What is the place of the human in a world in which ecological catastrophe and technology are fundamentally challenging this position? This performance by Kris Verdonck explores the physical and mental state of being in the face of an impending extinction.

The combination of a merciless desire for profit and growth with technological developments, has reduced the human to a disposable object. Making the landscape in which we live inhabitable is the next step. What remains after social, economic and ecological elimination? The dancers wandering around in Something (out of nothing), are oftentimes not more than silhouettes or shadows. They are the ghosts that are the consequence of the destructive dynamics between humanity and the landscape, which in the performance is evoked by large inflatable sculptures and noise cello player Leila Bordreuil. 

A production of  A Two Dogs Company (BE) & ICK (NL) 

SOMETHING (out of nothing)
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Machine Made Silence. The Art of Kris Verdonck brings together an array of essays written by leading scholars in the field of theatre and performance studies and a series of interviews, performance texts, notes on particular works, as well as an extensive overview of Verdonck’s oeuvre. Rich in images, the book also includes drawings and sketches, opening up the creative process. The question that fueled this book is that of how to make work today. How can we characterize ‘today’ and how can art relate to that? Looking at the work of Kris Verdonck, tensions come to the fore between humans and machines, between life and death, between the now and the end, between visual arts and performing arts, between something and nothing.

Machine Made Silence. The Art of Kris Verdonck
Edited by Peter Eckersall and Kristof van Baarle
With a preface by Guy Gypens and texts by Maaike Bleeker, Andy Lavender, Charlotte De Somviele, Peter Eckersall, Edward Scheer, Tawny Andersen, a.o.
Performance Research Books, Aberystwyth, UK
204 p. - 49 color images

Soon available here

• 06/02/2020 Ainsi, Maastricht (NL)
  
• 12/02/2020 TR Schouwburg, Rotterdam (NL)
  
• 13-14-15/02/2020 Kaaistudio's, Brussels (BE)
  
• 18/02/2020 De Nieuwe Vorst, Tilburg (NL)
  
• 21/02/2020 Toneelschuur, Haarlem (NL)
  
• 26/02/2020 Frascati, Amsterdam (NL)
  
• 27/02/2020 Corrosia, Almere (NL)
  
• 17/03/2020 Het Nationaal Theater, Den Haag (NL)

In ACT, Kris Verdonck explores various aspects of the relation between the human on the verge of disappearing in the work of Samuel Beckett. ACT approaches Beckett in three ways: with a monologue with Beckett texts (Stories and texts for nothing), performed by Johan Leysen, with a scientist, invited to react to Beckett and with an autonomous scenography, a possible landscape for a Beckett text.

The variety and multidisciplinary approach reflect the complexity of Beckett’s work and are at the same time an attempt to literally take apart this complexity. The triptych of science, theatre and high-tech show, as in three acts, each a different facet of the diamond ‘Beckett’. They deepen each other’s experience: a particular way of performing brings a scientific insight to life and vice versa, a performative scenography zooms in on the underlying world of or perhaps after the actor and offers a more contemplative experience.

A production of A Two Dogs Company & Het Zuidelijk Toneel (NL)

ACT

The title of Kiki Smith’s exhibition refers to that particular hour when day becomes night, that moment when the dog must protect the sheep and when the wolf makes use of the darkness to come out of the wood!

All of Kiki Smith's art works oscillate between light and darkness, evolve from the quiet nature towards the untamability of certain animals, enter the world of the night, that particular moment when pleasure and fear come together.

Sometimes, the artist speaks without any taboos of the bestiality hiding in humanity. She reveals our unfathomable fears, what is haunting the depths of our intimacy and what we would like to keep hidden. Sometimes, she juxtaposes fragments of images of her body in disturbing positions or of female organs, in an attempt to undermine the traditional representations of the stereotypical image of a woman.

However, by screaming at the moon, the wolf - just like Kiki Smith - also refers to its strength; that of the spiritual energy and of the unconsciousness to which universal knowledge is accessible. They both get connected with the world, its myths and symbols, as well as with the laws of nature.

