On stage: two adults and a child, unrehearsed, invited anew for every show. The child, on headphones, seems to be in charge. The adults copy the movements of children they see on screens around them. This puppet-like dance illustrates the stories, songs and dreams selected and whispered by the voices of yet more children as useful examples of vulnerability or surprise. Who are these kids?

Across the span of a decade and a half, Boyzie Cekwana and Danya Hammoud have kept a nodding acknowledgement of each other’s trajectories and strategies for survival. Now they come together so they can stand, one next to the other, one on top of the other, turning, bending and entangling around each other. 'We come together so we can both reach down to the top of our boots and take out our bootlegged goods, our smuggled stories.'

In the late 1920s, Nâzım Hikmet introduced free verse to Turkish poetry, and he was thus the first modern Turkish poet. He wrote the majority of Human Landscapes, his magnum opus, while in prison. The five hundred-page epic was only published posthumously, divided into five ‘books’. Michiel Vandevelde staged Book I last year, commissioned by steierische herbst. Book II now follows.

Landscape Orchestra seeks a musical answer to the question of how we can depict departure, travel, and arrival. The production visits the landscapes that we traverse on our way to different and better places. A series of portraits shows people for whom the world is difficult but not necessarily less poetic.