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Festival TransAmériques
May 22 to June 5, 2025
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TAUBERBACH

ALAIN PLATEL | LES BALLETS C DE LA B + MUNCHNER KAMMERSPIELE

A world of urges and desires, of Bach sung by the deaf, all extolling the amazing ability of humans to survive under nearly impossible conditions. Startling..

Details

A stage piled high with five tons of old clothes, intriguing fauna, a woman communicating with the universe, fragments of Bach sung by a choir of deaf children – a world of urges and desires brilliantly orchestrated by director and choreographer Alain Platel in an exaltation of the incredible capacity of humans to survive under extreme conditions. An ardent champion of marginality, Estamira oscillates between raging fury and a visceral need for peace. Fragile, haunted and cheerfully uninhibited creatures enliven the waste disposal site where she lives. They pursue a common quest for tenderness, transformation, elevation, for spaces conquered by harmony and respect. While the situation is critical, all is not lost.

After three triumphs at the FTA, including the very moving Gardenia in 2011, Les ballets C de la B are back with tauberbach. Distorting bodies and reality in order to extract the very essence of sensitivity and intrinsic beauty, Platel magnificently creates a striking metaphor of a schizophrenic society that must be saved from disaster

Credits

PRODUCED BY MÜNCHNER KAMMERSPIELE + LES BALLETS C DE LA B
CREATED AND DIRECTED BY ALAIN PLATEL
CO-CREATED AND PERFORMED BY BÉRENGÈRE BODIN + ELSIE DE BRAUW + LISI ESTARAS + ROSS MCCORMACK + ROMEU RUNA + ELIE TASS
DRAMATURGS HILDEGARD DE VUYST + KOEN TACHELET
MUSIC DIRECTION, SOUNDSCAPES AND ADDITIONAL MUSIC STEVEN PRENGELS
LIGHT DESIGN CARLO BOURGUIGNON
SOUND DESIGN BARTOLD UYTTERSPROT
SET DESIGN ALAIN PLATEL + LES BALLETS C DE LA B
COSTUME DESIGN TERESA VERGHO

CO-PRODUCED IN CLOSE ASSOCIATION WITH NTGENT AND WITH THÉÂTRE NATIONAL DE CHAILLOT (PARIS) + OPÉRA DE LILLE + KVS (BRUXELLES) + TORINOBANZA + LA BÂTIE – FESTIVAL DE GENÈVE
PRESENTED WITH THE SUPPORT OF HYDRO-QUÉBEC IN ASSOCIATION WITH CARREFOUR INTERNATIONAL DE THÉÂTRE (QUÉBEC)

WRITTEN BY FABIENNE CABADO
TRANSLATED BY NEIL KROETSCH

PREMIERED AT MÜNCHNER KAMMERSPIELE, MUNICH, JANUARY 17, 2014

 

ALAIN PLATEL | LES BALLETS C DE LA B + MUNCHNER KAMMERSPIELE (Belgium)

Exploring the Margins
When he founded Les ballets C de la B in 1984 with a group of friends and relatives in his home town of Ghent, Alain Platel transferred into the world of the arts the humanity and interest in those who are different that he first demonstrated as a teacher working with the physically handicapped. A self-taught artist free to invent his own approach, he opened his collective up to all sorts of artistic disciplines, welcoming choreographers of the Belgian new wave. Bringing together onstage a diverse range of professional and non-professional actors, dancers and musicians, his work is disturbing and moving, off-kilter. He created extravagant worlds in Bonjour Madame… (presented at FIND in 1995) and Moeder en Kind at the Coups de Théâtre in 1996, in Bernadetje with its adolescents and bumper cars, in Wolf and its 14 dogs. Allemaal Indiaan (FTA, 2001) focused on family conflicts in a small apartment building.

Full biography