Residencies

• 12.03 > 22.03.2025

Beurette* / En peau de pêche is a lands­ca­pe of tra­ces, memo­ries, and thoughts, which together form a rhythmic poem; an aty­pi­cal song about being cros­sed out and cros­sing one­self out, about era­sing what was and was­hing what is, about pus­hing away intrusi­ve thoughts, toxic things, about scars, wounds, and bac­te­ria that we car­ry. Two bac­te­ria wan­der across the lands­ca­pe of a skin. They read the marks left behind and tell the sto­ry of what hap­pe­ned bene­ath the surface.

From a gent­le envi­ron­ment, Dounia – together with a won­der­ful team – pre­sents an inti­ma­te, play­ful, color­ful, and relaxed per­for­man­ce that aims to unra­vel what beca­me complicated.

*Dounia choo­ses to approp­ri­a­te the term Beurette, which car­ries both racist and sexist con­no­ta­ti­ons. Beur or rebeu is an infor­mal, racist term in French used to refer to peo­p­le born in Europe who­se parents or grand­pa­rents are immi­grants from the Maghreb. The term for a fema­le beur is beu­ret­te. The term car­ries a sexist and degra­ding con­no­ta­ti­on, par­ti­cu­lar­ly due to the fetis­hi­za­ti­on of North African women. For years, the raci­al cate­go­ry beu­ret­te was the most popu­lar on French por­no­grap­hy websites.

Peau de pêche refers to a track­s­uit that was once popu­lar among North African boys in France and Belgium.

(ARTISTIC) LANGUAGES & ACCESSIBILITY

“IT’S OK IF YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND ME, I DON’T UNDERSTAND MYSELF EITHER, IT’S OK IF YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND ME, I DON’T UNDERSTAND MYSELF EITHER, usu­al­ly always.”

Hanna Zaouad — NEOHUMAIN

This per­for­man­ce is lin­guis­ti­cally com­pre­hen­si­ble for dif­fe­rent peo­p­le with various needs at dif­fe­rent moments. Some pas­sa­ges may be bet­ter felt or expe­rien­ced rather than understood.

At times, only Flemish sign lan­gu­a­ge is used, some­ti­mes through music, ima­ges, spo­ken lan­gu­a­ge, and occa­si­o­nal­ly through vivid writ­ten lan­gu­a­ge. In order to give spa­ce to the inti­ma­cy and poe­try of each of the­se lan­gu­a­ges, we choo­se not to trans­la­te eve­ry­thing liter­al­ly and simul­ta­neous­ly, whi­le still pri­o­ri­ti­zing the domi­nant per­spec­ti­ve. Both the spo­ken and writ­ten lan­gu­a­ges are in Dutch.

This work addres­ses men­tal vul­ne­ra­bi­li­ty and aims to cre­a­te a safe, flexi­ble spa­ce for both the audien­ce and the invol­ved team. The per­for­man­ce beco­mes a snap­shot in an ongo­ing pro­cess. We sha­re a moment that is true to itself and made with love, a moment meant to be sha­red. Since care is at the cen­ter, we aim not to adhe­re to the deman­ding pro­duc­ti­on logic that has alrea­dy exclu­ded or exhau­sted many peo­p­le, turning artis­tic int­ui­ti­on into solu­ti­on-orien­ted thin­king and tram­ping on the soul of the work. The dura­ti­on or form of the work may the­re­fo­re dif­fer from the regu­lar finis­hed full-length performance.

This pro­ject aims to be as acces­si­ble as pos­si­ble. We are loo­king for the inti­ma­te, open set­ting that this sen­si­ti­ve con­tent requi­res. The audien­ce can come and go, making noi­se or moving is not dis­cou­ra­ged. There are staff mem­bers avai­la­ble to speak with, and the­re are rest are­as for tho­se who wish to decom­press. We choo­se wheel­chair-acces­si­ble venues and loca­ti­ons and work with a sign lan­gu­a­ge inter­pre­ter. Loud sounds or bright lights will be announ­ced if they occur.

A ​‘relaxed pack’ will be avai­la­ble on the web­si­tes of the dif­fe­rent loca­ti­ons, inclu­ding the sche­du­le, exact dura­ti­on of the per­for­man­ce, and pho­tos of both the the­a­ter, the per­for­man­ce, and the per­for­mers. Trigger warnings and con­tent warnings will be pro­vi­ded, as well as infor­ma­ti­on about the rou­te and acces­si­bi­li­ty, such as direc­ti­ons and avai­la­ble assis­tan­ce. This is cur­rent­ly in devel­op­ment as the cre­a­ti­ve pro­cess is still ongoing.