Sun, sea, beach and culture … a delightful, summery mix. The Theater Aan Zee festival remains vibrant, stimulating and relevant, evolving with the spirit of the times. It reaches more and more lovers of the diverse performing arts every year. The count stood at 180,000 visitors at the end, an absolute record.
This year, curator and artistic multi-talent Lucas De Man chose 'involvement' as a more layered and overarching theme for the 23rd edition. He succeeded in bringing together different voices and perspectives under the motto 'It is up to you, me, us'. Two years ago, there was some commotion because the festival would be too white. This year, quite a few people of color are on stage. Unfortunately, this does not translate to the audience, with a few exceptions.
Theater Aan Zee is very close to De Man's heart. With this curatorship, he is at the helm for the eighth time. During previous editions, he created installations and performances and was jury chairman. #TAZ19 broadcasts a frequency that young and old can perceive. So no box mentality or isolationism, but virtually all the performing arts featured in a balanced program. A feast of the senses with humor, refinement and powerful statements. Ostend offers a sea of possibilities in terms of playing spaces. Small and large ensembles navigate the city like ships. There is a place for everything: theater, dance, music. And everything falls into place: an impressive overall picture. Choosing is winning. From the great diversity of performances, we selected ten.
MonologueSimone Milsdochter
'What do you think about western civilization?' 'I think it would be a good idea' (CC DGP-Studio 1, Monday 5/8)
A one-woman performance of the purest kind, both written and carried by Simone Milsdochter. She wrote the piercing text together with Wallace Shawn and also operates the music controls during the performance (Ludwig Van Beethoven and Frederik Van de Moortel).
Anger and fear hang in the air. In this monologue, she dissects today's world: morality, sectarianism, rich versus poor, happiness versus misery. The text is born on the performer's tongue. Contradictory things are embraced simultaneously in a cognitive dissonance. Is Western civilization a mistake? But then we would have been deprived of books, theater, visual arts and music … By a twist of fate, we belong to the fortunate, the strong versus the weak. The confrontational monologue is interwoven with music by Beethoven and creates striking accents. This performance, which sits somewhere between a lecture and a performance, is rather heavy going but ends on a positive note: the quantitative accumulation will one day lead to a qualitative turnaround. Hopefully!
Music TheaterVictoria Deluxe/Kopergieterij and Eden-Charleroi
Avond Van Hoop (Loods NMBS, Monday 5/8)
For five evenings, curator Lucas De Man invited a theater company to shape an Avond van Hoop and to expose dominant power relations in our society.
The aforementioned companies joined forces for a performance with young people from entirely different backgrounds, with roots in Congo, Morocco, Angola, Spain and also Belgians. Also second generations, born here, who experience discrimination as a daily reality. All of them got mud thrown at them. To a spicy beat, the performers enter diagonally from côté cour and côté jardin and step toward the center of the apron. In their clumsy way of walking, you can see that these are not trained actors. The performance is built in the most simplistic way, but that is also what makes it strong. Each performer gets a few minutes on the stage to tell, in an alphabet of memory and prosaic construction, an experience that stayed with them. Feeling misunderstood, hypocrisy, the inconsistency of society left scratches on their souls. The actor with Congolese roots emerges as a natural talent: a born storyteller with a great sense of timing, who in 1-2-3 engages the audience and draws them into his story. Stories that are anything but hopeful. Their texts contain a longing for recognition and freedom. Through the shifting of perspective: from solo to group moments with singing and dancing, the whole gains depth and cohesion and gets under your skin. Over classical music there are resting points in dreamy danceable moments that suddenly turn into bouncy, concentrated energy. Each performer is an individual thread, which together form a performative whole. A performance with a strong vibration, an energetic feeling that despite all the pain, things can still turn out well and … hope arises there.
Apéro Poetry (Vrijstaat O, Tuesday 6/8)Warre Borgmans and Lies Van Gasse
It is a pleasant formula to start the day with a refreshing dose of poems. Carl Destrycker, director of Poëziecentrum and chief editor of Poëziekrant, talks with a few well-known people and authors about what poetry means to them. We chose actor Warre Borgmans. For him, poetry must offer comfort in the broadest sense of the word. In turn, he invited poet/visual artist Lies Van Gasse. She won the prize of the province of East Flanders for her collection Brak de Waterdrager and likes to combine word and image in her work. Debutant Gerda Blees was also introduced to the audience. Both read from their work. I have to say it honestly: it sounded rather monotonous. One of the few authors who can do that with gusto is Tom Lanoye. When Warre Borgmans delivers a range of poetry, going from cerebral and sad to hilarious, the audience hangs on his lips.TheatreComp. Marius
Les Enfants du Paradis (Koninklijke Villa, Tuesday 6/8)
Comp. Marius, known for its unconventional choices, premiered Les Enfants du Paradis on 4 August, based on the film script of the same name by Jacques Prévert from 1943. The text focuses on love and play and offers ample opportunities for acting. One woman and four men: a mime, an actor, a criminal and a filthy rich count. All of them lie at her feet but only one wins her heart. There are both wordless acts and telling dialogues, both slapstick and tragedy. At least, that's what the brochure says, but it comes out only sparingly. Everything takes place in a strange Ensor-like world with nocturnal cafés full of odd figures from the worlds of theatre, mime and fairground.
