appear, disappear and be precisely modulated.
It is a kind of narrative – through the image that is also movement, where it is about making the intensities, presence
and dense burdens appear, disappear and be varied through the sensitivity of the light’s movement, thus creating a kind
of atmosphere.
It is in the image of a reverie where there is perpetual fragility and where time does not stabilise. It is the tangible setting
in motion of what it is “to be without qualities”. It is not about making a well-centred, stable and fixed image, being sure
of its grain and colours. It is about questioning the very content of this image, its precariousness, its quality. Questioning
it whilst making it is setting it in a relative movement. At every moment it is a test, it does not stabilise itself, the image is
looking for itself, it is looking to extend then delete itself to bring another to life, and then the same happens again.
Mechanical cinema is an art closely linked to the inner time of Ulrich, the man without qualities. By dint of seeing these
men and women of reality, men and women of qualities unfurling as he sees them, he says to himself occasionally: “I
would really like to jump off the train, get off and take time differently, open up a space of perceptions, of feelings, no
longer be a conscious subject that asserts an “I”, but a flow of perpetually changing sensations in a perpetually moving
reality.
3 Tables with rolls
By displaying tables with rollers Zouzou Leyens is representing Ulrich’s view of this city.
This roller of images contains bits of landscapes unfolding, landscape after landscape, an infinity of landscapes …
It is “always the same story” and the view-camera comes to dig around in this parade, this unreeling of images. It is
looking to pierce the mystery of this reality. It is putting into practice movement from a view that tirelessly questions
reality.
The table with rollers embodies the perpetual optical process emphasising Musil-Ulrich’s view of the world around him,
and lays out the mental landscape of one figure or another.
On the politician Leinsdorf, for example: suddenly from the continual unrolling of a tapestry of repeated baroque motifs a
task buried in the depths of the motif-ritornello resurfaces. It is the photograph of a broken man (injured, murdered…)
77

and then rapidly this motif is buried again in the image of a use of realpolitik that constantly places a principle of denying
reality on the work, where aspects of reality that do not suit are deleted or suppressed.
François Verret
A choreographer since 1980, all his productions have been created in close collaboration with
other artists: actors like Daniel Emilfork, Daniel Kenigsberg, Frédéric Leidgens, Alain Rigout,
dancers like Anne Koren, Bernardo Montet, Mathilde Monnier, Jean-Christophe Pare, musicians
like Ghédalia Tazartes, Yumi Nara, Fred Frith, Jean-Pierre Drouet, visual artists like Goury,
Claudine Brahem, and lighting engineers like Rémi Nicolas and Christian Dubet.
In 1980 he won first prize at the Bagnolet choreographic competition with his piece Tabula
Rasa. His work has continued most notably with Fin de parcours (1982), Les Portes d’Italie, In
illo Tempore for the GRCOP (Choreographic Research Group at the Paris Opera), Une éclipse
totale de soleil (1983), La Latérale de Charlie for the CNDC in Angers, Illusions Comiques, La
for the GRCOP, La Chute de la Maison Carton (1986), Det Kommer, Det Kommer for the
Cullberg ballet, Quel est le secret? (1987), L’Horloge en folie, L. et Eux, La Nuit, Faustus
(1990), Le vent de sa course, Où commencer? (1992), Nous sommes des vaincus (1994),
Rapport pour une académie (1996), Sur l’air de Marlbrough ok with the Ecole Nationale des Arts
du Cirque, Memento (1997), Qui voyez-vous? (1997), Kaspar Konzert (1998), Fin et début
(1999) and Bartleby (2000). In May 2003, he created Chantier Musil at the TNB in Rennes.
He was artistic director at the Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers from 1993 to 2000 and remains its
president today.
78

Expo & City Event (Mexico City)
Gustavo Artigas
Kanal 20
Expo: 3-24/05, du mercredi au samedi/ van woensdag tot zaterdag/ Wednesday to Saturday >
14:00 – 18:00
Vernissage: 2/05 > 19:30
City Event:
Quelque part, un jour en mai
Ergens, op een dag in mei
Somewhere, someday in May
Entrée Libre/Vrije toegang/Free entrance
Création/Creatie/Creation
Concept: Gustavo Artigas
Avec le soutien de/Met de steun van/Supported by: Nina Menocal Gallery, Secretaría de
Relaciones Exteriores, Coordinación de Asuntos Intenacionales CONACULTA/INBA, Embajada
de México en Bélgica
Remerciéments à/Dank aan/Special thanks to: Looking Glass (Bruxelles/Brussel)
Production/Productie/Production: KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Kanal 20, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
79

Are we here to play or to be serious?
Are we here to play or to be serious? And in all seriousness what is playing or games for that
matter? It could be said that the aforementioned questions (the first a title in fact), extracted
from Georges Batailles’ Happiness, Eroticism, and Literature (Essays: 1944-1961), are key to
the game and disaster investigations of contemporary visual artist Gustavo Artigas (Mexico City,
Mexico, 1970). For the past four years, the artist who is based in Mexico City, but coordinates
the majority of his projects in other international cities, has developed a stunning, complex
language surrounding the social tensions of group organization and the consequences and risks
involved in game and disaster situations. More specifically, Artigas’ work engages a universe of
limits. As for the game, the limit between what is and what is not [a game] is more difficult to
specify that what it seems at first glance. On behalf of common reactions, the game would be a
free activity without consequences. The disaster on the other hand – in Artigas’ experience – is
a limit confined by fear and/or inevitability. Acting as Master of Ceremonies he has developed a
three-ring circus scheme juxtaposing games, performative gestures, and political critiques into
episodical chapters.
Games
His most revered work The Rules of the Game (2000-2001), which was presented at the InSite
2000 edition on the Tijuana/San Diego border, baffled many by turning the notion of the game
on its head, questioning some hybrid form of a limit; tackling competitive action via cohabitation.
There, many spectators witnessed, although subtly, two strikingly innocuous, yet sublimely
political acts of social compatibility/incompatibility. Firstly, he built a handball court next to the
border in the local neighborhood of la Libertad-a common crossing point for illegal immigrants
entering into the United States-issuing forth a commentary on the bouncing like migratory
tendencies of the region. For the second part of his project, Artigas welcomed two high school
soccer and basketball teams from Tijuana and San Diego to stage
a simultaneous match on the same court, introducing a game/situation model that would later
come to be closely associated with the artist.
Interestingly, unlike what the normal public would expect from the atypical competitive sports
game –
a head butting battle in the fight for court domination-the four teams’ cohesive organization
produced an interesting policy: difference without interference. Combining chance with jeopardy
and a great deal of unpredictability, Artigas created a work that resounded in the political arena
of its vicinity. Although only one minor accident occurred in the event, it could be said that
raising the temperature is what the artist is seeking. Like The Rules of the Game, two similar
works, Geeta vs. Sage (2001) and The Domino Effect (2000) target the parameters of social
convention and cohesiveness amongst group organization. Geeta vs. Sage was produced at
the Roxy Rhythm Bar in Melville, Johannesburg, South Africa alongside the other works created
on residency, Jewelry (2001) and Big Engagement, Big Hole (2001). All are defined under the
project name Locals Hate Us. Unlike other projects that investigate extreme or unusual
situations, this piece examines the social anxiety of the immigrant condition. “In one of the
Johannesburg projects for example”, Artigas explains, “I used a particular tension in one social
aspect of South Africa. Some red zone bars were closed by the government because of the
growing illegal population coming from other African countries (the same is happening in Mexico
too). In this work called Geeta vs. Sage I developed a ceramic piece firing the mud used in a
mud-wrestling fight.” This formally elegant work operates on other levels besides the spectator
side of sports action. It questions, “the place where art happens, the tense situation of illegal
aliens in some countries, and
the problems of tolerance and competition among others.” The same could be said for The
Domino Effect, a piece created for the 7th Havana Biennial in Cuba. Prostitutes instead of illegal
aliens, i.e., woman mud wrestlers, for this case, are the protagonists in this work. For the action
recorded on video, the artist coordinated a domino competition amongst four prostitutes and
four male Cuban visual artists. Questioning tolerance on a different level, each participant, for
each game lost, as the video records, was asked to drink a glass of rum. When the player could
no longer compete or drink more, he/she was eliminated from the game. Funnily, the champion,
a woman, was awarded a bottle of rum as the winning prize.
80

Performative Risk
Other investigations differ by plunging into the repercussions of risk while appropriating a social
discourse pertinent to contemporary art discussion. The in-situ production, Emergency Exit
(2001) presented at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil (The Carrillo Gil Art Museum) in Mexico City
is one of various examples. Rarely does Artigas develop works in the context of museums, but
for this particular project the artist organized a spectacle-like dynamic involving a motorcycle
stuntman who enters, crashes through, and exits the museum’s lobby in a fraction of a second.
Curators have alluded to the artist’s relative disapproval of coordinating projects especially for
museums as well as never having witnessed such an event in the museum’s history. They also
reflect on Artigas’ yearning to occupy the museum space in a short time, penetrating a portion of
the architectural edifice without directly entering it. Yet, they fail to speak of his attraction to the
public spectacle. The artist once mentioned in an interview “works can go wrong and that is the
possibility that the work holds as well.” But what is inside of that possibility? The guarantee of a
spectacle? Although we know that the motorcyclist will crash through the foyer, we cannot help
the stomach-churning thought of if the stuntman will land safely on the other side. Perhaps this
is also due to the MC nature of the artist’s work, how he moves the crowd by taunting the
visiting public with the stuntman circling the periphery of the museum. Here precisely is Artigas’
game at work. This one may not be interactive, yet it does flirt with the viewer’s reaction when
confronted with danger.
Political Distractions
Another disaster investigation is the work Insomnia (2002). Artigas produced a public postcard
work, distributed freely, targeting the notions of security/insecurity via the sleeping disorder
complex. On the postcard it is written, “People often complain of insomnia after experiencing
catastrophic events or situations. If you suffer from insomnia or any other sleeping disorder
please consult the following website: www.planb.tv/insomnia” (both in English and Arabic). Once
consulting the site, by clicking on a pill graphic, individuals can access pages addressing
sleeping disorder issues and solutions. Ironically, Artigas relates his project to the relief
advertising campaign, New York Needs Us Strong, supported by The New York City
Department of Public Health and Project Liberty. Fascinated by the spectacle, Artigas refers to
the postcard campaign’s impact on the psychology of a larger social atmosphere.
Comparable to the New York Needs Us Strong campaign is the more spectacle-profit based
Attack on America postcard operation. On the left hand corner next to one of many disaster
images the postcard reads, “Disaster Cards, Proceeds to benefit Victims of September 11th
Attack on America.” In analysing these postcards together with the artist’s social-psychological
study, it is important to look to Debord’s, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle. In
particular, I am referring to his discussion of images and the price of the spectacle as well as
Artigas’ interpretation of the loss of logic in the postcard campaigns. He states: the primary
cause of the decadence of contemporary thought evidently lies in the fact that spectacular
discourse leaves no room for any reply; while logic was only socially constructed through
dialogue. […] At the technological level, when images chosen and constructed by someone else
have everywhere become the individual’s principal connection to the world he formerly observed
for himself, it has certainly not been forgotten that these images can tolerate anything and
everything; because within the same image all things can be juxtaposed without contradiction.
The flow of images carries everything before it, and it is similarly someone else who controls at
will this simplified summary of the sensible world; who decides where the flow will lead as well
as the rhythm of what should be shown, like some perpetual, arbitrary surprise, leaving no time
for reflection, and entirely independent of what the spectator might understand or think of it.
Combining the conventions of high art with the voyeurism and titillation of mass spectacle is
Artigas’ social specialty. Artigas work embodies something broader than the creation of
situations, actions, and art objects. It employs a language addressing social-psychological
group organization and public spectacle as well as the culture of the game, the game as life in
itself. Although we cannot assume death consequences with a simple simultaneous
basketball/soccer match or the crashing of a motorcycle through a museum foyer, we
understand Artigas’ impulse in the comedy of the combat.
Jennifer Teets, independent curator. 2003
81

