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Belgian Culture-Merging Dance Visits Festspiele

“Peeping Tom” Theatre Company performs the multicultural-inspired “32 Rue Vandenbranden”

August 11th, 2016
Daniel Erhardt, News from Berlin
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The world-renowned “Peeping Tom” theatre company will debut at the Berliner Sommer Festspiele on August 13th and 14th, within the 28th “Tanz in August” (“Dance in August”) festival program. Known for their atmosphere-full and hyper-realistic dancing performances, they will display their 2015 Olivier Award-winning performance “32 Rue Vandenbranden”.

The performance contemplates life in an isolated social environment, within a trailer-park community. The focus is especially on the motivations that drive these people, who live as buried in the snow. Five dancers and a mezzo-soprano dive into this self-reflexive world of cultural analysis within the dark side of the human soul through the subconscious.

Further focus of cultural analysis within the performance is on the role of subconscious nightmares, fears and desires as physiological reasons for cultural constraint. More specifically, how these human emotions restrain individuals in an apparent state of total liberty to do what they want, from ever being able to escape their roots, family or culture.

The theatrical trip is accompanied by an eclectic musical selection that spans from Bach and Bellini to K-Pop and Pink Floyd, highlighting the relativity of time and space within the dance exploration, as well as its multicultural component.  Another proof of it is the fact that the show was inspired by the Japanese film of Shohei Imamura “The Ballad of Narayama”, which explores the harsh traditions of a remote village in Japan.

The now artistic directors Gabriela Carrizo and Franck Chartier, formerly members of the “Needcompany” company under Alain Platel, founded the “Peeping Tom” theatre company in the year 2000. Since then, the company’s role in cultural diplomacy has been paramount, as their present show, for example, is a coproduction of Belgian, Dutch, French, Slovenian, German and Swiss theatre companies. Peeping Tom also gained support from the Government of the Belgian region of Flanders. 

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News from Berlin