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© Kurt Van der Elst The Sheep Song by the Belgian theatre collective FC Bergman tells the story of a sheep's long and complicated process of becoming a human being while grazing in a flock, under the spell of a song played on banjo and whistle. This is a process in which the male sheep, after slowly standing on two legs among the flock of real sheep on stage, learns not only physically how to walk on two legs, but also spiritually and existentially about lust, pleasure, love, relationship, responsibility, fear, oppression, loneliness and prohibitions through the characters he meets (the demon, anonymous people with hidden faces, dogs, the matador, the puppet and the puppeteer) and the events he experiences. He experiences many things along the way; He is despised by people who do not see him as one of them, who exclude him, he encounters human traditions that slaughter animals, for example the matador who beheads the bull he has killed, he dances with his lover between the flower ...

© Kurt Van der Elst In most of the works that use film/video in the performing arts, the films are shot live on stage, near or off stage, and broadcast live on screens on stage. In some others, films shot live on stage are used in combination with pre-recorded films. Frank Castorf and Ivo van Hove are two of the most skilful users of film and live transmission as a narrative element in theatre, and they have made it an indispensable part of their work, almost their signature. Alongside directors such as Milo Rau, Thomas Ostermeier, Kornél Mundruczó, Katie Mitchell, the FC Bergman collective, consisting of Stef Aerts, Joé Agemans, Thomas Verstraeten and Marie Vinck, are among those who use this narrative technique in innovative and exciting ways in their oeuvre such as in the pieces  300 el x 50 el x 30 el and JR .  Since 2013, FC Bergman has been creating pieces at the Toneelhuis (a subsidised theatre company of the City of Antwerp), and in their latest piece  ...

© Annemie Augustijns Friday  Friday, 15th December 2023, the premiere evening of The Pearl Hunters, staged by the Flemish Opera and Ballet in Antwerp's 1907 opera house. The red curtain is closed. On either side of the front stage, there are formica tables and chairs. An old man is sitting in one of them. The conductor arrives, and the applause ends. The first note of the prelude is a hard beat. Just during this beat, the man's head falls into the plate in front of him. At that moment, the curtain opens upwards to reveal a grey, cold dining hall. Old people are sitting, and nurses are walking around in an unpleasant nursing home. During the prelude, two nurses arrive on a stretcher and take the deceased person away. After that, the opening chorus featuring an oriental melody follows. It is sung by a choir aged with make-up; the elderly, like pearl hunters defying death, are one step closer to death every moment, but they resist death with every moment they live. Meanwhile, on t...