Performance (Paris)
Myriam Gourfink & Kasper T. Toeplitz
Rare
BSBbis
3/05 > 23:00 – 05:00 (accès possible toute la nuit/ toegang mogelijk op elk moment/entrance all
night)
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Concept & Réalisation/Realisatie/Realisation: Myriam Gourfink & Kasper T. Toeplitz
Texte/Tekst/Text: François Bon
Danseurs/Dansers: Carole Garriga, Myriam Gourfink, Cindy Van Acker
Musiciens/Muzikanten/Musicians: Didier Casamitjana, Julien Ottavi, Laurent Dailleau, Kasper T.
Toeplitz
Vidéos, son & lumières/Videos, geluid & licht/Videos, sound & lighting: Silvère
Costumes/Kostuums/Costumes: KOVA
Diffusion/Verspreiding/Distribution: Damien Valette
Administration/Administratie/Administration: Sophie Pulicani
Coproduction/Coproductie/Coproduction: le CCN de Franche–Comté à Belfort, le CCN de
Rennes et de Bretagne.
Avec le soutien de/Met de steun van/Supported by: la SPEDIDAM, Ministère de la Culture et de
la Communication (aide au projet chorégraphique, aide au projet musical, DICREAM), Réseau
européen APAP, la Mairie de Paris, l’Association Française d’Action Artistique (AFAA) & le
service de coopération et d’action culturelle de l’ambassade de France à Bruxelles
Remerciéments à/Dank aan/Special thanks to: CICV & CND
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: BSBbis, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
82

For me, Rare is about moving through different artistic languages: poetry, music, video, dance.
They all devote themselves to taking the participants through an experience removed from time.
I think that as soon as someone penetrates Rare’s space,
that person becomes an integral part of the performance.
It makes no difference whether this person is a performer or a member of the audience.
- Myriam Gourfink
What was it exactly that you experienced, read or saw that triggered off the idea behind
your creation?
As the choreographic score for Rare was being written – done sitting at a table, prior to
rehearsals with the dancers – I read Danielle Collobert’s Dire 1 et 2. It’s a book that was given
to me by François Bon. When I’m working on a creation I like to be infused by a book. But
there’s no direct connection between what I read and my choreography, just a palpable infusion.
Is the project positioned literally or metaphorically in the context of the society in which
you live?
I hope all my projects express the present, the here and now, and speak of cities, roads and
what’s around me.
How do they achieve this?
What I’m concerned by in an urban environment is the order of the perceptible, like spaces
between two lines, ‘It’ penetrates the air, ‘it’ is in the metro, at shop counters, in papers, in the
speed of the city when we take time to look. ‘It’ is a relationship, a link between my environment
and an attitude, making a token appearance. One can’t exist without the other.
Your project integrates a text. How did you choose the author?
We share the same aims, and there’s been a long-standing collaboration between François Bon
and Kasper T. Toeplitz, the composer of Rare’s music. François talks of cities, of nothingness,
of emptiness. His writing is physical and carnal, it passes through bodies. Also François Bon is
a living writer (which I find essential) and the texts are original, tailor-made for Rare.
How are you dealing with his texts to turn them into language for theatre?
François Bon’s sentences move along video screens arranged more or less all over the
performance space. They flow by and occasionally a word will catch your eye and perhaps
make itself heard, resounding inside a ‘body’ space – the spectator’s, the dancer’s, the
musician’s. François’s text remains a poetic text and is fully integrated into the installation.
Do you feel that you’re involved in a process of ‘choreographic’ writing? If you do, how
do you define your language?
I think about choreographic language, its writing, its modalities of creation and invention. I resort
to abstraction and new technologies in order to create.
With Rare, I wanted to write an ‘open’ choreographic score, a score where nothing is fixed and
where the writing isn’t connected with the functional analysis of movement or a dramaturgy
about bodies.
The body and the space are considered more as volumes with strange contours or abstract
surfaces. With this piece I’m hoping to continue work I’ve already tackled in other projects where
I use elements like breathing, focus points of thought, concentration moving from one volume to
another etc. In using parameters that are more subtle and more abstract (breathing, thoughts)
and by imagining another cut-out of the body, I’ve actually been able to verify that we’re working
physically with the notions of flux and energy. The resultant locomotion is slow and evades all
notion of a “bodily technique”. Writing these currents passing through the body is therefore the
driving force behind the dancer’s desire to move. It is elasticity, possibilities of interpretation,
and all this whilst moving radically away from a form of improvised dance. The score lasting a
83

total of 5 or 6 hours will be offered to seven dancers. One or more dancers will appear, one will
disappear, it will be a performed in shifts, occasionally overlapping, sometimes just emptiness.
What is the common theme running through your approach for the stage?
I try to avoid the spectacular and remain in an abstraction, allowing an orchestration of the
sensory. As if every piece were an opportunity for exploring a new spectrum of perceptions. I
like inventing devices and situations where the performer is obliged to give what is most ‘rare’ in
him.
What situation have you devised for Rare?
There is no head-on relationship with Rare. The centre of the space is empty and there’s very
little light. So it’s not about having a view of all of it. This device contributes to bringing the
audience and performance closer together, creating an intimacy. Not everything in Rare will be
seen (even if you were to stay for six hours in the performance space). Each person passing
through the device has a unique view of it.
What new techniques have you turned to for this creation?
To create the score for Rare, I used LOL environment software for choreographic composition.
Unlike a choreographic journey, this device tends to surprise spectators and lose them. Screens
will serve as sources of light and will give dancers information in real time. The information
they’re given will complete the score by deflecting it from its foreseeable course. As well as this,
I’d like the image not to appear clearly on the screens but to take some time before becoming
legible, lending a fuzziness to the information and stimulating the imagination, the performer’s
creativity. The treatment of the image will be musical and abstract.
The music will be composed by Kasper T. Toeplitz and performed by three musicians. Here too,
music will perhaps come suddenly where you don’t expect it, without having any idea where the
sound is coming from.
What is the music like?
The three musicians are going to play ‘traditional’ instruments (percussion and brass
instruments) hybridised by computers (one per musician, as an integral part of the instrument
being played) all connected by a network (audio and commands) managed by a network of
neurons – artificial intelligence. The idea here is make ONE instrument – played by three
musicians spread out in the space and only communicating via the network.
In the way it’s written, the music is going to rely on time –of extended duration here – to
construct a long sound mutation. Much more than a development, it is in part a written mutation
(in scores and computer programs) but also in part influenced by the management of time as
shaped by the dance.
What baggage have you acquired and which one seems the most precious in your work
today?
Never having studied, I’ve acquired nothing. I have no baggage and I feel I never have anything
to lose.
What role should the performing arts ideally play in contemporary society for you?
I can talk about what I offer: somewhere else, an escape. In other words, I’m trying to invent
performances that create an inner disturbance, producing it and allowing it to happen.
Why have you specifically chosen choreographic language as a means of expression?
For Rare (and all the other pieces) I’ve chosen several artistic languages because bringing them
together leads to rethinking the modes of performance. I’m definitely not looking to express
myself. I’m trying to upset habits (above all my own) and question proprieties.
84

What do you consider to be the lowest level of misery?
Living. But there’s a dish in Poland with cucumbers in it called ‘mizeria’ which is very good.
What do like doing most?
Dancing.
Myriam Gourfink
Myriam Gourfink (1968), dancer and choreographer, was trained at the National Conservatoire
of Music and Dance in Angers. At 18 years old she trained in tap dance in the United States. In
1992, she taught tap dancing in Paris and began to develop an interest in contemporary dance.
She worked with Laure Bonicel and P. Von Magnet, the Stamp group for performance and
improvisation, mainly in all sorts of unusual places. She discovered new points of interest in the
practice of yoga and meditation, which she saw as a field of experimentation for the movement.
Her dance is abstract and often very still. It is dedicated to slowness, to minimal movement. It is
based on breathing and concentration. In her work, the eyes are focused on the lines that bring
out the gestures and postures until the micro movements of the dancer can be perceived,
gliding like a cascade of sound. Respirations, micro-movements, these are the key elements in
her choreographic research, as a means of infinite variations. WAW, Übenrengelheit, Glossolali,
Taire, Demonology, Too Generate, Marine and RARE count amongst her numerous
productions. Her work has not gone unrewarded. She received the Beaumarchais Bursary 2000
for her project Too Generate and won the choreographic writing Bursary in 2002.
Kasper T.Toeplitz
He was not interested in music, he preferred surfing and philosophy until he discovered – fairly
late on – contemporary music. So he decided to play and compose on electric guitar and to then
perform it on his computer. The list of people he has worked with is long as is the list of awards
that he has won for his work. For the moment, Toeplitz is integrating the music of his computer
into his solos and he does the same when he works with other artists. This is how a mixture of
traditional and electronic instruments comes to light creating a totally new approach to the
concept of music.
85

Installation/Installatie & Danse/Dans/Dance (Montréal)
par benoît lachambre et eux / par b.l.eux
De retour aux bains… 100 rencontres Bruxelles
Les Bains::Connective
3.4.5.6.7/05 > 20:00
+/- 135’ (s.r./o.v./tbc)
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Idée original & conception générale / Idee & algemeen concept / Original Idea & General
Concept: Benoît Lachambre
Assistante artistique /Artistiek assistente /Artistic Assistant: Marie-Andrée Gougeon
Modules d’installation et d’intervention/ Installatie- en interventiemodules/ Installation Modules:
Jorge Leon Alvarez, Julie Andrée T., Martin Bélanger, joe hiscott, Sheila Riberio, Pierre Rubio, George
Stamos, Benoît Lachambre
Artiste invitée/Gastartieste/Guest Artist: Isabelle Schad
Performeurs/Performers: Martin Bélanger, joe hiscott, Sheila Riberio, Pierre Rubio, George Stamos,
Benoît Lachambre
Son/Geluid/Sound: Laurent Maslé, David Kilburn
Lumière/Licht/Light: Jean Jauvin
Élaboration & réalisation des Installations/Uitwerking & Realisatie Installaties/ Elaboration &
Realisation of the Installations: Louis-Philippe St-Arnault
Stagiaire/Intern : Kate Denborough
Agente de développement & diffusion compagnie par b.l.eux / Agentschap verspreiding voor het
gezelschap par b.l.eux/Development Agent company par b.l.eux: Marie-Eve Jirat
Directrice de projets/Leiding projecten/Projects Manager: Lys Stevens
Administratrice compagnie par b.l.eux/Administratie gezelschap par b.l.eux/Administration
company par b.l.eux: Claudia St-Georges
Coproduction/Coproductie/Coproduction : par b.l.eux (Montréal), Parc de la Villette –
Résidences d’Artistes (Paris), Le Quartz – Scène nationale (Brest), KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
(Bruxelles/Brussel), Festival Montpellier Danse 2003 (Montpellier)
Accueil en résidence & partenaire/Kunstenaar in residentie bij & partner/Artist in residence at &
partner: Société des arts technologiques (Montréal)
La compagnie par b.l.eux est soutenue par/Het gezelschap par b.l.eux wordt gesteund door/The
company par b.l.eux is supported by: Le Conseil des Arts du Canada, le Conseil des arts et des
lettres du Québec, le Conseil des arts de Montréal, le Ministère des Affaires étrangères et du
Commerce international du Canada (MAECI)
Avec le soutien de/Met de steun van/Supported by: Délégation générale du Québec à
Bruxelles, Ambassade du Canada
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Les Bains::Connective, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Création/Creatie/Creation
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 04/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 04/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 4/05.
86

