The Desert of the Real - A multi-sensory live performance by Studio Radiaal
14.05.2025 - 15.05.2025 Concertgebouw Brugge
Brugge (B)
The Desert of the Real - A multi-sensory live performance by Studio Radiaal
Technology increasingly reshapes our perceptions, blurring the boundaries between the tangible and the virtual. Drawing on Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality, The Desert of the Real explores how we experience, perceive, and remember reality within a shifting ecological and technological landscape.
Through a staged journey across four scenes, the performance opens with virtual reality as a portal. This individual immersion in a simulated environment gradually shifts toward the exploration of the installations and shifting landscapes on stage. Objects appear fossilized, remnants of a fading world, while original compositions for cello, piano, and live electronics draw audiences into an active role within a fluid reality. Digital seeds and strange organisms start to grow, as glitches and sonic distortions increasingly disturb the fragile balance between the organic and the artificial. Between fading echoes and fractured images, the desert of the real unravels.
STUDIO RADIAAL is an Audiovisual Collective / Pushing the Boundaries of Traditional Art Forms / Creating Multi-Sensory Performances & Stand-alone Installations / Blending Original Compositions for Cello, Piano & Electronics with Visual Art, Video Art, and Scenography.
Het Kanaal
26.01.2018 - 07.02.2018 Ostade A'dam & NTGent
Amsterdam - Gent
26 & 27 January 2018
Ostade A'dam (NL)
6 & 7 February 2018
NTGent (BE)
On a beach near Calais a young refugee prepares himself to swim across the Channel, towards his new future. On the English side, on the chalk cliffs of Beachy Head, a (transsexual) woman bids life goodbye; in a few instants she will jump to her death.
The new text by author Gaea Schoeters is mirrored by recently recovered Shakespeare-text.
Composer Annelies Van Parys uses the Shakespeare-text as a libretto for a cycle of songs, which set the refugee theme in a historical perspective. The soprano is also the intermediary between past and present, audience and play; via other spoken Shakespeare fragments she sets the story in a different perspective, turning the personal stories into a sharp reflection of society, both in the 16th century and today – because the similarities are, alas, striking.
Text Gaea Schoeters Composition Annelies Van Parys Direction Gable Roelofsen & Romy Roelofsen / Het Geluid Maastricht
Actors Katelijne Verbeke & Adams Mensah
Vocalist Naomi Beeldens Lute/guitar Maarten Vandenbemden Scenography Anneleen De Causmaecker Co-produced by Perignem vzw
Muziektheater Transparant
Het Geluid Maastricht
Antwerp Queer Arts Festival
Het Kanaal
01.10.2017 Theater aan het Vrijthof
Maastricht (NL)
On a beach near Calais a young refugee prepares himself to swim across the Channel, towards his new future.
The new text by author Gaea Schoeters is mirrored by recently recovered Shakespeare-text. Composer Annelies Van Parys uses the Shakespeare-text as a libretto for a cycle of songs, which set the refugee theme in a historical perspective.
Scenography by Anneleen De Causmaecker.
- the show is performed in Dutch but subtitled in English -
Tickets: Theater aan het Vrijthof
Muziektheater Transparant
Queer Arts Festival
Het Geluid Maastricht
Operadagen Rotterdam
Perignem
Het Kanaal - Première
13.05.2017 - 13.05.2017 Operadagen Rotterdam
Rotterdam (NL)
On a beach near Calais a young refugee prepares himself to swim across the Channel, towards his new future.
The new text by author Gaea Schoeters is mirrored by recently recovered Shakespeare-text. Composer Annelies Van Parys uses the Shakespeare-text as a libretto for a cycle of songs, which set the refugee theme in a historical perspective.
Scenography by Anneleen De Causmaecker.
Tickets: Operadagen Rotterdam
Muziektheater Transparant
Queer Arts Festival
Het Geluid Maastricht
Operadagen Rotterdam
Perignem
Het Kanaal / Crossing Borders
17.02.2017 - 19.02.2017 Rataplan
Antwerpen (B)
On a beach near Calais a young refugee prepares himself to swim across the Channel, towards his new future.
The new text by author Gaea Schoeters is mirrored by recently recovered Shakespeare-text. Composer Annelies Van Parys uses the Shakespeare-text as a libretto for a cycle of songs, which set the refugee theme in a historical perspective.
Scenography by Anneleen De Causmaecker.
Avant-première:
Opera XXI, Antwerpen (B): 24 April 2017
Première:
Opera Days Rotterdam (NL): 11 - 13 May 2017
Muziektheater Transparant
Queer Arts Festival
Het Geluid Maastricht
Opera Days Rotterdam
FIELD RECORDINGS - INTERACTIVE SOUND-INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE
21.05.2016 - 22.05.2016 Operadagen Rotterdam - Operawandeling
Garage Rotterdam (NL)
The upheaval after the Great War in an interactive performance. Sound rises from the earth: rustling, murmuring… echoes of battle, but also voices and snatches of music. As visitors move through this installation, the sounds retreat. Wherever humans go, the music hushes to a murmur. This interactive sound installation, created by Anneleen de Causmaecker, Annelies Van Parys and Peter Verhelst, is brought to life by the live performance of Els Mondelaers.
Parcours
25.03.2016 - 25.03.2016 De Bijloke
Gent (B)
ChampdAction presents PARCOURS in Dialogues at De Bijloke. PARCOURS (2009) was the first co-operation between composer Annelies Van Parys and visual artist Anneleen De Causmaecker. The virtuoso performer is Jan Van Hoecke (Recorder).
FIELD RECORDINGS - INTERACTIVE SOUND-INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE
02.05.2015 Concertgebouw Brugge
't Zand 34, 8000 Brugge (B)
The upheaval after the Great War in an interactive performance. Sound rises from the earth: rustling, murmuring… echoes of battle, but also voices and snatches of music. As visitors move through this installation, the sounds retreat. Wherever humans go, the music hushes to a murmur. This interactive sound installation, created by Anneleen de Causmaecker, Annelies Van Parys and Peter Verhelst, is brought to life by the live performance of Els Mondelaers and Isabelle Balsa. Cellist Arne Deforce plays the prelude.