Mystery Magnet

A theatre maker who comes from the visual arts, Miet Warlop’s work involves a blend of disciplines. Creating animated sculptures, tableaux vivants and performative actions in her workshop like autonomous plastic materials, she assembles them into unusual forms that investigate the device and dramaturgy of theatre.

In ACT/COLLECTION, Trailer Park, performed at the Kunstenfestivaldesarts 2011, she let her strange creatures cohabit in a space in which the audience could move freely. However with her creation Mystery Magnet, Warlop focuses our attention on a panoramic space, a theatre stage on which she unleashes a fantastical procession.

Headless women, giants’ trousers, a crepuscular traffic jam and a black storm that carries away everything in its path: Mystery Magnet sketches out a haunted world where humour is born from sadness, magic from the prosaic and excitement from fear. Imagination in power!

With Mystery Magnet, Miet Warlop was selected for Stückemarkt, part of the renowned German theaterfestival Theatertreffen (Berliner Festspiele, Berlin), where today's young playwrights are put in the spotlight. Warlop was selected by the British theater director and Stückemarkt juror Katie Mitchell. In the jury report, she praises Warlop’s grip on theatricality, humor and her unique visual signature.

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