A modular performance project under the artistic direction of Benoît Lachambre
“Our project makes the coexistence of different modules, designed by various artists,
possible. We accept the challenge of questioning our artistic convictions through the
confrontation of our respective visions. We seek to explore the idea of encounter, its mobility,
and that which can come out of such an exchange. The project is not a dance performance,
nor a representation, but above all a choreographic event to be lived and experienced by the
performers as well as by the public. Over the course of the evening, we invite the spectator to
build his/her own experience as an independent observer and creator in his/her own right.
There is freedom of choice in the order of discovery for each proposition, the duration and
intensity of attention as well as the point of view to be adopted.”
- Benoît Lachambre and his co-creators
The Installation and Intervention Modules and their authors
L’œuf Martin Bélanger
Un drap joe hiscott
Big B Benoît Lachambre
La table réseau * Benoît Lachambre et
David Kilburn
Backrooms Jorge Leon
Pay Here
Le premier VRAI clone humain Sheila Ribeiro
Les Maris Honnêtes / Marions Nettes
La forêt transparente
The band
La danse
Le volume ingérable #1 Pierre Rubio
Put Your Head Off Isabelle Schad
L’appartement… Nous sommes tous des prostitué(e)s * George Stamos
Le Corridor Julie Andrée T.
* The construction of these modules uses elements conceived by the visual artist Lawrence
Malstaf, created originally for events outside 100 Rencontres : The Water fait mal by Benoît
Lachambre ; the Sauna in Exile watertub by Lawrence Malstaf.
L’Œuf
The module l’Œuf is a device that reorganises the physical proximity of one person meeting
another. L'Œuf is sheltered by a tent, an extension of it that can act as a crossroads, a waiting
room or a boudoir. The person living in l'Œuf is in a particular frame of mind: he swaps a certain
state, a certain point of view, with the other, almost like a soothsayer. - Martin Bélanger
Un drap
Virtuality, reality and interpretation blend invisible events in this encounter between the
spectator’s ‘self’ and the superimposed ‘selves’ induced by the visual projection of different
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odies, imaginary spaces, subliminal references on life and death as well as by the resonances
on the body engendered by all these things. - joe hiscott
Big B
When does a spectator become one? Where and how does he position himself in relation to the
object, drastically modify a connection and his accessibility to the dynamics of communication?
Big B links a device to the performer, creating a dependence and attaching itself to him like an
ambiguous kidney. The physical link is technological, the object a poetic prosthesis. - Benoît
Lachambre
La table réseau
A place of public exchange, table réseau provides an opportunity for listening to the overall
sound environment differently. The audience is invited to exchange and compose collectively
within a modified environment for harnessing sound. - David Kilburn & Benoît Lachambre
Backrooms
The photographs I offered Benoît when he invited me to participate in his project were done in
backrooms/dark rooms. These places are arranged so that, in the dark and generally in an
anonymous way, the bodies embrace each other, sex takes place. 100 rencontres, places of
encounters. What encounters? These images projected in a slide show will perhaps evoke
something of the body in play here. - Jorge Leon
Pay Here and Le premier VRAI clone humain
Believe, wish, wait or just be a VIP at Pay Here.
Le premier VRAI clone humain is a part funny, part melancholic installation playing with the
issue of cloning. - Sheila Ribeiro
Les Maris Honnêtes / Marions Nettes. La forêt transparente. The band. La danse. Le
volume ingérable #1
Through these modules of concepts, performances and plays, the question is posed of identity
in encounters. Rejecting what you believe you have to do or be, the performer offers an identity
that can always be regained, redone, pursued, one that is dizzyingly mobile rather than a
crystallised mask that is comfortably immobile and reassuringly steadfast. - Pierre Rubio
Put Your Head Off
This work moves to define the gaps in the hidden and the seen scenes of the projected and real
body, interrogating along the way the imagined and the real, the real and the identified. -
Isabelle Schad
L’appartement… Nous sommes tous des prostitué(e)s
An apartment or a body are generally considered to be private spaces, separate from public or
commercial places. L’appartement questions this separation. Voyeurism, interaction, references
to physical modifications and s(t)imulation are convened to suggest the idea of a living skin, a
house, that could equally well be open markets or spaces destined for transactions and
changes in ownership. - George Stamos
Le corridor
The corridor is a space of displacement, of transition. Its primary function is to direct the person
passing through towards another place. Le corridor here is a passing place with no way out. A
meeting place where sound and image, history and everyday life cohabit. To leave you have to
retrace your own steps, your own journey, your own little story. - Julie Andrée T.
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Sound
Each module generates sounds of its own in the performance space. For 100 rencontres, I
wanted to create a general sound environment in which the modules participate whilst retaining
their singularity. My approach is for people – every spectator, every performer – to meet through
sound. - Laurent Maslé
Seek, take and move sound to engender listening. Create and articulate spaces of sound that
favour the intimacy of a meeting. Through sound accompany each person on his trajectory
towards the new, i.e. the other. - David Kilburn
Lighting
The lighting offers a two-fold relationship with the place: an opportunity for exploring the
juxtaposition of objective lighting for the space welcoming us and subjective lighting for the
performance modules. This two-fold relationship of light in the globality of the space suggests a
meeting place in itself, coherent and autonomous. - Jean Jauvin
Benoît Lachambre
Benoît Lachambre has been working in the dance community for over twenty-five years as a
choreographer, performer and teacher. In the mid-1980’s, he began research into releasing,
choreographic composition and improvisation techniques with Stephanie Skura and Nina Martin
in New York. He soon began conducting his own workshops in research, improvisation and
body consciousness. While presenting his own work on a regular basis in Europe and across
North America, the 1990s also saw Benoît dance for Marie Chouinard, Meg Stuart and Jennifer
Lacey.
He founded his own company, par b.l.eux, in October 1996. That same year he collaborated
with Thierry Bédard on the project Les Lions mécaniques and presented three of his own pieces
at the Festival du Club des Cinq (France). From 1996 to 2001 was a period of continuous
creation for Lachambre, with the productions The water fait mal, Secrets and stories, L’âne et la
bouche, Dédanse D’elles, L te croix, Délire Défait, Gliding the volcano, L'aberration des traces,
Le chant de l'ambre et ambroisie, Confort et Complaisance, Loups Louves, L T + and Not to
Know.
Benoît Lachambre is often invited to collaborate on projects with other well-known
choreographers. Lynda Gaudreau asked him to join her company (Compagnie De Brune) for the
piece Document 1. He was part of Berlin choreographer Felix Ruckert’s project Hautnah,
produced in Montreal (Canada) by Danse Cité; and Catherine Contour invited him to participate
in Chambre at the TNT in Bordeaux (France). In June 2001, Benoît Lachambre performed in a
new duo by and with Gonnie Heggen as part of her Lab Series at the De Melkweg theatre in
Amsterdam. Later that same year, he created rrr … (reading readings reading) with Saskia
Hölbling and Laurent Goldring, co-produced by TanzWerkstatt Berlin and TanzQuartier Wien.
Along with these activities, he also took part in 2002 in the creation of héâtre-élévision, by Boris
Charmatz; choreographed two solos: RevolUn with dancer Marc Rees (presented in Montreal,
Vienna, Cardiff and Berlin) and Enat et le jardin des icônes for dancer Hanna Hedman
(presented at the Festival d’Avignon); and contributed to Laurent Goldring’s Protocoles #2 (for
the Mettre en Scène festival in Rennes). Finally, in December 2002, Lachambre was invited to
the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz (Berlin) and created Reverse me not…How about now for
the dancers in Sasha Waltz’s company.
Benoît Lachambre is regularly invited to give workshops and courses both in Montreal and on
tour.
In recent years, Lachambre’s choreography has focused on dynamics of perception and
communication, expressed through a wide use of improvisation and performance techniques in
dance.
The Canada Council for the Arts named Benoît Lachambre winner of the 1998 Jacqueline-
Lemieux prize. In Toronto (2001), Lachambre was awarded two Dora Mavor Moore prizes, Best
New Choreography and Best Performance, for his solo Délire défait.
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Installation/Installatie & Théâtre/Theater/Theatre (Brussel)
Kris Verdonck / Aernoudt Jacobs
5
BSBbis
11.12.13.14.15/05 > 20:00 & 22:00
75’
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Concept: Kris Verdonck
Son/Sound: Aernoudt Jacobs
Lumières/Licht/Lighting: Hans Valcke
Avec/Met/With: Heike Langsdorf, Kaja Kolodziejczyk, Geert Vaes, Shila Anaraki, Anna Rispoli
Production/Productie/Production: Beursschouwburg, Kunstencentrum Belgie (Hasselt), HISK
(Antwerpen), FYKE vzw (Brussel), KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
To sleep avec la collaboration de/ met de medewerking van/in collaboration with:
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Beursschouwburg, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Création/Creatie/Creation
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 12/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 12/05.
Meet the artists after the second performance on 12/05.
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Five ‘installations/performances’, situated between dramatic art and visual arts, together form a
story: a story of panic and of fragility, of the mechanical and of life. Their starting point is a
classical theatrical one in which each aspect is reduced to an extreme. Physically the human
being is only present in part, either unconscious (asleep or in a trance) or merely represented by
a machine, a sound or an image. The ensemble only reveals what is meant by it – the ‘heart of
the story’ – through the spectator’s free associations.
IN: An actress remains motionless for an hour in a display window filled with water. The
distortion to her senses caused by the environment she is in makes her go into a trance. The
sounds of her breathing and movement are amplified by microphones.
DANCER #1: A grinding wheel with a big steel L hangs from the ceiling. When the disc starts to
turn, the L twirls round uncontrolled. The motor races but still tries to find its equilibrium, still
tries to function despite the strangeness of the situation. However the machine does not
succeed. It starts to take on the appearance of a classical hero in distress, with movement
making the situation become more and more unbearable.
TO SLEEP: Four sleeping people are on show, lying in transparent trunks and separate from
one another. TO SLEEP is inspired by Radiohead’s song ‘How to disappear completely’ and
deals with the desire to no longer exist.
INTERCOURSE: The sound of a couple making love in a completely empty room is done with a
maximum amount of sensuality, as if it is happening live. Adjustable microphones enable the
most intimate sounds to be captured (rubbing, swallowing, breathing…) and perhaps enable the
‘secrets’ of the carnal act to be ‘revealed’.
HOW IT WORKS: A small, solitary, autonomous robot goes round and round in circles. The
images and sounds its sends from 2 metres up are projected onto a large screen like a wall. It
becomes a machine that begins to interact with the audience, reflecting its own perception of
space.
Panic / Pressure
A common theme in installations, panic is the state in which man excels. A great many political
acts appear in what Peter Sloterdijk calls ‘the panic culture’. ‘One of the attributes of Pan from
Ancient Greece was being a god at midday when shadows are shortest. Overwhelmed by light,
which was the manifestation of his divine presence, the world holds its breath. The modern
notion of panic has forgotten this cohesion between presence, revelation and terror, merely
remembering the kinetic motive of blind escape.’
Perception / Sound
Every installation/performance has its own means of communication. It may need the semiotics
of a theatrical space or an exhibition space. The two spaces imply a very specific perception.
Music and sound are perceived as much physically and emotionally as they are intellectually.
With the help of psycho-acoustics, in ‘5’ Verdonck and Jacobs are examining how sound can
also take on a physical and spatial dimension. They use real and concrete sounds that lend a
contextual content to the sound landscape. It is a reconstruction, coming close to a reality that is
possible and identifiable, on the edge of the unreal, between the real and the virtual.
Time
Perhaps the most important convention for playing the game: having a beginning, a middle and
an end. Here where a visual work is constructed for eternity, theatre is counting on transience.
The text
Dramatic or prose writing is always a starting point in an investigation about mechanics, the
basis of a text or a language. A dramaturge uses specific theatrical codes. Language and
images serve the stage. Paradoxical as it might appear, the use of several media allows for a
91

