Cinema, Podium en
Werkplek in Kortrijk

MOVEDBYMATTER / Muziektheater Transparant

MYSTICA

SAT 1 February 2025 | 20:15
SUN 2 February 2025 | 20:15
Dance, circus
Départ

in collaboration with Schouwburg Kortrijk

CUBO

Hildegard of Bingen. Hadewijch. The names may ring a bell. However, this acrobatic performance is not aiming for biographical tribute, but mainly wants to explore the mystical, feminine energy in our culture. Kasper Vandenberghe completed this performance during a residency at BUDA in December and we present it in collaboration with Schouwburg Kortrijk.

MYSTICA is a multidisciplinary ritual that starts from a fascination for the twelfth-century Hildegard of Bingen. As an abbess, she wrote works on medicine, botany, cosmology and philosophy, as well as musical compositions and poetry. When she was 43, she had visions that were recorded, making her history as the most important western mystic.

However, the show goes beyond the biographical fascination around one individual and delves into the symbolic significance of female mystical figures in history. Indeed, numerous of them are on the margins of our historiography. Only (very) vaguely do we know names like Hadewijch, Margareta Porete, Teresa Van Avila and Evelyn Underhill.

MYSTICA explores the lost undercurrent of mystical, feminine energy in our culture and raises questions about what we can or should learn from our own underexposed aspects. In the centre of the space, three hair pendants float. Below them, as if on an imaginary column, three choir members perform polyphonic chants composed by Timo Tembuyser and Jens Bouttery.

MOVEDBYMATTER is a transdisciplinary arts organisation with a focus on circus led by performance artist Kasper Vandenberghe. For each project, MOVEDBYMATTER starts from an open-minded research into the relationship between performer, audience and material. It is driven by the irrepressible desire to master that relationship, but at the same time searches for the fatal point at which that mastery will inevitably fail. The performer sets matter in motion, but is also finally moved by it. Each time, this border experience is translated in a distinctly visual, physical and ritualistic way.

Muziektheater Transparant is an international production house for music theatre based in Antwerp. It enters into dialogue with different art disciplines, in search of topicality, new, different, or a creative take on established repertoire. Muziektheater Transparant travels around the world with its productions, working with both national and international partners. In doing so, it likes to focus on young emerging talent and mixed media.

Kasper Vandenberghe joined the Toneelklas Dora van der Groen in 2004. Early in his career, he worked for the renowned Dutch company Zuidelijk Toneel (Annalemma, Mathijs Rümke – 2007 & Talkshow, Suze Milius – 2018), Miet Warlop (Springville – 2012) and the Ghent theatre collective Ontroerend Goed (The Smile Off Your Face – 2010). From 2008 to 2020, Kasper was mainly on stage as a performer with Troubleyn/Jan Fabre. Since 2013, he has been teaching at the Teaching Group Jan Fabre in Antwerp. In 2018, he founded the transdisciplinary circus company MOVEDBYMATTER, in which he combines an artistic coordinating role with work as a creator and performer. This young organisation made Panic Fear of Standing Still, Calculated Risk, BITBYBIT and DAR. For Mystica, made together with co-producer Muziektheater Transparant, Kasper will take on a coordinating role and the role of director. Recently, Kasper starred as an actor in the fiction series Beau Séjour and Onder Vuur.

Play dates

Concept, regie: Kasper Vandenberghe.
Regieassisten: Leire Froufe Vigara.
Dramaturgie & tekst: Elisa Demarré.
Muziekcompositie: Jens Bouttery.
Zangcompositie: Timo Tembuyser.
Haarhangers: Lia Vilão, Lina Isaksson & Marta Camuffi.
Koor: Marthe Koning, Sofia Ferri & Timo Tembuyser.
Haarhangers coach: Ingrid Esperanza.
Scenografie & lichtontwerp: Peter Quasters.
Kostuums & accessoires: Tina Heylen.
Met de steun van Tax Shelter van de Belgische Federale Overheid, de Vlaamse Overheid en Cultuur Gent/Stad Gent.

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