Spiritual roots: new programme at Kaaitheater moves with the seasons
As the cutting-edge Brussels theatre celebrates its 40th anniversary, its new season looks at rituals and spirituality through a series of unusual, immersive shows
Last rites
The thread running through the coming season is Re:Rite. It’s linked to the themes of the two previous seasons: Re:Think and Re:Make. The former was an attempt to put the focus on reflection, explains Guy Gypens (pictured), Kaaitheater’s general and artistic director. “It was a reaction to the depoliticisation of our society. Does our highly commercialised society still have room for reflection?”
It was directly inspired by the decision of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam to shut its faculty of philosophy. “After a year filled with philosophical theory,” Gypens says, “we wanted to do something more tangible. What are the tools to build our society? This became Re:Make, last season’s theme. “We realised that it was all very hardcore politics. We felt the absence of a spiritual component.”
And that’s what feeds Re:Rite. “In recent years, rituals and spirituality have been much more present again in the arts,” Gypens says. “The Venice Biennale, for instance, had a shamanistic pavilion, which featured rituals. You can see that artists are looking for a connection between their life and their work.”
A walk before death
Often these are not your usual shows. Take A-Life by The Monastery, which opens the season. “You’re invited to spend a day in their monastery,” Gypens says. “You don’t just go to a show, but you become, for a day, part of this practice at the intersection of art and ritual.”
The day in this experimental spiritual urban community is divided into periods with intriguing titles like “pre-work destress ritual”, “tea & talk ritual” and or “touch ritual”.
Another example: Choreographer and performer Robert Steijn has created a meditative walk through Brussels, Walk into Nothingness, which Gypens describes as “a last walk before death, a farewell to the city”.
Once again, not your usual show, but a ritual. Kaaitheater has grouped the Re:Rite activities into different focuses throughout the year, and this is part of one they’re calling Our Daily Death.
Around 21 December, the shortest day of the year, Gypens explains, the focus is on sleeping.
You don’t just go to a show, but you become, for a day, part of this practice at the intersection of art and ritual
It’s not a coincidence that Re:Rite has focuses at the start of the four seasons. (There are others in between, too.) “These are ritual moments in our society,” explains Gypens. “Nowadays maybe less than before, but even so: The shortest and longest days in particular give rise to different rituals.”
Kaaitheater is not presenting an historic overview of rituals, he explains. “It’s not an anthropological study. We’re interested in what rituals are possible in a society wherein religion is much less popular for a part of the population, but for another part of the population, it’s becoming even more important. And this leads to tensions.”
Of course, theatre itself was born out of rituals. Re:Rite is also a way of investigating what theatre can be in this day and age.
One key guest is Richard Schechner, a professor at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and founder of the experimental Performance Group, which became The Wooster Group. Gypens: “He has built his academic career on the ritualistic aspects of theatre.”
But the new season at Kaaitheater consists of more than Re:Rite: there’s also the regular programming with lots of productions. Among them are new works from regulars like Rosas and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Jan Decorte, Ictus Ensemble and Meg Stuart’s Damaged Goods.
Kaaitheater, Sainctelettesquare 20 & OLV Van Vaakstraat 81, Brussels
40 years of Kaaitheater
For four days at the start of October, Kaaitheater is celebrating its 40th birthday. It started in 1977 as a theatre festival, with vanguard international theatre. Ten years later it became a real house for performing arts, always looking out for cutting-edge theatre and dance.
The central production of the festivities is Real Magic by Forced Entertainment. Gypens: “When we were first discussing the birthday programme, someone asked me: Which production for you symbolises the Kaaitheater? I’d recently seen Real Magic and didn’t have to look further for the answer.”
The production combines, he says, “a radicalness that we’re always looking for with intense performances – acting of a very high standard. It’s an international company, and Kaaitheater has always been interested in international productions that can add to the local landscape of performing arts.”
And last but not least: “It’s a production about the magic of theatre.”
A lecture by Richard Schechner, founder of The Wooster Group, is the discursive part of the celebrations. “It’s been ages since he came to Europe,” Gypens points out. “His presence is no coincidence, since The Wooster Group has been a regular guest at Kaaitheater over the past four decades.
On each of the four days, Kaaitheater will also produce two hours of radio, to be broadcast online. “Because I don’t think the VRT will broadcast this,” Gypens says with a smile.
Each of the eight hours is centred on a theme, he says, that they have distilled from the history of Kaaitheater. “For instance: the move in 1993 from the small theatre studio to the huge theatre where we’ve been based since then. It was an existential moment for us and changed the organisation completely.”
Photo: Saskia Vanderstichele