very pure and very concentrated theatre. Three texts provide the dramatic source in ‘5’:
Cataract by Rainald Goetz, Company by Beckett and Über das Marionettentheater by Heinrich
Von Kleist.
A VOICE REACHES SOMEONE IN THE DARK
IMAGINE
To one on his back in the dark. This he can tell by the pressure on his hind parts and by how the
dark changes when he shuts his eyes and again when he opens them again. Only a small part
of what is said can be verified. As for example when he hears, You are on your back in the dark.
Then he must acknowledge the truth of what is said. (Samuel Beckett, Company)
OLD MAN
do you hear that?
wait
now
did you hear that?
fascinating
if you stay still
you can hear your eyelids opening and shutting
…
in a soundproofed room
if you try to hear nothing
a high-pitched sound appears
that of your own nervous system
and a deep sound
that doesn’t seem to come from your blood circulating
the torment of total isolation
Rainald Goetz, Cataract
He replied that I shouldn’t imagine each limb being posed and drawn away separately by the
operator during the different moments of the dance.
He said that each movement has its own centre of gravity, that it’s enough to direct it from inside
the figure. The limbs, merely pendulums, follow in a mechanical way without anybody being
involved. He added that this movement is very simple: that every time the centre of gravity is
moved in a straight line, the limbs describe curves, and that when shaken completely at random
the whole thing often starts moving in a rhythmical kind of way similar to dance.
Kris Verdonck
Heinrich von Kleist, Über das Marionettentheater (On Puppet Theatre)
Kris Verdonck firstly studied architecture and visual arts at SHIKV. In 1999, he completed a
Dramatic Arts course at RITS and started his final studies in 2001 at HISK. In 1994 he was
winner of the Interuniversity Literary Prose Competition. He has various projects on the go. He
works for radio, creates promotional videos, produces various installations and most notably,
has directed the following plays for the theatre: Het vuil, De stad en de dood (1999), Tussen ons
gezegd en gezwegen, naar O. van Woensel (1999), B.O.I (2000), (CaO)n (2001) and
Chironomidae (2001).
Aernoudt Jacobs
Aernoudt Jacobs studied architecture. He studied at Sint-Lucasinstituut in Ghent but quickly
decided to turn to music. On the whole, the work of Aernoudt Jacobs is a study in extreme
acoustic possibilities. Today he appears under different pseudonyms: TMRX (electro acoustic
music, study of the relationship between sound and perception), Mark Mancha (post-techno),
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Missfit (work mainly for films, CD-ROM, the internet), Aernoudt Jacobs (installations, acoustic
design for the theatre). With the director Kris Verdonck, he is experimenting with theatrical
language. He has brought out LPs, Practically totally real, but not (Staalplaat) and Difficulté de
comprendre dans le bruit (Selektion) under the name of TMRX.
copresentation KunstenFESTIVALdesArts & Beursschouwburg, Brussels, May 2003
The Beursschouwburg works on the fringes of art and of everyday life. We like to direct our
decisions towards artistic reasoning marked out by diversification: popular culture AND out-andout
art; languages, varied disciplines and genres, local and international, professional and
amateur talent. One foot in the ‘artistic field’, the other outside of it.
If the programme remains capricious, the quest for original formats is surely the cause of it. We
set out to look for new forms of performance, theatre or dance, of course, but far from classical
and finely polished choreographic or theatrical ‘shows’. For example, Métamorphoses
Nocturnes, the production by Ingrid von Wantoch Retowski, which was shown this season,
explored the form of a performance - installation: a gallery of talking portraits and iconographic
paintings, animated by video. GAME-BOYS by Superamas laid out a course which entangled
theatre and dance, this itself being close to an installation. Davis Freeman confronted the
audience with his own portrait in the ten small bedrooms of Too Shy to stare.
5 by Kris Verdonck and Aernoudt Jacobs marks a new stage in this quest. Five
installations/performances leaning between dramatic art and the visual arts. These reduce and
manipulate the classical codes of the two disciplines to the extreme: time is reconstructed until
any beginning and any end is made indistinct; the space is constructed by means of sounds and
music; the text and the language cross over into other media.
Shifting the emphasis to other ‘formats’ is a decision closely linked to the wish to have
confidence in the ‘potential’ of an artist rather than in the production of art. There are many who
make it known how much it would please them to abandon the usual means of production and
presentation from time to time. Their questions and ambitions embrace very diverse forms:
some search to redefine the stage, others question the relationship between the artist and the
audience, and others still, take pleasure in erasing the boundaries between the disciplines or in
revaluing the search by turning towards the processes of work on a small scale.
Today, these quests often give prominence to the visual arts as a source of inspiration, it is
therefore natural that our artistic programme is today more and more focused on installations,
video and multimedia.
In collaboration with other partners, the Beursschouwburg continues to explore this neglected
area. A challenge that accompanies another of importance: our next (re)installation in the
renovated building of the Auguste Orts.
BSBbis
the Beursschouwburg until 2003
93

Aristoklas
L’anopodokotolotopadnodrome
La Raffinerie
13.14.16.17/05
Installation/Installatie > 20:00-23:00
Performance > 21:00
Fr
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Comédien/Acteur/Actor: Bruno Marin
Son & musique/Geluid en muziek/Sound & music: Aurélien Chouzenoux
Images/Beelden/Images: Martin Depaule
Lumières/Licht/Lighting: Catherine Brevers
Chargé de diffusion/Verspreiding/Development agent: Julie Parraire
Construction/Opbouw/Construction: Bernie Coyette & Aurélien Chouzenoux
Confection/Confectie/Confection: Claire Gatineau & Pascale Jehin
Costume/Kostuum/Costume: Pascale Jehin
Réalisation technique/Technische realisatie/Technical realisation: Loïc Vanderstichelen, Vincent
Debierre (s.r./o.v./t.b.c.)
Mouvements/Bewegingen/Movements: Bruno Marin & Erica Trivett
Remerciements/met dank aan/thanks to: Dorothée Van Heymbeeck, Sophie Bertinchamps,
Thomas Baudour, Vincent Debierre, Rudolphe Coster, Bernie Coyette, Ruud Verlaet, Thérése
Marie, Jacques Beauregard, Bernard Silvoy et les 39 Marches
Coproduction/Coproductie/Coproduction: Nadine vzw (Bruxelles/Brussel), Parc de la Villette
(Paris) , KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Création/Creatie/Creation
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 14/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 14/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 14/05.
94

He who having followed my signs is induced by my example to do it himself,
according to his being and his need,
will unless I am very wrong find a disengagement not yet known,
a cleansing, a new open life, writing in an unexpected, soothing way,
where he will finally be able to express himself far from words, from other’s words.
Henri Michaux
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“This is an exploration”, he said.
Henri Michaux published L’infini turbulent in 1957, followed four years later by Connaissances
par les gouffres and fifteen years later by Misérable miracle. Almost sixty years on the writer is
still intensifying his ceaseless quest ‘for distant interiors’ – the most secret, most unconfessed
spaces removed from ourselves. Under medical supervision he swallowed calculated doses of
mescaline (a substance extracted from the peyote that has hallucinogenic effects). Seated in his
armchair, he wrote under its influence – to unlock his senses, to travel without brakes through
this ‘interior space’ that his pen transformed into ink, bodies and landscapes. True poetry, he
thought, has to explore secondary states, the dangerous states of oneself, and search for the
poetic area of the inner being – an exorcising form of thought. To the question “Where is poetry
going?” the immobile traveller replies, “It is going to make the inhabitable habitable for us, the
unbreathable breathable.”
Let us not be mistaken. The writer warned us: “To people who like just one perspective, there
could be a temptation to judge all my writing from now on as the work of a drug addict. I’m sorry.
I’m more the sort who drinks water. Never alcohol. (…) Let’s say that I’m not very good at being
dependent.” He specified that “mescaline, where ‘time is huge’, enables me to write in the
‘fantastic acceleration’ of another tempo.” And he added without any ambiguity: “Drugs bore us
with their paradise. Let them rather give us a little more knowledge. We’re not a century for
paradise.”
In March 2002, four young artists – an actor, a musician, a video director and a lighting engineer
– began a first ‘theatrical’ exploration of L’infini turbulent and Misérable miracle. Following
Michaux’s example, they asked themselves how they should ‘disengage’ themselves and ‘get
away from the trap of the language of other people – words, these clingy partners’, how to
portray ‘in order to short-circuit’, how to arouse the spectator’s perception so that he ventures
into the three dimensions of the stage as if into his ‘distant interior’? Cleanse theatre of its
conventions of representation. They dream of an oasis of vision and sound around our bodies
and his world.
This was just the start. In May 2003, they are venturing further into exploring this living
representation of ‘the interior’ according to Michaux. Anopodokotolotopadnodrome hones this
theatrical hotchpotch of theirs, this interaction of the materialization of words, acting, music,
sounds, images and lights. Emerging from the poetry of Michaux’s verb into the poetry of the
space containing it. Anopodokotolotopadnodrome transforms itself into a installation dedicated
to the mescaline universe in which the live performance will take place from time to time, ‘a
place of passage’, a space open to the public where you stand and move around to discover
what we are being offered to see, sense, touch and enjoy…
The journey to travel to the light of Michaux’s writing began with music. Aurélien Chouzenoux
first composed what might have just remained a musical journey in the disengagement of the
immobile traveller. But Michaux’s material decided otherwise, calling for an acoustic voice, a
living body. The actor Bruno Marin had just spent the summer with L’infini turbulent. Fascinated
by Ferdinand de Saussure’s linguistic studies, the word is a living material for him, a limb of the
human body of language. How can this textual being be expressed and pronounced? In
provoking hallucination, Michaux is altering his props, throwing extreme light on his darkness:
“All drugs alter your props. The prop for your senses, the prop your senses have for the
world, the prop that you had for your general impression of being. They make way. A vast
redistribution of sensitivity takes place that makes everything bizarre, a complex continual
redistribution of sensitivity.”
The drug compels the observant and experimenting poet to multiply the modes of displacement
in writing. Images move – rushing, proliferating, uncontrollable, taking possession of his head
and his sheets of paper.
Bruno Marin takes up the challenge. The actor himself has to displace his delivery too,
redistributing the living word onto the body, respecting ‘the ocean of asides’ – some through
gestures; others, the ones spoken, by exploring new props within the ‘interior space’. Following
the example of calligraphic marks which the writer learnt with the Japanese painter Zaowou-Ki
96

after becoming dissatisfied with words, the key is this movement of displacement, this
disorientation of the mind, body and time, and then also this gentleness that is so much part of
Michaux taking the reader everywhere with him. “Managing to convey his words without getting
in the way as a performer”, is what the actor is thinking.
Aurélien, the musician, then begins a ‘pop’ montage of fragments from Misérable miracle,
L’infini turbulent as well as some from Face au verrou. They are ‘pop’ because he is scripting
them like songs revealing a story: “We weren’t going to tell three stories, but wanted to
concentrate more on clear and strong moments in his writing and compose a story from them.”
Martin Depaule and Catherine Brevers are now involving video image and lighting in the
disengagement of the musician and actor. “We’d also like to explore the poetics of shadows”,
says the actor returning from a trip to Thailand. “With them the body can escape earthly
gravitation, soar up into the sky and fly away. Saussure liked talking about the spectre of ideas:
ethereal but concrete, floating in the air, evanescent …” “It’s not about doing a 3D illustration of
Michaux!”, warn the four. “Only trying to ‘be induced by his example’ inviting us to move, to
break with inertia, experimenting in theatre with his mobile and mobilising decentring: an
incessant interior movement.”
Altogether the production is written on the basis of four progressive moments.
- ‘The block of images’. In a maelstrom of vision and sound, we escape from spoken
language. Strolling in the space of the performance. Games of shadow, games of light,
new postures and multiplication of points of view. The walk begins.
- ‘The chemical spreads’. The high after the drug is taken, the perception of the
environment changes, we don’t recognise it. The actor is in an acoustic relationship with
the spectator, endeavouring to find the intimacy linking the author to the reader,
articulated in words.
- ‘The trance / harmony’. The increased but moderate dose brings ecstasy, bliss and
tends towards completeness: body, mind and all elements around now make one whole
with the same momentum.
- ‘The experience of madness’. The dose is excessive, pulling the mind towards
‘knowledge through chasms’, the monstrous interior, the bad and disturbing double
suddenly appears. The despair of mescaline-induced schizophrenia. A new space is
created, the voice and the body of the actor keep duplicating. The space becomes a
maelstrom, voices spinning, mirrors dividing and cinema projecting into infinity.
He who hides his madman dies without a voice, judged the writer.
Aurélien Chouzenoux used to give musical performances in front of his classmates before
joining the Rave Party wagon of English travellers heading for Brittany. He brought out some
electronic music records in Belgium where he also studied sound recording (INSAS in
Brussels). Attracted by live performance after having done several compositions for the theatre
and because of Henri Michaux and his mescaline, he formed ARISTOKLAS – a group of four
friends with four different disciplines.
Bruno Marin made his stage debut at the age of 8 as an altar boy and moved on the
following year to a non-speaking female role at the village hall. He arrived in Brussels in 1991,
trained as an actor at INSAS and acted in theatre and cinema with people such as Thierry
Salmon, Martine Wijckaert, Cloportes Productions, the A.T.I.L.L.A group, etc. He takes a keen
interest in articulatory phenomena which structure and govern language(s); spoken pieces of
writing, camera shakes, performed languages.
Secret weapon: Duck à l’Orange.
Martin Depaule has established various fanzines such as Irregulomadaire. He has produced
animated films, fictional works and visual art installations all from following the video and
sculpture course at ERG in Brussels. He produces short films and makes scenery for theatre
and cinema. He is involved in various theatrical adventures as a video director, mainly with
Aglaée Solex.
97

