Turandot’s Unsolved Riddle

How to kill a foreigner?

Multidisciplinary artist Christophe Coppens takes on Puccini’s Turandot with a cheeky grunge twist on gender and power. While traditionally seen as a tale of love and redemption, Coppens reimagines the titular character as a ‘true eccentric,’ giving spotlight to female characters that defy conventional romantic love in opera. Despite striking visuals touched by contemporary feminist discourse, the production struggles to fully bridge the operatic fiction and the social realities it relies upon. When dealing with an ‘exotic opera’ with its own fantasies, political questions, and history of transmission—from a Persian tale to a German drama to an Italian opera set in China—where can today’s reflections of interculturalism and authenticity come in?

Caroline Lee-Jeong

essay 21.09.2024

State of the Union 2024 – Iman Aoun

Reality, Surreality & Solidarity

On 5 September 2024, actress, director, producer and co-founder of ASTHAR Theatre Iman Aoun addressed the State of the Union at the opening ceremony of het TheaterFestival in DE SINGEL, Antwerp. You can read the text here.

Iman Aoun

statement 14.09.2024

State of the Youth 2024 – Loucka Fiagan

On 5 September 2024, multidisciplinary artist Loucka Fiagan addressed the State of the Youth at the opening ceremony of het TheaterFestival in DE SINGEL, Antwerp. You can read the text here.

Loucka Fiagan

statement 14.09.2024

Going Naked

Onstage nudity served as free content for pornographic websites? These days it’s just a click away. This phenomenon affects performers disproportionately and raises questions about artistic freedom and ownership of one’s own image in the digital era.

Ilse Ghekiere

opinion 13.09.2024

Marah Haj Hussein – Language: no broblem

Folds in monoculture

In Language: no broblem, dancer and theatremaker Marah Haj Hussein fries an egg on the stage and it feels like trying do away with the useless yet enraging chicken-and-egg question. Who was first? The Palestinians or the Israelis? Who invented the hummus and the falafel? Are these almost ridiculous questions important in the face of a bloody conflict? The play seems to descend into a definite no, a no that dances through framing language boundaries. Yet the conflict is still there and the tension between national and individual identity is spun tightly, weaving a postmodern collage of language and identity. Through intimate encounters, Hussein explores how Palestinian Arabic and Hebrew intertwine in the minds of those navigating oppressive realities.

Ugnė Noreikė

review 11.09.2024

Who Are You From?

How does the ‘self’ relate to the ‘community’ from which it has descended? What is left of the past in us? And can we make sense of our present realities by ‘reconnecting’ to our ancestors, in tracing our way back to what we call our ‘origins’? Caroline Lee-Jeong looks at four performers who use the theatre stage to ask these questions aloud.

Caroline Lee-Jeong

essay 05.09.2024

Ghosts stories and spectral traces

Dona Lourdès (2024) by artist Némo Camus, co-created with Robson Ledesma, is a performance about his relationship with his grandmother Lourdès de Oliveira and her family heritage. Born in Brazil to a white American father and a Brazilian black mother, Lourdès is known for her supporting role as Mira in Black Orpheus (1959) a movie directed by French director Marcel Camus, grandfather of Némo Camus. Furkan Ak untangles how the piece narrates the hidden story of Brazil’s racial whitening policy of the colonial era that continues to haunt Camus’ family and Brazilian culture.

Furkan Ak

essay 05.09.2024