Theatre company FC Bergman tries to create performances as a wordless symphony of images that hopefully reach all senses. We hope to speak a language that goes beyond the intellectual understanding, a language that goes straight to the guts.

In our rehearsal process we follow less or more the same method. We start with a dramaturgical framework and scenography, followed by the very intuitive creation of images. These images assemble in a written or drawn scenario. In a last (but very short) stage we continue in the rehearsal space to make things real and to work out the scenes.

This workshop will focus on the practical and dramaturgical aspects of the creation of images and how to merge them into a scenario or storyboard. How to create narration and plot lines without written dialogues? How readable should an image be? As starting point for our imagination we will tackle one of the major works of the world literature: Ovidius’ Metamorphoses.

A workshop for performers, actors and everyone else interested in creating theatre starting from the question: Is there authenticity/ originality in theatre?

Thomas Verstraeten (1986) studied Drama for three years at the former Studio Herman Teirlinck in Antwerp and went on to gain an MA in Fine Arts from Sint-Lucas. As a member of the FC Bergman theatre company, he appeared in De rotsebreker at Scheld’Apen in April 2008 and a week later in Voorproef op fragmenten van een nieuwe wereld at the Monty arts centre. In September 2009 the FC Bergman show Wandelen op de Champs-Elysées… was premièred at the Handelsbeurs (Old Exchange) in Antwerp. In 2010 the show was selected for the Dutch Theatre Festival. For the Antwerpse Kleppers festival Thomas made 300 el x 50 el x 30 el (2011) and Terminator Trilogie (2012) with FC Bergman. In 2013 he made the show Van den vos with FC Bergman at Toneelhuis.

Working under his own name, Thomas makes performances, structures and videos rooted in the public space which, as a result of his theatre director’s approach, may dismantle or provoke human, almost ritual patterns of behaviour. Examples include Moving Things, Nachtasiel, Pont Roi Baudouin, Floating Orchestra, The paradox of Pierre Menard, Re-enactments: seekers of fame and fortune.  He has exhibited at the Brakke Grond in Amsterdam, Monty ABN, Scheld’Apen, Extra City, Middelheimmuseum and CC Strombeek-Bever. In the 2014-2015 season he created the play Het land Nod (The Land of Nod) with FC Bergman at Toneelhuis.

When: 7-8/5/2016, 15.00-20.00
Cost: 60 € (10% discount for unemployment card holders)
Register at: 210-9248328 or at info@kinitiras.com

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Thomas will also present two lectures-performances:

“I started taking pictures of the cowboys. You don’t see them out in public anymore—you can’t ride down a highway and see them on a billboard. But at Time Life, I was working with seven or eight magazines, and Marlboro had ads in almost all of them. Every week, I’d see one and be like, ‘Oh, that’s mine. Thank you.’ It’s sort of like beachcombing.”

Richard Prince

If everything is already done, and originality doesn’t exist any more, how can we, artists,deal with it? That’s the central question of the first lecture that will take place on Friday 6/5/2016. And what is the role of the viewer? What is the relationship to the material that inspires you? A lecture on the death of the author and the rebirth of the reader.

In the second lecture on Sunday 8/5/2016, Thomas will elaborate on the origin of the work of FC Bergman. FC Bergman is an Antwerp theater company consisting of six actors/artists. Since 2007 the company creates performances that are nationally and internationally strongly valued. The performances are characterized by its large scaled images, its scenographies in immense spaces, its integration of groups of extras and its investigation of using film in theater.

I want to tell the story of FC Bergman on the basis of our extensive photo and video archive (with audiovisual material of rehearsals, tours, shows that was never showed before…) I want to tell about working in a collective, about the influence of professionalism in our work and about the autonomization of our scenographies.

Friday 6/5/2016 and Sunday 8/5/2016 at 21.00
Entrance with free contribution
Reserve a place at 210-9248328 or at info@kinitiras.com