We attended on Tuesday 6 August. Not under the easiest conditions for the actors: a stiff wind was blowing, and the surf and screeching seagulls caused noise interference. It required a great deal of vocal volume from the actors. The audience sits on a stand with a view of the sea and another small stand, part of the set. Between them is the playing area of the actors. The mechanisms of the theatre are laid bare entirely. The performance gains an extra dimension through the sliding of shadows versus the increasing intensity of the heavy lamps. The beams narrow and acquire direction, so that things gain relief. Everything is sharpened: black and white. Several generations share the stage: Waas Gramser, Kris Van Trier, Koen Van Impe, Frank Dierens, Clara Cleymans, Lisah Addeaga, Bert Haelvoet and Ray Aernouts. The performance begins promisingly but then seriously goes off the rails. It is like a balloon that escapes from one's hand and deflates in turbulent patterns. Sustaining such a burlesque style of playing for two and a half hours is a herculean task. It also went down the wrong way with some spectators, who demonstratively walked out. Kill your darlings. Shortly after half an hour into the performance, the whole thing became more digestible. I was also thoroughly annoyed by the sloppy way Bert Haelvoet speaks, in a leading role. His "ij" and "a" sounds are pure dialect, while the rest of the cast uses a beautiful language, led by Koen Van Impe. As a bonus that evening there was a magnificent sunset. In the literal sense of the word: theatre by the sea.
Stichting Nieuwe HeldenYes, Please! LIVE (Atelier Klein verhaal, Wednesday 7/8)
This falls within a research project. What does science say about fantasies, erotic fantasies in particular? The Nieuwe Helden have been asking people in the Netherlands and Flanders this question for more than a year now. Why? Because a great many people are ashamed of their own fantasies, and that is sad. Researcher Charlotte van der Meer and Rashif El Kaoui take the audience through their research. Which erotic stories does the audience want to hear? A bit of an outsider in the festival landscape.Music theatreHet Nieuwstedelijk
Gesprek met de regen (CC DGP, Wednesday 7/8)
Director, author and house director Stijn Devillé of Het Nieuwstedelijk city theatre of Leuven, Hasselt and Genk describes a gripping experience in Gesprek met de regen. He writes down, as a kind of catharsis, the emotions following a near-death experience with his daughter. Years ago they found their six-year-old daughter lifeless at the foot of the stairs. The parents resuscitated her and, miraculously, were able to bring her back to life.
In a murky process of grieving and letting go, two people, a man and a woman, are trapped in a downward spiral of sorrow that pulls them into a bottomless pit. They have moved abroad, as far away as possible, Singapore, because they can no longer live in the house where the accident happened. They arrive in the middle of the monsoon. The woman has an important role as CEO in a nanotechnology company. Hard work is her escape route. He is a writer and, since the death of his daughter Hanna, has been struggling with writer's block. The emptiness is swallowing him up.
The high glass window of their apartment on the front stage reflects the audience. Behind every facade hides a story. On the left at the back of the stage sit the musicians with their instruments: partly electronic music, supplemented with violin, guitar, xylophone and trombone. They weave a web, like fine filigree, airy and floating, around the emotional state of the man and the woman. Tom Van Bauwel plays the role of his life as the loving, comforting husband to his wife, who has completely lost her way. Meanwhile, he himself is struggling with his immense grief. Two lonely souls. They play hide-and-seek behind their laptops. A colorful LED strip on the back wall starkly contrasts with the gloom of the man and woman. Numbed by grief, he circles the emptiness and wanders through the city. The rain pours down from the sky. As if it were a sign from the afterlife, he thinks he hears his daughter's voice through the sound of the rain. The e-Media Research lab of KU Leuven developed a kind of rain printer. His daughter's words flash through the curtain of rain. A remarkable feat of technology. Its magic and poetry leave one silent. The father clings to this transcendent phenomenon. He wants to share it with his wife as well, but as a scientist she remains down to earth. In the end, the grief bursts out like an eruption of accusations and self-reproach. They are startled by each other's deep-rooted and pent-up emotion. Together with the downpour that stops, there is their slowly fading grief. The realization: they must go on living their lives. Sara Vertongen, as the steely CEO but devastated mother, also plays the duality very convincingly. Dissecting such a subject to the bone without being maudlin is top-notch writing, directing and acting. Gesprek met de regen is a gem of a production, so moving and beautiful that it hurts.
