Beyond the Black Box Antwerp – Program
30.03.2023
From 11 to 14 May, Beyond the Black Box descends on Antwerp for the second time! The festival invites makers and audience to experiment with form, space and time. It challenges you to look differently. Let yourself be surprised by work in unexpected places or moments, forget that set of beliefs and come and experience with an open mind what art can still be.
Subscriptions
Fancy attending several performances? Especially for the festival, Beyond the Black Box is launching 2 subscription packages that allow you to score 3 to 5 admissions with interesting discounts.
3X Beyond the Black Box
Basic:
35 euro (Buy here)
+65 / oKo: 24 euro (Buy here)
-26 / jobseeking: 20 euro (Buy here)
-18: 15 euro (Buy here)
5X Beyond the Black Box
Basic: 65 euro (Buy here)
+65 / oKo: 55 euro (Buy here)
-26 / jobseeking: 40 euro (Buy here)
-18: 25 euro (Buy here)
Program
An overview of the programme, play dates and venues – with a special focus on children on Sunday:
11.05 | FLEUR KHANI | Halleluja
Monty | 20u30 | premiere
Hallelujah is a joyous celebration of jubilation set in a post-apocalyptic setting. Four actors and a locally recruited choir of 28 people rejoice in the freedom of losing everything. So they process their loss and release their fears in a “joy road” of diverse cultural and musical styles: Eastern and Gregorian chants, trance exercises, cries of joy, animal sounds, drums and electronic soundscapes. Hallelujah explores what connects us and what there is to celebrate. It claims joy as a zone of freedom. It rejoices as a resistance to fear and revels in the joy of relief, togetherness and physical and sensory pleasure. Hallelujah is a utopian artistic movement that moves from city to city.
Concept: Fleur Khani // From and with: Fleur Khani, Benjamin Vandewalle, Marios Bellas, Carolina Maciel de França and local singers // Dramaturgy: Sarah LeoStylist: Jon Boy // Technician: Arne Claes and Bert Demeulenaere // With thanks to: Aurelie di Marino // Production: d e t h e a t e r m a k e r // Co-production: Perpodium // partners LOD, VIERNULVIER, Monty, 30CC, Concertgebouw Brugge and C-TAKT // In collaboration with: c o r s o // spreading Vincent Company // Photo: Jeanne Coppens // With the support of: The Flemish Government and the Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government
11, 13 & 14.05 | HUSEYIN UMAYSIZ | Davul
Monty | premiere
Huseyin Umaysiz approaches the universe as a living organism in which every object, substance and living being has a vibrational frequency. Thus, each of us consciously or unconsciously engages physically with the world we live in. To make the universal frequencies visible, audible and tangible, Umaysiz chooses the davul – an organic percussion instrument from Turkey – as a performer. Davul explores how vibrations alter the consciousness of our humanity through drum, voice, body and image in an attempt to understand our actions and communication as social beings. Amid an installation by Christophe De Boeck, communication is reinvented and Umaysiz engages in a discussion with the past.
Concept, Direction & Performance: Huseyin Umaysiz // Scenography & Sound: Christoph De Boeck // Dramaturgy: Mesut Arslan // Artistic advice: Christina Flick // Production: Platform 0090 // Production: C-Takt, Dommelhof Neerpelt, SOAP Maastricht
11 tem 14.05 | BART LODEWIJKS | Statement
Monty & wpZimmer
Bart Lodewijks has been working on large-scale, linear chalk drawings in public and private spaces since 2001. He draws with chalk on walls, houses, churches, hospitals and roads in cities and villages, for months or years, writing about the process and the people he meets while drawing.
The drawing has all kinds of stops and interruptions, shifts, connects places, skips places. And it never ends. The drawing consists of long straight lines that are often not visible in their entirety because they turn a corner, run several streets away or are obliterated by the rain. The lines are straight because this is the shortest possible connection between two points, similar to a footstep.
11 tem 14.05 | MÜGE YILMAZ | The Water, The Soil, The Jungle
Monty & wpZimmer
In her work, Müge Yilmaz explores the paradoxes surrounding the concept of protection with a focus on community, survival and faith.
Through performances, photographs and installations, she creates immersive environments inspired by feminist science fiction. Following the concept of three ecologies for observing mental (subjective), social and ecological developments in a parallel method, she uses these media as tools for visualising possible futures.
With protection as a common denominator, her research creates speculations about conservation and scarcity. She constantly looks for trigger points in the form of visual manifestations that trigger unconscious reactions and reflexes.
12.05 | Sophie Guisset | Vanilla
wpZimmer | 20u | première
Vanilla is a study by Sophie Guisset that explores the possibilities of sexual pleasure and questions normativity in sexual practices and how norms permeate the language around them. By sharing the personal and imaginary stories of sexual encounters that are considered ‘extreme’ or non-normative in a personal and vulnerable way, Sophie aims to highlight their attention, respect and playfulness.
