Soil Biographies – LOUD Muziektheater/Farida Amadou/Louis Vanhaverbeke Collapsing landscape

A human biography

Before coming to Soil Biographies, I had many expectations. When I saw the word soil in its title, I thought this play must be about more-than-human life. However, it turned away from the soil and rather plunged into the mental landscape in our head, our dark life history. This landscape held by objects from the past seems to be constantly falling apart. There is a lack of correlation, there is no story to tell. But does that mean that we don’t belong?

Ugnė Noreikė

review 09.11.2026

BEGIN / The Mirror – Bryana Fritz, Stefa Govaart & Chloe Chignell

Dancing with Paradoxes

In BEGIN / The Mirror, Briana Fritz, Chloe Chignell, and Stefa Govaart aim to bridge the ‘I’ of the medieval Beguine Marguerite Porete, author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, with a contemporary ‘we’. Searching for a common language seems prior to finding mutual understanding, writes Emmy Ydiers.

emma ydiers

review 09.11.2026

A huff and a puff (and I blow your house in) – Jef Van der Burght, Senne Vanderschelden & Marius Lefever

Aren’t men just pigs (trying to build a house)?

Jef Van der Burght, Senne Vanderschelden and Marius Lefever unite under the collective Three is a crowd and bring a Broadway-like show with dance, lights, laughter, jump-scares and lots and lots of drama. Their story is based on a classical drama of loss, ‘Three little pigs’, spiced up by a generous scoop of Swedish director Roy Andersson’s existential despair. The collective reclaims entertainment: as the play makes us forget our worries, it also manages to make bolder claims about masculinity, effort, and solidarity.

Ugnė Noreikė

review 05.11.2026

Artists’ Entrance: Trajal Harrell

In Artists’ Entrance, we ask artists about their life and work. Today: Trajal Harrell. Harrell gained international renown as choreographer through his pioneering engagement with the New York voguing ballroom scene, early postmodern dance and butoh. He is a frequent guest on Belgian stages, presenting The Romeo at DE SINGEL on 23 and 24 October 2026. In April 2027, he will “sashay to Schubert” with the world premiere of Winterreise at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen.

Trajal Harrell

interview 19.10.2026

Je rêve [FR]

Outside Eyes: Mbanza-Ngungu

Dans sa troisième et dernière chronique, Michael Disanka donne libre cours à ses “vilains petits rêves pleins d’essence”. Il rêve d’un théâtre qui guérit les blessures d’une histoire mal racontée, un théâtre jamais au pas, ni de l’Occident ni de l’Orient, qui dit: debout congolais, plaçant l’avenir de l’humanité au Sud, à Mbanza-Ngungu, au cœur du Théâtre du Scratching.

Michael Disanka

column 01.10.2026

Long Voyage Home – Marthe Koning & Gerben Vaillant

A bad story

Long Voyage Home is a play that’s caught in a web of loose meanings that both inspire and trouble. How do we tell a story about belonging and home, how do we find meaning? The play refuses to make sense or to give an answer, which is frustrating, but it’s also where its power lies.

Ugnė Noreikė

review 29.09.2026

Farcical Fascism

How Performance Responds to the Cruel Show of  Trump and Co.

With Donald Trump’s second term, the hypocritical theatre of liberal democracy has collapsed at last. In its place arrives a no less theatrical form of politics that Georg Döcker diagnoses as “farcical fascism” – a contemporary anti-politics celebrating the hollowness at the heart of fascism, and turning it into political performance. Having dispensed with the liberal theatre of stitching together appearance, truth and lie, Trump, Netanyahu and co. promote a cruel spectacle of total violence while appropriating the tools of satire to immunise themselves against ridicule and critique. In the face of this shift in the relation between theatricality and power, how can performance still act as a subversive and resistant force?

Georg Döcker

essay 08.09.2026