With Marzipan or Plexi Marijs Boulogne has created a production that combines the narrative character of a fairy tale with a musical (text, music, dance) and the intractability of a performance. A fairy tale about ‘hunger’: desire, (female) ecstasy, symbiosis and sexuality.

MaisonDahlBonnema is the name adopted by the duo of Hans Petter Dahl and Anna Sophia Bonnema. Their first pop opera, The Ballad of Ricky and Ronny, opened at the Kaaistudio’s end 2007 and was selected for the 2008 Theatre Festival. With Ricky and Ronny and Hundred Stars – a Sado Country Opera they are opening a new musical register.

Robert Steijn plays a woman who believes devoutly in everything she does. He becomes a Martha Graham and thereby reaps great success, until he goes out of fashion and takes to drink. He dies, but is reincarnated as a Trisha Brown, who takes a postmodern approach to seeking contact with a new audience. An absurdly comical musical on suffering, working hard and living as a diva.

English dancer-choreographer Jonathan Burrows and Italian musician-composer Matteo Fargion have created and performed together a number of exceptionally witty and intelligent duets. Their trilogy Both Sitting Duet, The Quiet Dance and Speaking Dance was presented several times at the Kaaitheater. Burrows and Fargion are currently working on a new production.

The glamour of the musical, the directness of stand-up comedy, the concreteness and sharpness of her wit, which we already saw in Kate McIntosh’s previous work, are back in Dark Matter. The performance is an attempt to stage philosophical issues in a style full of showbiz glamour, and popular scientific experiments.

Factory  brings together issues and topics that Superamas will deal with in an excessive, cinematic way: conjugal violence, the extremely difficult Nation-building process, sexuality of course, and Rome, where the concept of the ‘Republic’ was first applied.  They will invite the public to peep into this new project and also become part of it.

Various elements come together in the solo Hooman Sharifi is creating for Spoken World: the need to dig deeper into his own biography and into the condition of the emigrant in general. A performance about Iranian coffee grounds in which one can read the future, about the aroma of Lebanese bread, about being in transit in the world…

Fumiyo Ikeda has danced with Rosas since 1983. During the course of her career she has also chosen her own direction. She recently created the confrontational Nine Finger with Benjamin Verdonck and Alain Platel. Now she is joining forces with Tim Etchells,  who is famous for his work for Forced Entertainment.

Three actors perform simple ritualistic acts in silence using elementary materials: water, earth, milk and honey. A text is projected onto the back wall of the stage; it is an analysis of the consumer society, alternately accusatory and self-critical. The Madrid based Argentinian Rodrigo Garcia makes highly physical and provocative theatre. This piece is more contemplative, a transcript of his baroque language.

In late November, Rodrigo Garcia was awarded the Prix Europe Nouvelles Réalités Théâtrales. There were five winners, including Guy Cassiers.

In his new piece, called THRILLER..., Diederik Peeters examines the dramatic and narrative qualities of space and the extent to which the context of an action influences our perception of it. What happens when the action remains the same but the environment changes? When the environment starts to manipulate us and steers the story?

The writer and theatre-maker Peter Verhelst is creating a new piece for three female dancers and one voice in the Kaaistudios. It’s called Headbanger’s Wall and is primarily about consolation. There is a passage of music from Requiem for my friend, the music Zbigniew Preisner wrote for his dead friend, the film maker Krzysztof Kieslowski. There are three female bodies trying to overcome gravity. There are minor rituals that bring the women together. There is a voice that says we shall never give up. There is strength. Obstinacy. The will to remain standing.