177719 visitors
Belgian afternoon,
clappering shutters,
a locked house,
a wet bleak floor,
the grey sky, grey like a linen coat,
a closed garden,
hortus conclusus,
hunting birds,
the invisible color of dead leaves,
the desire to be unattainable.
Land this morning,
a heaven made of stone,
the dispersed sun, gardens full of rain and smoke,
a little girl says: look, a field full of devils,
because in her language pigeon and devil
differ only one letter.
The people live in dunes,
it dreams of honey and milk,
it chokes in the flour of the language.
Land that has no space beyond,
seasick land that remembers the holocene,
clay soil full of dodoes and oxes,
the field song of mankind, fossils,
and later: the written time, the countrybook,
a wonky land in which a woman wakes up.
Land today, tonight, of time immemorial,
land of complaints and promises,
land that breaks and weeps and waits.
This is a land
with gardens
full of rain and smoke,
with shadows
of imaginary mountains,
with sundays
full of desire,
with a sky
coloured as silver,
with girls
who smell like the sea
and who laugh like water.
This is a land
with a heaven of stone
and women as fables,
with men who wear
a jacket of carbon and sweat,
with children
as birds of hope,
with walls
that have ears
and rain
that comforts
and heals.
This is a land
with bricks
red as fire,
with houses
that smell
like bread and beer,
with hills
that want to be mountains
and rivers
that want to be oceans,
the land of sweet fear
and guilty silence.
Small Belgium doesn't exist.
Belgium is big. Belgium is great.
Belgium is beautiful.
Belgium is a piece of art.
Belgium is not grey,
the sky is not grey, it is silver.
O, I feel so at home in silver Belgium.
New York, 25 oktober 1980
Ik laat mijn pakje sigaretten altijd zien. ?Ik rook overal mijn Belgasigaretten, dan zien ze dat ik niet van NYC ben en maak ik sneller contact. En dan vertel ik fier dat de Belgische surrealist René Magritte het pakje Belga ontworpen heeft. (En we zijn vertrokken, we kunnen praten en denken over kunst, daarom ben ik naar hier gekomen.)
This is a land
with gardens
full of rain and smoke,
with shadows
of imaginary mountains,
with sundays
full of desire,
with a sky
coloured as silver,
with girls
who smell like the sea
and who laugh like water.
This is a land
with a heaven of stone
and women as fables,
with men who wear
a jacket of carbon and sweat,
with children
as birds of hope,
with walls
that have ears
and rain
that comforts
and heals.
This is a land
with bricks
red as fire,
with houses
that smell
like bread and beer,
with hills
that want to be mountains
and rivers
that want to be oceans,
the land of sweet fear
and guilty silence.
CREDITS BELGIAN RULES/BELGIUM RULES
Performance:
Annabelle Chambon, Cédric Charron, Tabitha Cholet, Anny Czupper, Conor Thomas Doherty, Stella Höttler, Ivana Jozic, Gustav Koenigs, Mariateresa Notarangelo, Çigdem Polat, Annabel Reid, Merel Severs, Ursel Tilk, Kasper Vandenberghe and Andrew James Van Ostade.
Concept and direction: Jan Fabre
Text: Johan de Boose
Music: Raymond van het Groenewoud (Belgian Rules and Vlaanderen Boven/Wallonie d’abord) and Andrew Van Ostade (all other music)
Dramaturgy: Miet Martens
Assistance dramaturgy: Edith Cassiers
Costume design: Kasia Mielczarek and Jonne Sikkema,
Les Ateliers du Théâtre de Liège, Catherine Somers (carnaval hats)
Intern assistant director: Nina Certyn
Intern costume design: Monika Nyckowska
Intern P.U.L.S. (Project for Upcoming artists on the Large Stage): Timeau De Keyser
Technical management: André Schneider
Production management: Sebastiaan Peeters
Light technique: Wout Janssens
Stage technique: Randy Thielemans and Kevin Deckers
Sound technique: Howard Deckers
(Inter)national sales: Sophie Vanden Broeck
Company management: Mark Geurden
Business coordinator: Joost Claes
Press and communication: Edith Cassiers
Production: Troubleyn/Jan Fabre (BE)
Co-production: Napoli Teatro Festival Italia-Fondazione Campania dei Festival (IT), ImpulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival (AT), Théâtre de Liège (BE), Concertgebouw Brugge (BE)
Troubleyn/Jan Fabre receives funding from the Flemish government and support from the City of Antwerp.
Welkom in België! Bienvenue en Belgique! Willkommen in Belgien!
Theatre lay at the birth of this small country, and theatre is what this small country shall remain. Belgium is a country that is bursting with bureaucracy and forced formality. An artificial and unstable state, used as a stage for the wars of others. Everyone (and no one) speaks three languages. Three regions cover and divide this tiny territory. Welcome to Absurdistan!
Belgians feed and feast on life. Chips! Beer! Waffles and chocolate! They revel in flesh. They dance with death. They believe in big bands, masks and carnival. This dwarf state is great in grand parades of giants.
Here the image guides you, where words whither. A small country forces you to look beyond borders. Imagination has always been an escape route. Grey skies and rain create a grateful canvas. Belgium forms a fertile soil for visual art.
Belgians strip reality. They share the eternal wink with their beloved characters from the bande dessinée. With their wit as weapon they wage war and maintain peace. Irony, but never cynicism, forms their armour. The Mannekens piss communally. No one laughs as loudly with the Belgians as they with themselves.
Belgium is a country of surrealists. Sur-real and sub-versive, they stack alternate realities upon each other. O dear Belgium, O (un)holy land of our fathers. Ceci n’est pas un pays.
This cockpit country is a frigid follower of rules and rulers. Here lives a race of shirkers and cheaters. They bend the law and stretch the order. The Belgian blood is bursting with resourcefulness and independence.
But the Belgians are peaceful anarchists: over a glass of beer, with an open mind and an open view, the credo of the compromise reverberates. They burrow – up until their knees in clay, in this rugged potato land.
Belgians carry a brick in their stomach. Flowerbeds and frilly curtains guard their sovereignty and singularity. Long live that legendary ugliness! Breaking through that banana smile doesn’t seem easy. But underneath the hedgehog’s prickly spine, behind the constant sighing, there is a soft, strokeable skin.
Don’t be caught off guard by the flags and the swaying of banners, by the booming bash you’re invited to join. The parable of this strange kingdom is not a story of nationalism – rather a story about the total absence of nationalism. Belgians are proud of their lack of pride.
This misshapen, misplaced and mutilated country constitutes the magnificent middle point of Europe. Roll up the shutters and find a window onto this laconic land. Peer through the frame and see much more of the world beyond Belgian borders.
Jan Fabre pays homage to his motherland. Just as Fellini made his Roma, Fabre wants to celebrate his complex, crazy country. He uses the language best suited to grasp the spirit of this slippery state: that of theatre, that of the image. An international cast of performers and musicians searches for the Belgian identity and translates it into a travelling dance and theatre performance. Singer-songwriter Raymond van het Groenewoud provides the anthems; author Johan de Boose writes the text.
Edith Cassiers
