PROJECT

Monstrous Encounters of Clowns

In this work Nada and her team attack notions of safety, danger, invisible enemies, states of emergency, conflict and collaboration. To what extent do our expectations and prejudices feed our fears? How do we behave in a fearful context that is at once both unsettling and ridiculous? Images and situations that we recognize from media coverage of actual events are de-contextualized, placed into a new environment that is governed by unfamiliar rules. By uniting performers and spectators in this space Monstrous Encounters of Clowns wants to open up reality to interpretation and reflection: to let reality linger in a space of imagination and emotion.

Within an open space the audience is encouraged to move around in what could be perceived as a training camp, where equal portions of collaboration and menace are maintained. By having to negotiate their place within the work, the spectators become both protagonists and witnesses at the same time. With a healthy dose of absurdity and a flavour of DIY, an ambiguous universe is evoked within which the human and the monstrous meet.

Monstrous Encounters of Clowns – An attempt to swallow the world (group creation) concludes a two-year research on topics from contemporary life in which brutality and violence rub against superficiality, the ridiculous and the humorous.

Premiere: 7.10 2016 Buda Arts Center, Kortrijk (BE)

Nada Gambier

1980 ◊ FI, BE

http://www.nadagambier.be

Nada Gambier (1980. Finland) roams around in what she calls a crash-disciplinary world where theater, dance, performance, video, writing, curatorial approaches and languages and social concerns merge and collide. Her work often flirts with the borders between theatricality and abstraction and she is drawn to things that she doesn't understand or cannot grasp. The non-spectacular and the absurd belong to her most known trademarks as an artist.

Credits

Direction by: Nada Gambier◊Made and performed with: Sara Manente, Marcos Simoes, Thomas Kasebacher, Mark Etchells◊Music and sound: Christophe Albertijn◊Light design and technical direction: Jitske Vandenbussche◊Set and costumes developed in collaboration with: Sofie Durnez◊Production: Action Scénique◊Co-production: BUDA kunstencentrum◊With the support of: Szene Salzburg (AT), Wp Zimmer (BE) and Pact Zollverein (DE)◊Structurally supported by: Flemish Ministry of Culture (structural subsidies 2015-16) and VGC in Brussels (structural subsidy 2016)