Residencies

• 25.07 > 28.07.2022
• 29.03 > 04.04.2021

“Everything is wrong.” (Henrik Plenge Jakobsen, Deense kunstenaar)

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What con­sti­tu­tes a good life? What does such a life entail when one is simul­ta­neous­ly attemp­ting to con­front the eco­lo­gi­cal cri­sis? The Good Life attempts to pro­vi­de an ans­wer, but also lin­gers on the ques­ti­on.

For the past fifteen years, Sébastien Hendrickx has been pri­ma­ri­ly acti­ve as a dra­ma­tur­ge, wor­king with per­for­ming artists such as Benjamin Verdonck, Alexander Vantournhout, and Luanda Casella. In addi­ti­on to his work as co-orga­ni­zer for Extinction Rebellion, he also wan­ted to for­mu­la­te a poe­tic res­pon­se to the natu­ral his­to­ry uphe­a­val we are cur­rent­ly expe­rien­cing.

What intri­gues Hendrickx most is the con­fu­sing con­tra­dic­ti­on bet­ween what is coming our way and eve­ry­day life — with all its minor and major con­cerns and rou­ti­nes. For The Good Life, he col­la­bo­ra­tes with ligh­ting desig­ner Michaël Janssens, sound com­po­ser Jürgen De Blonde, and sce­no­grap­her and cos­tu­me desig­ner Karolien Nuyttens.

The Good Life is a polypho­nic com­po­si­ti­on of sounds, melo­dies, and frag­ments of text. It takes pla­ce in (semi)darkness, 360 degrees around the audien­ce. The figu­re who speaks con­stant­ly chan­ges voi­ce and form. He falls from lamen­ta­ti­on into self-moc­kery, into anger, into resis­tan­ce, into resi­lien­ce.

Is the wea­ther nice today? Well, yes and no.