Another kind of pleasure Sophie wants to explore is the pleasure of food, specifically the sensory experience of making and eating it. In the process, performers will ask how the recipe for a béarnaise sauce and the attention it demands can teach us something about sex and respect.
Concept, performance: Sophie Guisset // Artistic collaboration, performance: Enis Turan // Artistic collaboration, performance, stage design: Cee Füllemann // Dramaturgy and artistic advise: Lisa Vereertbrugghen // Light design: Emilio Coredero Checa // Sound design: Diana Dobrescu // Text adviser: Melanie Jame Wolf // External eye: Fanny Brouyaux // Production: Lara Joy Bues // A production by Sophie Guisset // Research supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the program NEUSTART KULTUR // Creation supported by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Flemish Authorities (BE) // Coproduced by: WpZimmer, Kunstencentrum Viernulvier, Charleroi Danse. // Thank you to Helga Baert, Matthieu Goeury, Marieke De Munck // Photos: Sophie’ s portrait made by Janine Kuehn
12.05 | CAROLINA MENDONCA & CATALINA INSIGNARES | Useless Land
wpZimmer | 23u | sleepover
Night offers us a few hours to linger and listen. A need to rely on the temporary community of people we sleep with. A waking state where we can be together in disagreement, with our different languages and dreams, in a state between alertness and sleep.
We invite the audience to spend the night with us, lying down and listening. The texts will be read by Catalina Insignares and Carolina Mendonça until dawn. The night gives us time to digest through our mouths and ears. An island of soft surface, a connection to a collective terrain, a space where sleeping is a way of understanding the world.
12.05 | KEVIN TRAPPENIERS | Present
wpZimmer | 17u – 20u doorlopend
PRESENT is a series of minimal in situ interventions as artistic visual commentaries that activate the imagination, based on the world and grafted onto the city. Present sets itself the goal of assigning renewed layers of identity to familiar spaces. It is a gentle call to remain aware of the spaces we inhabit as a community and as individuals, as well as a caring gift to cast familiar realities in a new light. Present is documented but can equally be discovered through wandering. It offers the opportunity to pause for a moment, resisting the urge for constant mobility. A moment of silence in the noise of contemporary life.
13.05 | IRA BRAND / FRASCATI PRODUCTIES | Commitment Phobe
Monty | 20u30
An ode to doubt. Know where you stand. Know what you think.Know what you want.Take a stand.
But what if a single point of view is no longer tenable in a world that is endlessly changing?
Commitment Phobe is an examination of doubt in a society that values certainty. With a live experiment, Ira Brand, together with performer Tiana Hemlock-Yensen, explores what it means not to know, not to choose and to keep moving.
How can we conceive of doubt as strength, rather than powerlessness? What does it mean to take no stand as a political choice? Commitment Phobe is an exploration of the space between yes and no. An ode to doubt.
Created and written by Ira Brand // Performed by Ira Brand and Tiana Hemlock-Yensen // Scenography and light design Paul Boereboom // Dramaturgy Marta KeilFinal direction Abigail Conway // Campaign image Lisa Schamlé // Production Frascati Producties // Co-production wpZimmer, C-Takt, Festival Cement, The Yard Theatre // With support of Stichting Ammodo
13.05 | VIVA LOS DJ’S | Album release
Monty | 22u – 23u + afterparty
In early 2023, Viva Los DJs launched their debut album: New Year New Me. They proudly presented this album at two exclusive album release shows in Antwerp and Ghent. Now, several months later, the boys are eager to present the deluxe, bonus track version of their lauded album, newly titled Same Year Same Me. Expect a pop show beyond your wildest dreams. AND a big surprise that will make you feel like you’re in a live music video….
14.05 | ANNA SCHLOOZ & DE REFUGE | De Middagactiviteit
Monty | 14u – 15u, 16u -17u
Have you ever wondered who lives next door to you? Who walks down your street every day? And what their dreams for the future are?
Anna Schlooz went to a care home near her home with those questions. Together with the elderly, she fantasised about the future and the past. This created a collaboration in which art and care merged.
From this experience, they made a board game. Through the game, you meet Luus, the first female architect, Rachel, the 100-year-old enthusiast, and Anna, the young artist, among others. Roll the dice, move the chicken on the game board, and meanwhile, fantasise about the future together!
14.05 | HANAFUBUKI | Archipelago
Monty | 14u – 17u doorlopend
Did you know that you are surrounded by a collection of things? Do you think they are special? Do you throw them away? Do you forget them? Can you find them again and keep them?
In Archipelago, together we build a new place for that big collection of things. A rough sponge, a blue bottle, a round stick, a soft stone and then a purple cloth.
Shuffle, balance, look and rediscover things. A landscape of rough, blue, round, soft and shiny. Archipelago is an archipelago on which you shape your imagination.
In Archipelago, Hanafubuki invites the audience into small groups at island-shaped tables. As landscape architects, the audience builds with a series of objects. For this, Hanafubuki collected and sorted objects that we do not value, throw away or forget. Archipelago is a meditative and playful rediscovery of everyday things. A participatory and connecting installation for everyone from 5 years old.
