Twenty years after her incredibly successful debut The God of Small Things Indian author Arundhati Roy is publishing a second novel: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Annelies Beck is now welcoming her to the Kaaitheather for an in-depth author’s interview.

Elfriede Jelinek wrote Die Schutzbefohlenen in 2013 as a reaction to the increasingly desperate refugee problem in Europe. Her text has proved to be more than prophetic: all the images that are now burnt into our memories she minutely calls to life years before the actual events. Guy Cassiers matches Jelinek’s torrent of words with images and with four dancers in a choreography by Maud Le Pladec.

A philanthropist – one who still genuinely believes in progress – builds a ship. However much like a fable it may seem, Pieter De Buysser’s planetarium production was inspired by contemporary socio-political realities. Take a chance on this border exploration for nationalists, homeland research for cosmopolitans, and cosmology of a new worldview.

In Cinema Dialogue, Monika Gintersdorfer and Knut Klaßen critically examine the United Nations’ ostensibly apolitical Millennium Development Goals. They juxtapose the universalism of the UN programme with the local reality of urban development in Kinshasa between 2000 and the present day.

Caspar Western Friedrich combines the narrative force of the Western with the dreamy longings of Romanticism. Drawing his inspiration from the lonesome cowboy and from the paintings and personality of Caspar David Friedrich, Philippe Quesne builds a studio of landscapes on stage.

How do you facilitate a good discussion between opponents? The Agonistic Conversation was developed as a reaction to the philosopher Chantal Mouffe. She speaks about the importance of conflict in the political arena, and the way in which the Maori deal with conflict within their own community.

What would hell look like today? The 500th anniversary of the death of Hieronymus Bosch, made Vasco Mendonça, Kris Verdonck and Dimitri Verhulst think. They quickly arrived at the beaches of Lampedusa: a place where while tourists were sunbathing refugees were washed up on the beach. The false paradise of the resorts and the Boschian hell on earth seamlessly flow into each other.

This brand new production directed by Ivo Van Hove is based on Leoš Janácek’s song cycle that goes by the same name. The result of Janácek’s inspired efforts is a mysterious, deeply emotional and psychological piece on identity, alienation, and an impossible love. Annelies Van Parys – one of the most acclaimed Belgian composers of our time – adds a fi tting contemporary reply.

In their first production, young theatre directors Renée Goethijn and Dries Gijsels immediately found their own voice. The duo takes you on a disquieting trip through a world of long raincoats, hidden cameras and curtains. What is the value of hidden things in this age of transparency?

De Warme Winkel aims to compete with the greats, be it the Berliner Volksbühne, Romeo Castellucci or Pina Bausch. And how could it be otherwise than by creating the ultimate version of their own universe? Inimitable, poetic, and suffused with humour, this incredible and urgent apotheosis turns out not to be a swan song, but a magnum opus.

In 1918, as WW1 was gradually drawing to a close, François Georges Picot and Mark Sykes – a French and a British diplomat respectively – were studying the map of the Middle East. In a secret agreement, they redrew the borders, and the consequences of this act can still be felt today. In Vanishing State, Lucien Bourjeily gives you the chance to go through this exercise afresh, in the full knowledge of what has happened in the Levant over the past hundred years.