Catherine Brevers was born in Brussels and is 27 years old. After having spent her
childhood drawing in her room, in restaurants, on campsites, on the beach, in class, etc., she
studied graphic arts at St. Luc. After a brief spell at the Académie des Beaux Arts in the
jewellery section, she developed a new way of producing images during three years at INSAS.
She became a camera operator and during a stage lighting course she discovered live
performance. A few production departments and light productions later, Catherine let her
moustache grow and became an Aristoklas.
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Performance (Paris)
Claudia Triozzi / Association Cespi
The Family Tree
Théâtre Varia
20.21.22.23/05 > 20:30
60’
Fr
€ 12,5 – 8,5
Avec/Met/With: Claudia Triozzi, Xavier Boussiron
Conception & réalisation/Concept & uitvoering/Concept & realisation: Claudia Triozzi
Création musicale & arrangements/Muziek & arrangementen/Music & score: Xavier Boussiron
Avec la collaboration de/Met de medewerking van/In collaboration with: Claudia Triozzi
Textes/Teksten/Texts: Claudia Triozzi
Lumières/Licht/Lighting: Cathy Olive
Avec la collaboration de/Met de medewerking van/In collaboration with: Véronique Bosi
Sonorisation/Geluid/Sound: Manu Coursin
Conception de la vidéo/Concept video/Concept videotape: Claudia Triozzi
Prise de vue/Video-opname/Video Recording: Isabelle Griot
Administration/Administratie/Administration: Sophie Pulicani
Diffusion/Verspreiding/Distribution: Damien Valette
Avec la participation de /Met de medewerking van/In collaboration with: classe/klas/class CE2 &
CM1 (Sylvie Müller) – Ecole Jules Simon de Montpellier, L’Inchoeurrigible, choeur d’enfants et
d’adolescents du CNR d’Aubervilliers – La Courneuve (direction Marie Joubineaux), Elio di
Tanna (piano)
Remerciements à/Met dank aan/Thanks to: Chiara Gallerani, Alain Dalis, Grégoire
Maisonneuve, Olivier Charlot, Babeth Martin
Régisseur général/Toneelmeester/Stage Manager: Ollivier Philippo
Coproduction/Coproductie/ Coproduction: Le Quartz – Scène nationale de Brest, Rencontres
Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis, Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers
Avec le soutien de/Met de steun van/Supported by: Ministère de la Culture et de la
Communication, DRAC Ile-de-France, CCN Montpellier-Languedoc-Roussillon Programme
ReRC, Association Française d’Action Artistique (AFAA) & l’Ambassade de France à Bruxelles
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 21/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 21/05.
Meet the artists after the performance on 21/05.
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Born in Milan, Claudia Triozzi moved to Paris at the age of 23.
Now this dancer turned choreographer is exploring her voice’s range,
like a tightrope walker
feeling her way along her vocal cords,
in the space of a spectral visual installation comprising veils, like shrouds,
hanging on the outside.
The Family Tree obviously refers to her genealogy.
In it she traces her origins by chanting a list of family names
to the tune of a nervous breakdown.
A strange ritual for magnetic singing,
at the outermost limits of recital, installation and performance.
What was it exactly that you experienced, read or saw that triggered off the idea behind
your creation?
I start by writing a ‘song’. I say ‘song’ because it’s about trying to find a tune that can be both
ironical about the meaning, as well as distancing or diverting it.
Is the project positioned literally or metaphorically in the context of the society in which
you live?
“I’m tired of you, you’re sick of me, but don’t leave me, you are my lost quality”. Excerpt from the
song Depression.
It’s about everyday depression, but with this nuance that it’s only referring to mine. Riprendo la
frase di prima: it’s “writing lyrics” in a metaphorical sense by displacing their meaning and
intention. The song provides a distance because of the melody. The melody of the other.
If the starting point for your project is a piece of writing, where did it come from?
“Self-taught amateur jumps, I’m jumping just a hair’s breadth behind you, don’t turn round
ahhh…! A lesser gioioso. Excerpt from the song Saute.
Often in writing it’s about having a good concept or idea before starting out. That’s not how it
works with me. I’m in favour of being an amateur; I like self-taught people who try harder, with
the advantage of perhaps having decided to be lesser: “what a relief!” “who do we think we
are?” In my musical collaboration with Xavier Boussiron, this is how the encounter took place
(amateurism), with the nostalgic element coming from soundtracks to Italian film: Ennio
Morricone e altri. Oh it’s great to be one’s own amateur!
Amateurism too in the opportunity we’re presented with. Song: Femme vieille et riche qui
aime le jeune garçon. The weakness of the moment we’re given. Excerpt: “She’s tired of you,
Marie Madeleine is her name …”
After all we still have the possibility of giving ourselves the same worth, measuring ourselves by
not over-estimating ourselves, let’s say a form of politeness towards our ancestors. Song: It is
my level.
I don’t speak English very well… but the name of my mother is Vera.
The name of my little sister is Giovanna.
The name of my big brother is Alberto.
The name of my father is Donato.
The name of my similar sister is Flavia.
E non ascoltare l’entourage qui dit c’est trop tard
It’s my level It’s my level, It’s my level
Level – level – level - my level!
Inside us, space is our finiteness in time, two rocks for sitting down on, curtains, carpet; the
corner you prefer… a kind of vocation of dressing up a promise.
Excerpt: “You can’t always assemble authentic panelling – overcome decoration”.
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What kind of relationship do you want there to be with the audience?
The distance between us to be shortened. The spectator-visitor brings confusion. A desire to
say: stay close to me, simply being able to catch sight of people still, stripping them of their role
as spectator; the pleasure of being confronted with these aptitudes we hide away in the dark
and find again at the baker’s, assessing the grimace, doubt, laughter, passivity…
What do you like doing most?
Being a baker or on stage?
What do you hate most?
Hate? That’s hard to say. The education I’ve had makes me tend to forgive.
Conclusion
The family moves away through successive layers of voices. It’s not easy to have just one set of
words to music. We don’t sing systematically out of love. Even if repetition and the tune give an
appearance dissociated from pride. What do we do when we listen?
Fine
CLAUDIA TRIOZZI
Claudia Triozzi
Drawn towards the French choreography scene, Claudia Triozzi left Italy in 1985. She has
danced for Alain Michard, Georges Appaix, Odile Duboc, François Verret and Michèle Rust and,
more recently, has worked with Xavier Le Roy and Alain Buffard. For some years now she has
been developing her solo career with the creation of La Vague (1991), Les Citrons (1992),
Gallina Dark (1196), Park (1998) and Dolled Up (2000). Her work also includes videos or
installations that she shows in museums or galleries.
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Film (Brussel)
Els Dietvorst/Firefly vzw asbl
De laatste nacht van de nachtman
La dernière nuit de l’homme de la nuit
Place Anneessensplein
15.17.18/05 > 22:00
16/05 > 22:00 & 00:00
+/-60’
Fr & Nl > Subtitles: Fr & Nl
Entrée libre/Vrije toegang/Free entrance
Realisation/Realisatie/Realisation: Els Dietvorst
Mise-en-scène/Regie/Direction: Els Dietvorst & Caroline Donnely
Scénario/Scenario/Script: Els Dietvorst & Orla Barry
Acteurs/Actors: Rachid Ajerrar, Yassin Bakdah, Calogero Genova, Reda Chebchoubi, Marine
Chotteau, Ismaïl Dahabi, Miguel Devaux, David Godon, Bahman Homa, Kito Isimba, Marie-
Louise Jacobs, Sarah Lefevre, Guilliane Mansard, Vincent Mercenier, Michel Puissant, Lara
Aniela Radzki, Sylvie Van Molle, Flora Zoda, Kokou Zokli.
Assistance/Assistentie: Bindu Stuyck &Liesbet Vaes
Montage/Editing: Hervé Brindel
Projection/Projectie/Projection: vzw CinematiQ (CineMobiel)
Production/Productie/Production: Firefly vzw (Bruxelles/Brussel)
Coproduction/Coproductie/Coproduction: Beursschouwburg (Bruxelles/Brussel), CC Strombeek,
Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie, SIF,
KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Présentation/Presentatie/Presentation: Beursschouwburg, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
Création/Creatie/Creation
Rendez-vous avec les artistes après la représentation du 16/05.
Ontmoeting met de artiesten na de voorstelling op 16/05.
Meet the artists after the first performance on 16/05.
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The context: Le retour des hirondelles
In January 1999 Els Dietvorst began a multimedia project, Le retour des hirondelles [The Return
of the Swallows], in a district in south Brussels – Anneessens – just a stone’s throw from the
Gare du Midi. This part of the city has never really managed to escape its rather precarious
position since the 1920s. What was important for Els was to find the most appropriate and most
organic form in which to communicate with this environment. “We set out to look for a new
artistic form, a new language so that as many residents as possible could participate in the
project by every possible means”. We analysed what was said, experimenting with words,
images and sound, and tried to bring out what escaped people’s consciousness: the
inexpressible, the invisible.
Le retour des hirondelles is also an intense project about individuals, an investment in the
humanity of each person and the meaning his or her culture brings: “The involvement of and
collaboration with the participant are based on a mutual exchange at community level. Trust is
essential if this to happen.
Now Le retour des hirondelles, which began in 1999, is in its last phase: a “real” film is being
made with 23 amateur actors. “We deliberately chose to work in three phases over a five year
period to avoid being tied to pure documentary and to give the project the time to blossom and
develop at its own pace.
The thinking behind each of the different phases:
Phase 1 (October 1999)
Brussels is shaped like a heart – Dream by Rimbaud.
Phase 1 enabled us to carry out an in-depth study of the area which gave us a documentary
image of the district and its residents: five short video loops, mini concerts and an exhibition.
From the outset we picked Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) and his work for inspiration: the poet
spent one of the most passionate periods of his life in this part of Brussels.
Phase 2 (December 2001)
WATER! WATER! WATER! The crusade for water.
For Phase 2 we used artistic forms “without there being any concern about entering an unknown
world”. In other words we worked with forms chosen by the protagonists themselves and with
which they are familiar. On 16 December 2001, during a “complete tableau” in the “Metro” room
underneath the district itself, we showed the fruits of our year-long labour: 3 short films, two
video loops, a magazine (Magazine 2) and our “jukebox stories”.
Phase 3/1 (2002)
Après le déluge/After the flood/Na de zondvloed
Everybody has the right to another life.
Phase 3 took place over three years, bringing together elements from the first and second
phases into a scenario, script and full-length film.
With this Brussels district and the actors we went through the film-making process: undertaking
preparations in the first year, developing the screenplay and characters in the second year and
making the film during the third year.
Phase 3/2
The last night of the nightman/Parade sauvage.
There was break during the second year and it occurred on 31 October 2002 for Halloween and
the “night of miming”. The actors became a double character, already working on some scenes
to be tested in front of a “live” audience.
Our setting this time was the BSBbis and it comprised people miming in the background, with
the audience as extras and the actors as protagonists.
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THE NIGHT OF MIME: A DREAM
Everyone thought I was mad: a night, a whole night! Even the actors were thinking twice
about it.
Was it really what I wanted? But when everyone understood I was serious, we all
mounted the scaffold together en masse!
We were well trained and well prepared. We were confident, had the nerve for it and a
goal: to make it to the early hours, get the scenes in the can and have fun in the
process. Each year of work on Hirondelles ended with a “cinematic work”. An entire
year is laid out and tested before a “live” audience that can also join in. These complete
experiences (“complete tableaux”) are one of the project’s assets. With the actors, a set
and a film crew we moved into a zone of transition between reality and fiction, between
dream and action. Anyone who spent sufficient time there found it to be an intoxicating,
disturbing and amazing experience.
To begin with the idea was all about the district and the actors. Then miming became an
obvious option. Almost everyone, young and old, wants to become somebody else. Out of
the small number of people in our team we already had five Britney Spears and two
Dalidas. It became clear that a night of mime where anyone can join in and a large
audience was the thing to do. We had advertised this event by every means possible,
putting particular pressure on all the organisations in the district. More than thirty people
were attracted to the project. Miming was open to anyone who wanted to get on stage.
Everyone wants to become somebody else, transform themselves. Some wanted to be a
star for a night, others wanted to shine for an act. And lots wanted to appear in a film. They
changed in the artists’ dressing room and we asked them what their motivations were. The
audience was there when the meeting took place and joined in as extras, as spectators.
They were fascinated, lost and moved by it.
Then the “night of mime” became our screenplay for the “real” film de laatste nacht [The
Last Night], a night when all the characters start meeting each other. The five scenes
and two monologues prepared during the summer were acted out in public that night.
Take Victor and Camel. They met after a car accident and from that moment on
became inseparable. Victor, the yuppie who had everything, has to face up to an
identity crisis. The ultra-laid back Camel tries to convince him of the joys life can offer.
They had been going round Brussels for a couple of days and had come across the
“night of mime” while looking for a bit of company. As for Sarah and Justine, they turn
the evening into a night of work, thinking there are too many men out there with no
money. And then there is “the man of the night”, the night owl. He comes out of his
apartment. It’s been a long time since he’s met a human being. He meets Guiliane who
predicts his future…
“How were we able to film these scenes (silently) with a “live” audience whose size we
couldn’t anticipate and a stage full of people miming?” It was a risk. The two presenters,
Olivier and Vincent, were our masters of ceremony, announcing the mimes and also
requesting silence while each scene was being acted out. They managed it with flying
colours. At 9pm we opened the doors to let the night come in: Red Bull and coke. What
followed has been captured in history.
FILM: THE LAST NIGHT OF THE NIGHTMAN
The film is a three-dimensional tableau containing scenes performed by actors, the
mimes that took place and the audience serving as both extras and spectators. The
actors/swallows play a double role: they are their own character in the “real” film and
then each do a mime.
The Last Night of the Nightman is a performance of this “wild parade”, a night when
beauty and kitsch come together, reality and fiction intersect and dreams become art.
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Phase 3/3
Karaoke/De Woestijn. Fin
The “real” film (Karaoke) was shot in 2003. We left Rimbaud when he fled to Africa, at the very
moment he gave it all up to make a life for himself somewhere else.
Flight and marginality have become two major themes of the film. The screenplay is a work-inprogress,
rehearsals are always underway. The Anneessens district has become the set, the
residents are the extras and the actors are the protagonists.
Every day of filming is a party!
Première: December 2003.
Final Phase
After five years the time has come for reflection and a look at what has been achieved. The
process and results are discussed and put down in a publication. This final magazine also
incorporates the four earlier ones. Reels of film that haven’t been used are sorted and
recompiled. We are working on a last “tableau vivant” with the actors and in this final phase we
are hoping to travel so that the project can be shared outside the district as well. Inshallah!
Els Dietvorst
This versatile artist, born and brought up in Kapellen (1964), developed her gifts whilst studying
at Sint-Lukas in Antwerp and in Brussels. Since 1997 she has a large number of projects to her
name, including Löss (1997), Parasite (1997), Mandrake (1998), Beelden Buiten (1998), The
scavenger’s daughter and white pompei (1999), Noshooting (2000), Storm centres (2000) and
Embodiment (2001). She is currently working on a project entitled Le retour des hirondelles
which she began in 1999.
105