Music/stand-up comedyB.O.X/Martha!tentative
Lulletje (Loods NMBS, Thursday 8/8)
A strange mix with these ingredients: stand-up comedy in the dialect of 't Stad, baroque music played by harp, sitar and oboe, and several video screens of various sizes on which YouTube clips of idiotic, laughable Chinese habits are projected. Frankly, those were the best part of all. Also the musicians under the direction of Pieter Theunis of Baroque Orchestra X, a collective that blends contemporary music with the sonic richness of the baroque, provide beautiful intermezzi. With the help of classical instruments, they dismantle the sound wall between old and new, pop and classical.
Johan Petit's overwrought story about his childhood friends, football and adventures in traffic could hardly bring a smile to my lips. Les goûts et les couleurs, as they say…
TheatreCompagnie Cecilia
De broers Geboers (CC DGP, Thursday 8/8)
Arne Sierens is often called the 'producer of contemporary melodrama, of the grotesque, that delicious mix of high and low, of kitsch and art'. Popular and passionate spectacles such as Ensor, Lacrima, Zingarate and Heilig Hart reached a large audience.
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The premiere of De broers Geboers dates from twenty years ago, but this production has lost none of its force: raw and fierce, yet also heartbreaking. With bravura, the entire cast — Wouter Bruneel, Sebastien Dewaele, Marijke Pinoy, Tom Ternest and Wim Willaert — delivers the text in a juicy West Flemish idiom. Guido Vrolix's set helps the actors to heighten the awkward situations even further. Banal conversations alternate with toxic discussions, in which the characters bark and snarl at each other like dogs. Fireworks crackle from every pore. De broers Geboers: passionate, witty and biting.
TheatreRataplan
Een Jihad van Liefde (CC DGP, Friday 9/8)
When Mohammed El Bachiri sent these words out into the world after the attack in Maalbeek, in which he lost his beloved wife and was left behind with three small children, everyone was astonished. Struck dumb by such altruism. After the book Jihad van liefde, a manifesto for love and humanity (recorded by David Van Reybrouck), he was in the spotlight for a time. But the world keeps turning. The ever-recurring list of disasters, accidents and wars shifts the focus. Mohammed El Bachiri was left alone with his grief, the emptiness, and the care of his children, who are struggling with trauma. The theatre production picks up where the book ends, in a direction and text adaptation by Hans van Cauwenberghe. Just like every partner left behind after a death, he struggles, and despite his powerlessness and despair he must stay on his feet for the children. As an anchor he looks back on the first meeting with his wife. In a kind of inner dialogue she urges him to carry on. The courage not to give up. To care for his home, the children and for himself. The actors Rashid El Kaoui and Amara Reta wrap the spectator tightly in the silk-soft dark fabric of their voices and the survival instinct of humankind.
All the performances fitted like a glove into the theme 'It is up to you, me, us', like the swelling and receding tide of ebb and flow. Next year, God willing and in good health, I will be there again for the appointment. The new curator is already known. It will be Caroline Pauwels, professor of communication sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and rector of the university since September 2016. The overarching theme? 'Amor mundi'. The belief that people are inextricably connected with nature and need each other in order to become human.
- WHAT: Theater Aan Zee
- WHO: Simone Milsdochter, Victoria Deluxe/Kopergieterij en Eden-Charleroi, Warre Borgmans, Lies Van Gasse, Carl Destrycker, Gerda Blees, Comp.Marius, Stichting Nieuwe Helden, Nieuwstedelijk, B.O.X./Martha!tentief, Compagnie Cecilia, Rashid El Kaoui en Amara Reta
- WHERE: various locations in Oostende
- WHEN: Wednesday 31 July to Saturday 10 August 2019
- WEBSITE: https://theateraanzee.be/
- PHOTOS: © Kathie Danneels | Marcia van der Zwan | Maarten Geukens | Ilse Philips | Katrijn Van Giel | Kurt Van der Elst | Karolina Maruszak