2XCAMPO at this year's Kunstenfestivaldesarts Brussels
27 Mar 23
2XCAMPO at Kunstenfestivaldesarts!
For three weeks, the Brussels festival invites artists and companies from around the world and Belgium to redraw the boundaries of theatre, dance and performance. This year, the upcoming CAMPO productions by Sarah Vanhee and Gosia Wdowik are part of it.
Mémé, Sarah Vanhee's new solo, has already been tipped in Flemish news outlets De Morgen, De Standaard and VRT NWS. With the premiere of her new performance, she adds a new creation to her long-standing collaboration with CAMPO, from which performances such as Turning Turning (a choreography of thoughts), Lecture For Every One, Oblivion and Unforetold have previously emerged.
Polish theatre-maker Gosia Wdowik, on the other hand, is a new name to be discovered at CAMPO. Wdowik graduated from DAS Theatre in Amsterdam and is currently based in Amsterdam and Warsaw. In She was a friend of someone else, she explores the link between burnout and activism: the fear that rights cannot be acquired for life, and the moment someone is not paying attention, they can disappear. The performance is the result of a close collaboration between CAMPO and Polish NOWY TEATR and will also premiere during the festival in Brussels.
She was a friend of someone else also announces the beginning of a longer trajectory between Gosia and CAMPO, whose next creation is scheduled for 2025.
Mémé
Sarah Vanhee / CAMPO
Premiere series: 12, 13, 14 & 16 May, Kunstenfestivaldesarts Brussels
Mémé is a solo performance by Sarah Vanhee, with guest appearances by puppets, ghosts and a child. An intergenerational, multi-layered and multi-lingual work about the relationship to ancestors, to the (birth) ground and to the female body, starring the spirit of Vanhee's West Flemish grandmothers, who like many women of the time spent most of their lives in 'labour' - in the two meanings of the word: birthing and raising children and working in the home and 'on the land' - always in the service of others.
How does today's world relate to these forgotten women of the past, and to the land they worked? And how do we see them reflected in the forgotten women of today, whose labour continues to be exploited?
It is an ode to those invisible women, to the earth, to life itself, both emotional and intellectual, to work and pleasure. Mémé is Vanhee's ritualistic attempt to revive her grandmothers, reconnect with them, restore them, and then - in a different way - say goodbye again, within a limitless time.
Mémé will be seen at CAMPO in autumn 2023.
After its premiere, the show will tour Vienna, Montreal, Paris, Berlin and more.
She was a friend of someone else
Gosia Wdowik / NOWY TEATR & CAMPO
Premiere series: 20, 21, 22 & 23 May, Kunstenfestivaldesarts Brussels
She was a friend of someone else was made in a country where women have limited access to contraceptives and where abortion has just been declared illegal. Despite immense protests, women's rights still remained disregarded. The project began with the idea that women could come together, without shame or fear, and publicly announce that they had had an abortion. The law could have been changed through this collective action and this could have been an activist success story. But She was a friend of someone else is a story with too many leads and too few endpoints - and a tired narrator.
In this creation, Gosia Wdowik explores the link between burnout and activism: the fear that rights cannot be acquired for life, and the moment someone is not paying attention, they can disappear. Using a personal story, she describes the commitment to women's rights in Poland. With subtle choreography, we are drawn into the life of a woman who one day, instead of protesting, decides to stay in bed, only to get out again one day.
She was a friend of someone else will be shown at CAMPO in autumn 2023.
After its premiere, the show will tour Porto, Dublin, Prague, Amsterdam and more.