Film
Marcel va au cinéma
Marcel Proust
Musée du Cinéma/Filmmuseum
9/05 – 18:30 (fr) & 20:00 (nl)
10/05 – 14:00 (fr) & 15:30 (nl)
60’
The emphasis is on Marcel Proust, both at the theatre and at the Salon. But the author of
Remembrance of Things Past can also be found on the big screen at the Musée du Cinéma.
Thanks to Eric De Kuyper, Marcel is going to the cinema – short films that Proust might have
seen and loved in his time will be shown. These are screenings ‘open to all’, where silent
images accompanied on the piano will be introduced with a reading of short extracts of
Remembrance of Things Past.
Concept: Eric De Kuyper
Production/Productie/Production: Cinémathèque royale/Koninklijk Filmarchief & Service de
Culture Cinématographique, Literair rendez-vous littéraire
Mi Buenos Aires Querido
Mi Buenos Aires Querido
Musée du Cinéma/Filmmuseum
17 – 24 /05
Horaire/Uurrooster/Schedule: à venir/te bepalen/to be confirmed
The emphasis is on contemporary Argentina, both at the theatre and at the Salón Argentino. Mi
Buenos Aires Querido can also be found on the big screen at the Musée du Cinéma, with a
programme of recent films that bear witness to the amazing explosion and singular force of new
Argentine cinema today in a country on the verge of ruin.
Nueve reinas (Fabiàn Bielinsky, 2000)
Garage Olimpo (Marco Bechis, 1999)
La cienaga (Lucrecia Martel, 2000)
Todas las azafatas van al cielo (Every stewardess goes to heaven) (Daniel Burman, 2002)
Bolivia (Adrian Caetano, 2001)
Production/Productie/Production: Cinémathèque royale/Koninklijk Filmarchief
Remerciements à/Dank aan/Special thanks to: Luciano Monteagudo
INFO & TICKETS: Musée du Cinéma/Filmmuseum, 02 / 507 83 70
106

Salons
Salon Utopia
CentreduFESTIVALcentrum
Maison du Spectacle-la Bellone, Rue de Flandre 46 Vlaamse Steenweg, 1000 Bruxelles /
Brussel
4/05 > 14:00 – 18:00 (portes ouvertes/deuren blijven open/doors open all afternoon)
Fr, Nl, En – Entrée libre/Vrije toegang/Free entrance
Modérateur/Moderator/Chairman: Herman Parret (Prof. Aesthetics K.U.Leuven)
Commentateur/Commentator: Dieter Lesage (Philosophe/Filosoof/Philosopher)
Invités/Gasten/Guests:
Béatrice Picon-Vallin (Directeur/Director Laboratoire de recherches sur les arts du spectacle,
CNRS) : Vladimir Maïakovski, le poète, le révolutionnaire, l’utopiste de “l’homme nouveau”/over
de dichter Vladimir Majakovski en de revolutie/on the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and the
revolution
Benoît Lachambre (Chorégraphe/Choreograaf/Choreographer) : performance/intervention sur
les rencontres (im)possibles/ performance/interventie over de (on)mogelijke ontmoetingen/
performance on the possible (and impossible) encounters
Luc Deleu (Architecte & artiste/Architect-kunstenaar/Architect & artist) : De onaangepaste stad
(La ville inadaptée/The Maladjusted City)
François Schuiten (Dessinateur-architecte/Tekenaar-architect/Drawer-architect) : Les Cités
obscures et autres réalités utopiques/Les Cités obscures en andere utopische realiteiten/Les
Cités obscures and other utopian realities
Entr’actes/Entractes : Midnight Special Agency
Lecture/Voordracht/Lecture : Marijs Boulogne & Manah Depauw
Are you happy? Do you dream of things changing? Do you believe in utopias?
Utopia: a Latin word invented by Thomas More in 1516 from the Greek ‘not’ and ‘place’, a place
located nowhere. Is it a chimera? An ideal city? A new world? It covers all spheres – private,
scientific, political, societal, architectural, artistic… The Festival and the Janus revue – which is
dedicating its act in May to Utopia – are inviting you to an afternoon of encounters, talks and
improvisations on the subject. Philosophers, choreographers, people from theatre and architects
will be manning the barricades at the Festival centre to blow apart conventional realities…
The May Edition of the magazine Janus will be dedicated to this subject and the Salon Utopia.
107

