In 1993 Jolente De Keersmaeker and Damiaan De Schrijver, together with Julien Schoenaerts, created Gewoon Ingewikkeld, based on Einfach Kompliziert by Thomas Bernhard. It was inevitable that Bernhard would continue to be one of STAN’s fellow travellers. Now the theatre company presents three Bernhard adaptations as a trilogy: a true Bernhard marathon that is around six hours long.

Six performers and three musicians meet one another in a nightclub. Or is it an arena? In this unreliable, underground refuge, we hear thumping basses and playful jazz. UNTIL OUR HEARTS STOP was one of the absolute highlights of last season, and more than deserved its nomination for the Theaterfestival 2016.

Beeldend kunstenaar Hans Op de Beeck en schrijver-speler Pieter De Buysser brengen voor honderste keer Book Burning. Hans maakt een object, Pieter schrijft zinnen en spreekt ze uit op de scène. Een object, een tekst, een speler: dat is alles wat nodig is voor dit kleinood dat hart én verstand weet te raken.

What is nature saying to us? Myriam Van Imschoot carried out research in a zoo, lay down beside a motorway with a trilling tuning fork, and discovered birds in the woods whose songs imitated chainsaws and ring tones. What Nature Says is a radiophonic performance that slowly calls into question your ideas about human beings, nature and machines.

A prostitute in a North African country during the Arab Spring immerses you in the everyday drag of clients who come and go. Rachid Benzine – Europe’s great herald of enlightened Islam – wrote the text for the Palestinian film actress Hiam Abbass. Director Ruud Gielens opted for a staging that is as restrained as it is intense. After its première last season – two days after the Brussels attacks – it is time to reprise the production.

Three singers/performers create a succession of intriguing tableaux vivants. Ivo Dimchev’s stream of consciousness simultaneously appears on the rear wall. He harnesses the power of the voice, extreme theatricality and a whole arsenal of temperament, and goes in search of what opera is and can be.

A group of twelve performers explores the mystery of pleasure. In a long, sensual movement bodies touch, test, and lose their borders. They vibrate, entering into contact and  composition with their environment, forming unexpected constellations. Mette Ingvartsen looks seven concepts of pleasure straight in the eye.

Rain (2001) is one of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's most effervescent performances and is set to Steve Reichs Music for 18 Musicians. Mathematical figures, continuous repetitions, the geometric utilisation of space and the art of continual variation: here De Keersmaeker pushes to its limits everything that had gradually become her trademark.