In 1994, Jan Decorte wrote his inimitable theatre script Bloetwollefduivel: a jet-black abstraction of the ultimate play about evil: Shakespeare’s Macbeth. body a.k.a. starts from this iconic text but seeks to ward off evil and to turn the downwards spiral into an ecstatic high. Jan Decorte, Sigrid Vinks, and the young multi-talent Lisah Adeaga engage in the battle body and soul.

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.

The first talk shows aired in the 1950s and they have determined the evening rhythm in many living rooms ever since. But the invention of the internet has definitively pushed the format into decline. In TALK SHOW, Suze Milius bids them farewell. It is both a retrospective and a look ahead into the future, an attempt to ascribe value to everything that gradually disappears, and an ode to the details of our existence.

In their search for Arabic literature, tg STAN sought and found allies at the Nomadic Arts Centre Moussem, and among the theatremakers of Kloppend Hert, the company led by Haider Al Timimi. Eight performers go in search of answers to questions that are essential to them, in a cross-border space where multiple influences can blend into one whole. But it begins at the beginning: an open forum and conversation.

For this ‘remake’ of Iemand van ons (2005), Tristero has mobilized a seasoned cast with plenty of life experience. Reinhilde Decleir, Mark Verstraete, Janine Bischops, Bob De Moor, Kristin Arras and Kris Smet all get into a big bed together and talk about politics, love and life. With a great sense of humour, they ask one another personal questions, listen, toss and turn on the bed, and reveal their inner selves.