Salons
Marcel Proust
Salon Proust
de bottelarij
Rue Delaunoystraat 58, 1080 Bruxelles/ Brussel
10/05 > 22:00 - 11/05 > 17:00
Fr & Nl, Entrée libre/Vrije toegang/Free entrance
Creation
Musique/Muziek/Music: Eavesdropper & Daiphlux (10/05), Sen Jan & Styrofoam (11/05) –
Espace sonore/Soundscape: Cortechsvalley – Vidéo/Video: StefFranck – After-salon: DJ Zebra
– Acteurs/Actors: Kristien De Proost & Olivier Ythier (10/05), Grace Ellen Barkey & Brigitte
Dedry (11/05) – Production/Productie: Glamor is Undead & KunstenFESTIVALdesArts –Avec le
soutien de/Met de steun van/Supported by: KVS/de bottelarij
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Glamor Is Undead, KunstenFestivalDesArts & KVS/de bottelarij present:
Salon Proust
Two selections of texts from Proust’s oeuvre, a journey into A la recherche du temps perdu.
We could not imagine a more appropriate place for a Proust salon… Not the sort of salon where
characters happily mingle, but a multimedia listening experience. Salon Proust does not nurture
the ambition of greedily pouncing on Proust’s oeuvre, rather the preference is for a form of hors
d’oeuvre, light and selective, intended for spectators and listeners who scarcely know this vast
oeuvre. Some parts of the text are read in French, others in Dutch. On Saturday the spotlight is
on the character of Albertine (love and suffering, separation and reunion, jealousy and
euphoria), while on Sunday we see the appearance of the Baron de Charlus (and with him the
rise and decline of a salon culture, the intrigues, secret lives, hypocrisy and sublime arrogance).
The readings are followed by a short performance by Daiphlux and Styrofoam, that DJ Zebra
relays with 20s and 30s music.
An audiovisual production where textual fragments, video images and electronic music link
tracks of the past with radically contemporary sounds. Drinks and sofas are available during this
informal evening.
Glamor is Undead
Fleur & Jeroen Olyslaegers set up Glamor Is Undead last year, a group creating so much
enthusiasm on the Belgian electronic music scene (going by the name of "belgtronica") that its
artists are happily being promoted both here and abroad. Let’s not forget that Glamor is Undead
believe in projects where electronic musicians are invited to work with theatre performers,
writers and visual artists and that this group is not afraid to form links with fashion, design and
cinema. In the past few months, Glamor is Undead opened a nightclub in Courtrai for a few
days (with live acts Daan, Eavesdropper, Galacticamendum and Stijn et al), organised a variety
festival (ranging from a preview of Wayn Traub’s designer cakes to an authentic boxing
demonstration, intermingled with performances by Styrofoam and Stijn and a dance
performance by Marc Vanrunxt). Recently, Glamor is Undead also added the very first
compilation of Belgtronica, Glamor is Undead presents 13 Belgtronic Standards to the list, in
collaboration with Eavesdropper, produced under its label Knobsounds. This CD was launched
at the beginning of April in the fully booked AB club, along with performances from Daiphlux,
Köhn, Bohr Bug and Stijn. Glamor is Undead is synonymous with original electronic music,
champagne and the conviction that nothing beats things in motion.
Eavesdropper
Yves De Mey - Eavesdropper – made an impact in the middle of the 90s in this still very limited
medium of drum'n'bass and breakbeat. He very quickly added other disciplines, such as film
compositions (Wim Vandekeybus/Ultima Vez), dance and theatre performances (Toneelhuis),
sound design for film and advertisements and the design of sound installations (Bruges 2002 et
al).
Eavesdropper’s music is a mix of minimal and detailed compositions and a distinctive rhythm,
loaded with dark and layered textures, as much influenced by electronic as acoustic music. He
also manages Knobsounds, his modest record label which releases his own work as well as that
of other artists.
This year, Eavesdropper is the artist in residence at the Concertgebouw in Bruges. On the
programme: a sound installation, workshops, concerts and arrangements of existing
compositions.
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Daiphlux
(www.aim-records.com)
A fluctuating pulse through the harmonics of our consciousness: Daiphlux. He creates his
smiley melancholic tunes in a sub-world modulated by quite opposing forces, situated in a vast
space where anything can happen, outside the norms of control. The music suggests a crossfade
between different pictures, synthesized in a single, elegant movement and frequencies
synthesized in one movement. You could jump off the travelling train, but we don’t advise this
before journey’s end. Back in the heart of the production centre, all organic street monster
sounds are tuned by the ‘Daiphlux soundorg’ and give life to freshly baked pie. Daiphlux’ sound
is a walk in the street. Hit every potential audio-source. Slam and kick it. Happy object oriented
street samples interfered by Daiphlux.
Kristien De Proost
Kristien De Proost (° 1972) finished her degree in Germanic philology in 1994. She then started
training as an actor at the Herman Teirlinck Studio in Antwerp, which she finished in June 2000.
Her tutors were Jan Decleir, Damiaan Deschrijver, Peter Vanden Begin, Frieda Pittoors, Han
Kerckhoffs and Wim Willaert. In particular, she acted with Het Toneelhuis in Het
Sprookjesbordeel (The Fairy Tale Brothel), De Theatermaker, Bloedarm (Dirt poor) and Push-
Up 1-3 et al., and with Tristero and Victoria and she also produced some personal work under
the name of Firma De Proost and Beck & zn respectively.
Olivier Ythier
Olivier Ythier was trained on the Niels Arestrup course and at INSAS in Brussels, and then
acted at the Varia theatre under the direction of Michel Dezoteux. (Songe d'une nuit d'été,
Brecht Machine, Zement, L'Eveil du printemps, Un Repas du soir européen, Octobre,
Extermination.)
In the Théâtre de la Commune in Aubervilliers, he played Horace with Pierre Arditi under the
direction of Didier Bezace. (Performance was in the Courtyard of the Palais des Papes/Avignon
2001). On television, in particular he has been directed by Marc Rivière, Philippe Triboit, Alain
Nahum and Marian Handwerker.
He has acted in the films Je m'appelle Victor and Violetta la reine de la moto by Guy Jacques,
Le Nez au vent by Dominique Guerrier, Iedereen Beroemd by Dominique Derudere and
Geoffrey Enthoven’s Les Enfants de l'amour.
Currently, he has almost finished filming L'Affaire Dominici with Michel Serrault and Demain on
déménage, the new Chantal Akerman film.
SenJan
On top op his activities as a DJ (at the Café d’Anvers, 10 days off) and as a musician, SenJan
Jen º72 is very active in the world of theater and film. He created the sound design for Le Bal
Masqué and for Tom Barman’s long awaited Any way the wind blows, among others. But above
all, he has shown Turnhout to the world with the organisation of his legendary Discodesafinado
nights. At the De Nachten winter festival, his splendid electronic set based on a text by Bart
Meuleman really surprised the audience. His work with Haider Ackermann makes that he can
be considered as one of the first Belgian electronic musicians who accompany models on the
catwalk. Fancy some more? Sen Jan’s work can be heard at the Antwerp ModeMuseum for the
next few months.
Styrofoam
Styrofoam is no longer the exclusive property of fans of melodious electronic music or of experts
who research this grey area between pop and electronic music. His debut record, the
point_miser, was immediately snapped up by the famous label Morr de Berlin. Big tours abroad
followed, both solo and with fantastic pop-electronic group The Notwist, with whom he hauled
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himself onto the podium of Rock Werchter last year. His CD which has just come out, I'm What's
Here to Show That Something Is Missing, should make a huge breakthrough, something that
the press will not fail to notice. For this CD, Styrofoam chose for the first time a particular blend
of delicious electronic music, fluid and melancholic, mixed with his own vocals. It's pop music of
course, but with the clicks 'n' cuts, well placed heavy beats, slightly psychedelic effects and
keyboard jolts which are the trademark of Styrofoam.
Grace Ellen Barkey
Born in 1958 in Surabaya, Indonesia. She studied dance expression and modern dance at the
Theatre School in Amsterdam and now works as an actress and dancer. She choreographed
several productions before joining the Needcompany in 1986 eventually becoming the
company’s permanent choreographer. Grace Ellen Barkey did the choreography for Need to
know (1987), ça va (1989), Julius Caesar (1990), Invictos (1991), Antonius und Cleopatra
(1992) and Orfeo (1993). She also acted in several of these productions, as well as in The
Snakesong Trilogy - Snakesong/Le Voyeur (1994), Caligula (1997), Needcompany's King Lear
(2000), Images of Affection (2001). She was also part of the cast for Goldfisch Game, Jan
Lauwers first feature-length film, the filmed sequel to Morning Song.
Since 1992, her personal productions have given an international dimension to her career
successes. The Theater Am Turm in Frankfurt co-produced One (1992), Don Quijote (1993) and
Tres (1995), her first performances. The Needcompany productions were Stories (Histoires/
Verhalen) (1996) and Rood Red Rouge (1998). In 2000, she created a new dance production,
Few Things, greeted with as much enthusiasm in her country here, as it was abroad. Her new
creation of this season (AND) is her sixth production supported by Needcompany’s
infrastructure. As a result of (AND) the choreographer Grace Ellen Barkey transcends with an
irresistible flair all the demarcations between theatre, dance and music.
Brigitte Dedry
Brigitte Dedry studied drama at the I.A.D. She participated in a large number of workshops on
body expression, dance and vocal arts. She wants theatre to be a physical experience, where
the words touch the audience through the control of the movements and the voice. It is this
physical and vocal exploration that gives birth to her characters.
Of the many encounters where she has had the opportunity to fulfil her need for interdisciplinary
work, she especially remembers her work with Alain Wathieu, who took her in tow for a trip
through the insane world of Copi, La Journée d’un rêveur and La femme assise. But she also
did great things with Zouzou Leyens, in Un Sapin chez les Ivanov (A.Vvedinsky), with Christine
Grégoire in Sang Froid (Alain Cofino Gomez) and with Véronique Dumont in Le Village oublié
d'au-delà les montagnes (Philippe Blasband). She is currently preparing a performance that will
take place at the Chapelle des Brigittines in November this year, and for which she sought
inspiration in Samuel Beckett’s monologues.
Cortechsvalley
Cortechsvalley were only known at one time by a few initiated listeners because of working with
Eavesdropper under the name of Flash Didact. They appeared recently at the AB club as
support to Console and performed a memorable set scattered with well devised breakbeats and
perfect samples which thrilled the crowd, producing an atmosphere of darkness and dance that
Cortechs are masters of. For the compilation CD 13 Belgtronic Standards they created a
fabulously ominous version of My Funny Valentine. They worked for the first time with the video
director StefFranck for the Salon Proust.
StefFranck
StefFranck is a video director keen on alchemy and esotericism, the archaic ways of thinking
emerging from Renaissance artists, popular devotions and the elegance of contemporary
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dance. He creates videos and installations for Erik Raeves and Marc Vanrunxt in harmony with
their respective dance vocabularies, always with more than a nod to the underlying philosophy
of garden architecture of past centuries. Inspired by the alchemists, he strives to incorporate the
four elements into his videos to invite reflection or meditation. His most recent work reveals an
increasingly personal tone which mixes up memories and nostalgia in a flurry of images. As of
late he created an installation for the MoMu exhibition by using as a theme motifs from the
geometric obsessions of a choreographer such as Busby Berkeley, with the very minimalist
background sound of Audiostore.
DJ Zebra
DJ Zebra is diametrically opposed to the current DJ culture of the over-developed Ego who
serves up his ultra-cool record collection to an already hyped-up public, aided by advanced
mixing techniques. In fact, DJ Zebra is neither more nor less than a young woman who plays
records. DJ Zebra’s record collection begins somewhere in the 20s and finishes somewhere
around the end of the 70s, beginning of the 80s. It consists of: German songs, ‘novelty acts’,
strange cocktails of pop music classics, crooners, irresistible mambos, sad love songs, etc.
Love and Suffering are the principal themes of this collection. Every successful party with DJ
Zebra involves joyous jigging about, eyes full of tears, music of a bygone era, melancholy and
joy intermingled into the small hours.
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Salons
Mi Buenos Aires Querido
Salón Argentino
de bottelarij
Rue Delaunoystraat 58, 1080 Bruxelles/ Brussel
17/05 > 22/00 - 18/05 > 18:00
Esp, Fr, Nl - Free entrance
Creation
Soundscape: Edgardo Rudnitzky
Dramaturgie/Dramaturgy: Claire Diez
Acteurs/Actors: Iris Bouche, Beatriz Catani, Jean Fürst, Alejandro Tantanian
Projections/Projecties/Projections: Hendrik De Smedt (réalisation/realisatie/realisation), Ernesto
Berardino
Traductions/Vertalingen/Translations: Taal-ad-visie (ESP/SP → FR) & Bart Vonck (ESP/SP →
NL)
After-salon: DJ Buscemi
Production/Productie: KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
En collaboration avec/In samenwerking met/In collaboration with: Glamor is Undead
Avec le soutien de/Met de steun van/Supported by: KVS/de bottelarij
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There are four Argentine productions on the bill at this year’s Festival. Following on from this
