• 10/01/2020 De Meervaart, Amsterdam (NL)
  
• 01/02/2020 CC De Adelberg, Lommel (BE)
  
• 08/02/2020 Westrand, Dilbeek (BE)

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)

• 14/01/2020 Cultuurhuis De Warande, Turnhout (BE)
  
• 24/02/2020 SPOT/Stadsschouwburg, Groningen (NL)

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)

• 16, 18, 20, 22, 26/01/2020 Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin (DE)
  
• 8-10, 15-17/05/2020 Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Antwerpen (BE)
  
• 27/05/2020 Operadagen Rotterdam (NL)

“The result is fantastic… Everything is simply right in this production: the songs, the claustrophobic notes from the orchestra, the bleak set design and the special effects with smoke and lightning strikes that reinforce the fall of the house on many levels…” Der Tagesspiegel 

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.

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 David Oštrek L'ami Martin Gerke Le médecin Dominic Kraemer Lady Madeline Ruth Rosenfeld & Musicians of the Staatskapelle Berlin 

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

Staatsoper Berlin

Murmur is part of the official selection of the 2020 International film festival Rotterdam, in their "Bright Future" program. 

MURMUR is a collaboration between filmmaker Jan Locus and sound artist Stijn Demeulenaere. On two occasions they went to the swamp in the late hours of the night, just before first light, to record the dawn chorus. A dawn chorus is the awakening of the world, or the biotope. Just before dawn, the animals wake up, almost one species at the time, and start making their presence known, creating a lush symphony like soundscape that lasts till the sun is well up in the sky. At the same time one hears the city awakening in the distance, the continuous bass drone gets louder, the traffic picks up, the overtones of people waking up and getting to work start to disturb the night’s calm.

The city drone permeates the sound of the swamp, and a strange mix enfolds between the sound of an awakening nature and a very human presence. It gives the place a very otherworldly atmosphere during the twilight hours of the morning. MURMUR is a study in sound and image of this place during this blue hour of the morning.

Stijn Demeulenaere
Jan Locus

IFFR

• 25/01/2020 | 9.00 am | 3.00 pm | 6.00 pm
  
• 26/01/2020 | 9.00 am | 3.00 pm | 6.00 pm

The SHRINK 01995 installation by Lawrence Malstaf is a boundary-breaking art performance that evokes associations between the embryonic position and the crucifixion scene in the audience’s psyche. The performers will be literally shrink-wrapped between two layers of film. The air will be gradually extracted from the plastic films that hang within the room. The dancers will regulate the air supply via a hose, a procedure which is conducive to slow movements and the changing of positions. By hosting SHRINK, the “Out Of The Box” festival finally departs from the format of a purely music festival, demonstrating that “out of the box” also incorporates transgressions of the most elementary form in the shape of highly divergent artistic genres.

At Festival Out Of The Box 2020 there will be 6 Shrinks and the bodies of 6 performers.

Out Of The Box

25/01/2020 at 3 pm & 6 pm

Stijn Demeulenaere is a sound artist and field recordist from Brussels. For his project Latitudes he records sounds all over the world, and uses them to compose soundscapes with. At the moment, the project includes recordings from Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Gabon, Romania, France, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Iceland. The recordings from all these different climates, all these different biotopes, are being explored for their sonic characteristics, and their spatial uniqueness. The database of recordings is still growing. In Latitudes Stijn develops compositions and live sets where he explores this audio material, creating new sonic structures juxtaposing the sounds, or melting them together.

In the current Latitudes live set, an underwater recording of the waves on the beach of Ostend will play an important role.

In 2017 Stijn released the first album in the Latitudes series on the Brussels label Silken Tofu. He’s currently working on the second album, aiming at a release for Spring 2020.

Chambres d'O Huiskamerfestival 

Until 23 February 2020

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