Goedenavond,
Boa Noite,

Ik ben Frederico Araujo. Geboren in Brazilië. Enig kind van Anália Teixeira de Araujo en Eduardo Alexandre. Ik ben toneelspeler, regisseur en a dreamer. 

Hoe zeg je “a dreamer”  in het Nederlands ?

Voilà, ik ben een dromer. 

One day, I dreamed of the world of volleyball. 

One day, I dreamed of making theatre.

Today, I am here, in this country, living as a player.

Standing on this stage, 9,430 kilometers away from where I was born. 

This text is my utopia.

1. The ocean

There are many oceans that separate Araujo from you, Mr. Wouters, Miss Peeters, Vermeulen and Van Damme! 

Here is my first utopia: fewer oceans separating Araujo’s from Van Damme’s.

We know that making a living as an artist is difficult for a person who was born here,

Imagine what it is like for someone who was not?

May the artists arriving on the Belgian coast have fewer daily oceans to cross.

So maybe one day some of you will cast me in a project that has no link to Brazil. 

Would you cast me to play the role of king?

The future is not in “someone else’s hands”.

It’s “in our hands”.

“May the artists arriving on the Belgian coast have fewer daily oceans to cross. So maybe one day some of you will cast me in a project that has no link to Brazil.”

Today, I step on this stage that was born one hundred and forty years ago to defend and promote a language, Flemish.

I imagine a future where many more voices take the stage.

When KVS was created the question was: “Who gets to speak on this stage?”

Today, perhaps the question is different: “Who has not yet arrived on this stage?”

Perhaps the future is not about choosing just one language.

Perhaps the future is more about learning to listen to them all.

On this stage of KVS I am being born. 

Right now.

I am a three-minute-old baby, born full of dreams. 

Dreams made of theatre.

I crossed an ocean to pursue my dream of making a living from theatre.

2 September 2026.

6:26 p.m.

KVS.

Brussels.

Now.

I am a baby and I am already concerned about the future.

Every time I look towards the future,
I find myself looking towards the past.

Towards my ancestors,
who made it possible for me to be here.

I think about my mixed heritage and multiple origins.

Where are my roots planted?

What is this stage beneath me?

My deepest roots.

My mother: Anália.

I, the dreamer, am the child of her dream.

A seed cannot choose the tree 

But it can choose which direction to grow in. 

What kind of tree am I?

Where are my branches growing?

“Every time I look towards the future, I find myself looking towards the past. Towards my ancestors, who made it possible for me to be here.”

2. The forest

I dream of a stage that never stops making discoveries.

Where we can still discover artists and practices no one has seen before.

I grew up near a forest – Mata Atlântica – where new species are still being discovered.

I come from a country where the Amazon Rainforest teaches us, every single day, that life never happens through just one species.

A tropical rainforest is beautiful because it is a community of many different species, where every living organism plays its part. 

It thrives on difference.

On the coexistence of different heights.
Different leaves.
Different roots.
Colors.
Fruits.
Different songs.

Hundreds of shades of green.

“I dream of a stage that never stops making discoveries. Where we can still discover artists and practices no one has seen before.”

Some trees spend their whole lives reaching for the sun.

Some plants can only survive in the shade.

Some need abundant water.

Others drown in it.

Then there is the fauna.

Species living side by side.

Those who swim.

Who run.

Who fly.

Feathers.
Fur.
Skin.
Scales.

All in the same tropical forest.

It is precisely this abundance of difference that keeps the forest alive.

This is how I imagine the future on this stage.

Not as an over-organized theatre field but as the organism of a tropical rainforest.

A forest also made by those who have historically been asked to stand outside the centre.

A plural forest.

A multilingual forest.

A multicultural forest.

A place where no artist has to justify where they come from before showing us where their imagination can go.

Where difference is not a quota. 

Where decolonialism is not just part of a program.

Where equity and inclusion are put into practice.

“In nature, no tree pays a higher price to grow because its seeds came from the other side of the ocean. Rain does not check passports. The sunlight does not recognize nationalities. The earth does not ask for a visa. In our theatrical tropical forest, there’s no concern about invasive species. The main concern is: how can we fertilize new seeds?”

A rainforest where the law of the strongest does not prevail

Where the strongest share their food with the weakest as part of the ecosystem’s balance.

Where larger, older trees use their dominance to provide shade and cavities that serve as habitats for new species.

A forest does not grow because every tree receives the same amount of light.

It grows because it finds ways for light to circulate.

Did you know that trees in a forest can “communicate” and exchange nutrients with one another through fungal networks in their roots?

For the future and for now: 

May the light and water circulate

So that none of us dries out.

My deepest roots are in my seed 

I am growing on this stage 

Longing to plant (with you) this tropical forest. 

In nature, no tree pays a higher price to grow because its seeds came from the other side of the ocean.

Rain does not check passports.

The sunlight does not recognize nationalities.

The earth does not ask for a visa.

A healthy forest welcomes the seeds the wind brings.

Because it enriches its biodiversity.

In our theatrical tropical forest, there’s no concern about invasive species.

The main concern is: how can we fertilize new seeds?

I crossed an ocean carried by the wind.

I found land.

I found a place where I could grow.

I dare to imagine a future as when – about 280 million years ago – humanity lived in a supercontinental mass of the Earth: a single body without separations called Pangea. 

My utopia is a forest where foreign seeds are allowed to grow before borders tell them where they may—or may not—belong.

“One day, perhaps, I too will become an old tree. My branches may no longer reach the sky as they once did. Perhaps I will bear fewer fruits. Perhaps I will create less. But I hope I will still offer shade.”

3. The future

Il était une fois, il y avait une forêt ici…

Maybe similar to the one I was born next to. 

Traces of this forest are still in your seeds. 

Your deepest roots know that diversity and caring are keys for a healthy culture. 

You see it in the systems you established on this stage and outside. 

In this forest, no one asks the oldest tree whether it still bears flowers.

It simply remains standing. It is allowed to rest without ceasing to belong.

A forest that abandons its oldest trees begins to forget its own history.

An old tree is the memory of the forest. 

Do not put it in danger. 

In my dream the social and cultural care of this forest stays and flourishes – like deep roots:

Invisible to the audience,

Yet essential to keeping the tree standing.

Foreign seeds are no danger to this ecosystem, they are just enlarging it. 

Making it more resistant. 

One day, 

Perhaps, 

I will also have the right to sit and settle. 

Maybe, on this day, I’ll stop looking up. 

I can take the time to watch you in the eye’s. As equals. 

 

Perhaps,

One day

I too will become an old tree.

My branches may no longer reach the sky as they once did.

Perhaps I will bear fewer fruits.

Perhaps I will create less.

But I hope I will still offer shade.

I hope I will still nourish the soil.

And when that day comes,

May the forest never ask me to prove, once again,

That I deserve to exist.