After all, the blue hour, another metaphor of this uncertain interval between day and night, is also considered the best hour to smell the scent of flowers and to hear the birds sing. In many of her most recent works, Kiki Smith tries to capture and translate this ephemeral symphony; it’s an allegory of a world in which concord and serenity would reign for a brief moment.

Entre Chien et Loup

What do you say, do or make when the end is nigh? In Conversations at the end of the world, a piece by Kris Verdonck / A Two Dogs Company for large auditoria, five figures find themselves in an empty theatre space. They have only their bodies, their capabilities and the time that is left to them. Together these five figures, played by Johan Leysen, Jan Steen, Jeroen Van der Ven, José Kuijpers and the renowned pianist Marino Formenti, create a portrait of humankind in the crazy twentieth century – a century in which man’s image has been significantly eroded and whose wounds we still carry with us today. Waiting for the catastrophe that is inevitably coming, or in the midst of it, they welcome the audience to ‘a last evening’. When faced with death, the characters react with boredom, panic, madness, lethargy, nonsense and absurdity. Their absurdity is fed by the crazy logic of the war, ecological disasters, and all kinds of crises. Despite being in shock, they try to understand what is going on outside, and it is this absurd reaction to a cruel reality that lies behind this project.

A production of A Two Dogs Company (BE), Het Zuidelijk Toneel (NL) and a coproduction with Kaaitheater (BE), Rotterdamse Schouwburg (NL), Fondation d’entreprise Hermès within the framework of the New Settings program (FR) 

CONVERSATIONS (at the end of the world)
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MELTING performed by Amund Sjølie Sveen is an investigation of various questions related to the scientific, economic and psychological reasons for, and consequences of, our presumed current climate crisis.
If we accept that global warming exists and is manmade, what implications does it have for how we organize our lives and society? What happens when ice melts? What happens when economies melt? What happens when society, welfare, social relations, public art funding and human future melt? And afterwards, when everything is melted, then what?

Overview, 02016 by Lawrence Malstaf: Astronauts who were able to observe planet Earth from outer space for the first time, all experienced a strong emotional reaction later called the overview effect. A euphoric feeling of oneness with the planet and all living beings as a collective biotope where ‘my molecules are yours’ and vice versa and individuality seems an illusion. 
'Overview' consists of a motorized video screen that can slowly pan, tilt and lift. The screen is 3m x 4m wide and has LED light on the backside. An abstracted globe is projected on the front.

Music by Slagr

Since her 2015 opera "Private View" based on an Alfred Hitchcock film, if not earlier, the Belgian Annelies Van Parys has established her reputation as one of the most innovative composers of contemporary musical theatre. Her work is distinguished by a keen interest in the facets of the human singing voice as well as an idiosyncratic approach to instrumentation. Starting with the material of the uncompleted opera – Debussy left behind several libretto drafts, a musical fragment of about 20 minutes and some sketches – Van Parys develops in USHER a chamber music theatre that probes the category of the uncanny in a specific musical and theatrical way.

In January 2020 USHER is revived by the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin and will performed at Opera Vlaanderen in Antwerp & Ghent in May and during Operadagen Rotterdam 2020.

Music Annelies Van Parys / Claude Debussy 
Text Gaea Schoeters / Claude Debussy based on "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe

Musical Director Marit Strindlund Director, set designer, light Philippe Quesne Dramaturgy Roman Reeger Roderick Usher Ola Eliasson L'ami Vincenzo Neri Le médecin Daniel Arnaldos Lady Madeline Alexandra Büchel & Symfonisch Orkest Opera Ballet Vlaanderen

Commissioned by Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin and Folkoperan Stockholm in co-production with Muziektheater Transparant (B), Opera Vlaanderen (B) and Nanterre - Amandiers centre dramatique national (F).

• 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17/05/2020 Opera Vlaanderen, Antwerp & Ghent (BE)
  
• 27/05/2020 Operadagen Rotterdam (NL)

TICKETS
Opera Vlaanderen Antwerp & Ghent
Operadagen Rotterdam