fact came the desire to take a different approach to the explosive country that is Argentina and
take a stark look at what has been written about it. The public is being offered a Salón
Argentino, like an intimate reading in a Buenos Aires café but above all avoiding the mistake of
fantasising over a stereotypical representation.
We asked several Argentine artists to send us pieces of writing that, for them, most accurately
evoke the feelings they have about their country today: Daniel Veronese, Emilio Garcia Wehbi,
Alejandro Tantanian, Ricardo Bartis, Beatriz Catani. And the responses were startling. We have
put them into dialogue form using salient traits and fragments from them.
Here they are. Contemporary reflections from a prism called Argentina, a montage of simple
texts: scathing and ironical, poetic or peremptory. Here they are, dancing on the spectre of a
wound that has not yet healed. Here they are, spoken or without voice, unaccompanied or with
music chosen by Edgardo Rudnitzky, a composer and sound designer on several spectacles,
films and contemporary installations in Argentina.
Music :
Carmen Baliero, Alberto Muñóz, Nicolás Varchausky, Bárbara Togander, Marcelo Moguilevsky,
Edgardo Cardozo, Juan Falú, Alejandro Franov, Liliana Herrero, Edgardo Rudnitzky, Santiaqo
Vázquez, Charly García, Divididos, Enrique Santos Discépolo
Images
Quino, Mafalda
The texts in order of appearance:
1. César Aira, La Costurera y el viento (The Couturier and the Wind). Novel. 1994
2. Río de la Plata
3. Luis Cano, Murmullos (Murmur). Drama.
4. Alejandro Rozitchner, Argentina Impotencia (Argentine Impotence). Philosophical
essay.
5. Enrique Santo Discépolo, Yira Yira. (Round and round). Tango. 1930
6. Gabriela Massuh, Ex Argentina. Genealogía de una crisa (Ex Argentina. Genealogy of
a crisis). Geopolitical analysis.
7. Osvaldo Lamborghini, El niño proletario (The Proletarian Child). Novella. 1973
8. Esteban Echeverría, El Matadero (The Abattoir). Novel. 1840
9. Beatriz Catani (1) , Sensaciones y pensamientos sobre Argentina (mientras camino por
mi ciudad) (Feelings and thoughts on Argentina while walking through my city).
Autobiographical text.
10. Encyclopedia, Argentina. Definition. 1919
11. Julio Cortázar, Plan para une poema in “Historia de cronopios et de famas”. 1966
12a. (10/05) Osvaldo Lamborghini, El niño proletario. 1973
12b. (11/05) Esteban Echeverría, El Matadero (The Abattoir). Novel. 1840
(1) Beatriz Catani is currently showing Ojos de ciervos rumanos as part of the KunstenFESTIVALdesArts at
the Studio l’L.
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13. Nunca Más. Report by Conadep (National Commission on the Disappeared).
Testimonies. 1984
14a. (10/05) Osvaldo Lamborghini, El niño proletario. 1973
14b. (11/05) Esteban Echeverría, El Matadero (The Abattoir). Novel. 1840
15. Alejandro Rozitchner, Argentina Impotencia.
16a. (10/05) Osvaldo Lamborghini, El niño proletario. 1973
16b. (11/05) Esteban Echeverría, El Matadero (The Abattoir). Novel. 1840
17. Nunca Más. Report by Conadep (National Commission on the Disappeared).
Testimonies. 1984
18a. (10/05) Osvaldo Lamborghini, El niño proletario. 1973
18b. (11/05) Esteban Echeverría, El Matadero (The Abattoir). Novel. 1840
19. Alejandro Rozitchner, Argentina Impotencia.
20. E. S. Discépolo, Cambalache (Bric-à-Brac). Tango. 1935
21. Jorge Luis Borges, La Rosa profunda. Fragment: “I am”. Poem. 1975
22. Beatriz Catani, Sensaciones y pensamientos sobre Argentina (mientras camino por mi
ciudad).
23. Beatriz Catani / Sensaciones y pensamientos sobre Argentina (mientras camino por mi
ciudad)
24. Antonio Di Benedetto, Zama. Novel. 1972
25. Alejandro Rozitchner, Argentina Impotencia.
26. Lola Arias, Las impùdicas en el paraíso - Carta al padre
27. Beatriz Catani / Sensaciones y pensamientos sobre Argentina (mientras camino por mi
ciudad)
28. Alejandro Urdapilletta, Vagones transportan humo (Les wagons transportent de la
fumée). 2000
29. Beatriz Catani / Sensaciones y pensamientos sobre Argentina (mientras camino por mi
ciudad).
30. Luis Cano, el paciente. Fragment.
31. Beatriz Catani / Sensaciones y pensamientos sobre Argentina (mientras camino por mi
ciudad) 2002
“We will have to look at the art that this wound will produce”
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Alejandro Tantanian
Alejandro Tantanian (1966) is a singer, but since he has so many talents and tastes, he prefers
to say he is author – director and... singer. His texts have already received many awards. He
has written, among others: Un cuento alemán (1997), Sumario de la muerte de Kleist (1998), La
tercera parte del mar (1999), Tenebrae (1999), JULIA / Una tragedia naturalista (2000),
Liederkreis. Una ópera sobre Schumann (2000), La Escala Humana (2000), Temperley (2001),
El Orfeo (2002). He previously worked with El Periférico de Objetos, who came to the festival in
1998. He was invited to the festival in 2001 in order to be our ‘Foreign Correspondent’ and he
conceived, for that occasion, four projects linked with the festival and the city of Brussels:
Unpacking, Misguided Tour, Quarrels?! and Packing. At this year's festival, he presented a new
production: Carlos W. Sáenz (1956 - ).
Beatriz Catani
Beatriz Catani was born in La Plata, a province of Buenes Aires in 1955 and belongs to a new
generation of Argentine directors. She studied history and dramaturgy; she has worked as a
director since 1998 and often acts in her plays. As a director she has defined herself through
innovative and experimental projects, which have a very individual artistic and political
approach. Alongside her work as a director and dramaturg, Beatriz Cantani also teaches drama,
giving workshops at places such as the national University of La Plata. In the last few years
Beatriz Catani has made a name for herself in Europe by showing her work at various festivals
like the Theaterformen in Hannover and the Wiener Festwochen. Her plays include Todo
Crinado, Perspectiva Siberia, Ojos de Ciervo Rumanos and Cuerpos (a)banderados.
Iris Bouche
Iris Bouche graduated at the Municipal Ballet Institute of Antwerp in 1993. She later trained at
the Alvin Ailey Dance Centre in New York and the Rudra Béjart Studio-School in Lausanne.
From 1995 to 2001 she was one of the permanent members of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s
dance company Rosas.
Iris has been a freelancer since 2001. She has worked with Thierry De Mey in his dance film Ma
mère l’oye, with Riina Saastamoinen in the dance performance NEARBY, and in the adaption of
King Lear by Jan Lauwers and his Needcompany. On top of these creations, she has been
searching for her own dance language since 1993. This investigation has given origin to
choreographies like Judeo, Black Angels and Clair/Obscur, yielding several prizes in
choreography competitions in Hannover and Tokyo.
She has recently created the non-profit organisation PRiSMA for the realisation of her own
productions. In January 2003, the first creation of PRiSMA&SkaGeN, Mais pas pour trois, had
its premiere. In this production, Iris Bouche, actor Mathijs Scheepers and musician Ernst
Maréchal explore the limits of their respective disciplines.
Jean Fürst
This 44 years old artist was born in Belgium. He studied and taught photography. After working
as a portrait photographer for some time, he turned towards performing arts and worked with
several companies (Karine Pontiès, Mossoux-Bonté, etc. )
Fürst’s interest in the voice drives him to work with performers like Joan La Barbara, Meredith
Monk, Phil Minton, etcetera. At the same time, he takes classical singing lessons, developing
more specifically the tessitura of countertenor. Currently, his favourite field is vocal
experimenting, where he is active both as a creator and as a performer. Finally, he also gives
vocal training for theatre and voice productions. Fürst is currently preparing a duo with a vocalist
that is specialised in Dadaist music and sound poetry.
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Buscemi
With his last CD, Camino Real, dance producer Dirk Swartenbroekx still explores his exquisite
worldwide taste for beautiful girls (as collected on his record sleeves) and additional warm
music: stylish house music with a classy French funky touch, intelligent Brazilian flavoured
beats and deeply skinned Latin vibes.
The real story of this mélange of eclectic music started in the eighties. Dirk Swartenbroekx owns
a nearly complete collection of Belgian underground music. He played in several industrial and
lo-fi projects at the same time and even had a own record label before he became Buscemi,
named after his favourite Hollywood actor who has starred in such films as Reservoir Dogs,
Fargo, The Big Lebowsky.
But it was Goldie, playing infectious jungle and drum'n'bass at the Blue Note in London, that
attracted Dirk into electronic dance music. Mocha Supremo (1998) was Buscemi's first bunch of
house tunes, topped with a French fried touch and spiced with jazzy drum'n'bass.
Internationally, deejays Gilles Peterson and Morpheus became interested and recommended
his music into new territory.
In the meantime, Buscemi became a resident authority in lounge music. Remixes for Calexico
and Suba amongst many others, featured on several successful compilations. On A Warm Blue
Note Session, he immortalized his own selection from Blue Note Records.
Buscemi – usually accompanied with three musicians on stage – headlined Belgiums biggest
summer festivals Werchter and Pukkelpop twice. As dj, Buscemi experienced the world. He's
been eating pasta with Gilles Peterson in Mexico. Shared coffee with Richard Dorfmeister in
Vienna. The band already toured in Turkey, Spain and South-Africa.
Edgardo Rudnitzky
(1956) Composer and sound artist, he has divided his career among the composition and the
sound design related to performing arts. Since the ‘80 he has carried out an intense work as a
sound designer and composer of music for numerous theatrical settings, contemporary dance
and films in Argentina and abroad, and has presented several installations of his own and in
collaboration with visual artists. He has received several international commissions as a
composer and his scores have received many awards around the world. He has worked in
collaboration with Alejandro Tantanian in the last edition of the Kunsten Festival des Arts, in the
Unpacking project. Another collaboration with Tantanian was presented at this year’s festival:
Carlos W. Sáenz (1956 - ).
Glamor is Undead
Fleur & Jeroen Olyslaegers set up Glamor Is Undead last year, a group creating so much
enthusiasm on the Belgian electronic music scene (going by the name of "belgtronica") that its
artists are happily being promoted both here and abroad. Let’s not forget that Glamor is Undead
believe in projects where electronic musicians are invited to work with theatre performers,
writers and visual artists and that this group is not afraid to form links with fashion, design and
cinema. In the past few months, Glamor is Undead opened a nightclub in Courtrai for a few
days (with live acts Daan, Eavesdropper, Galacticamendum and Stijn et al), organised a variety
festival (ranging from a preview of Wayn Traub’s designer cakes to an authentic boxing
demonstration, intermingled with performances by Styrofoam and Stijn and a dance
performance by Marc Vanrunxt). Recently, Glamor is Undead also added the very first
compilation of Belgtronica, Glamor is Undead presents 13 Belgtronic Standards to the list, in
collaboration with Eavesdropper, produced under its label Knobsounds. This CD was launched
at the beginning of April in the fully booked AB club, along with performances from Daiphlux,
Köhn, Bohr Bug and Stijn. Glamor is Undead is synonymous with original electronic music,
champagne and the conviction that nothing beats things in motion.
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FESTIVALITE / FESTIVALITIS
Bar - Resto
The place to be !
CentreduFESTIVALcentrum
Maison du Spectacle – la Bellone
Rue de Flandre 46 Vlaamse Steenweg
1000 Bruxelles / Brussel
2 – 24 mai/mei/may
en semaine/weekdagen/weekdays: 18:00 >
week-end/weekend: 12:00 >
You’ll find the Festival HQ open both before and after performances. Our bar and restaurant
await you, located in the splendid surroundings of the rear courtyard at the Maison du Spectacle
– La Bellone. Beneath the glass roof, in candlelight, it’s an ideal place to relax, enjoy leisurely
conversations, sample wonderful food and meet whomever you like…
Rendez-vous
Would you like to meet a certain actor or director who has impressed you? A meeting is
organised after the second performance of each production, in the venue itself.
Eric gaat naar Sarma
Eric De Kuyper is involved in three productions at our 2003 Festival – as the co-writer of the
stage version of Proust I & II staged by Guy Cassiers (ro theather); as the director and writer of
Intermittences du cœur, based on The Captive by Proust that he adapted for film with Chantal
Akerman; and he has devised the Marcel va au cinéma evening at the Musée du Cinéma.
(Re)discover Eric De Kuyper the dance critic as well (from 1962 to 1978) on www.sarma.be, a
site designed by Myriam Van Imschoot and Jeroen Peters. The public showing (Eric gaat naar
Sarma) is at the Kaaitheater on 18 May at 5 p.m. after the performance of De kant van Albertine
(ro theater)
Bruxellite/Brussellitis
Get an inside view of Brussels with Arcadia and brukselbinnenstebuiten! On 10 and 24 May,
from 14.00 – 16.00, Arcadia will take you into the Marolles (the tour will be given in French).
On the itinerary will be the Chapelle des Brigittines and the Tanneurs, as well as an opportunity
to meet some of the actors etc. The tour by brukselbinnenstebuiten (given in Dutch) on 17 May
follows the course of the Senne, from the Beursschouwburg to BSBbis, ending at Place
Anneessens where Els Dietvorst’s film is being screened.
Arcadia, TEL 02/534.38.19 – http://arcadia.wanadoo.be – arcadia@wanadoo.be
brukselbinnenstebuiten, TEL 02/218.38.78 – www.brukselbinnenstebuiten.be –
bruksel@skynet.be
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