 Hello everyone, hello, first up could you move a bit closer to us, that's really good, see your faces now. I'm not going to take any more of your time, I'm going to get some coffee, but I would like to introduce Stephie, the puppet. I have to speak in the mic because apparently it's a live streamed session, so that's new for me. I put my nice shirt on for the live stream also. So welcome also people who follow the live stream. First I want to thank the committee and K.D. Kohlstadt for inviting me of course, because otherwise I couldn't be here. We have sent in a performance though, but it wasn't selected, so... I think this is the second prize we can win, I think. I've prepared a lecture which I will do for the first time, but you'll have to read sometimes, so I'll try to be... Is there someone having a heart attack? No? No? Okay, no, no, she's just pointing for me. So yes, I'll have to read some of the things. So I will talk more or less for 40 minutes, 45 minutes, depending on the number of jokes I will attend during the reading. And I'll try to structure the lecture in more or less four parts. So it's about imagining the future, confronting the present, but more specifically using new technologies in the visual theatre. So our theatre is a visual theatre. We were formerly a mere puppet theatre, but I've tried to open it up towards a more visual range of possibilities. I must nuance a little bit the new technologies. I will talk rather about crappy technology, no technology, but you'll see. So the first part is an introduction about the growing importance of art in a digitalised surrounding, because we live, of course, in a very technological society, that's not new, of course. That's big preaching for the choir, because you all know that, but still I have some statements to make, which we can discuss in the Q&A later. Did I say you? So 40 minutes and then 20 minutes, Q&A. So be prepared. Secondly, I would like to focus on how... So the first one is the introduction. Secondly, how technological application can instigate new formats in theatre. I think a title for something very simple I will talk to you about. And then third part is how technologies define dramaturgy and our literature of performances. I think we have to discuss about that later on, because I think it's important and interesting. And then last but not least, if we still have the time, I will show you or showcase you some of our performances who deal with the so-called futuristic imagination. One is an adaptation of The Tempest, made by Jors van de Castille. He's a young, relatively young author and director. And then we have also Planet Nivanir, not from here, and that's a bit of a sort of a reversed kind of thing because it's two aliens who talk about human people. So that's quite an awkward reversing of perspective. So let's start with... In between, I will try to show you some hopefully inspiring pictures, kind of visual essay, which makes you think and not listen to me the whole time. So... I had a joke here, but I won't tell you this. How do we... It's for later. Later on. Later on. It wasn't a bad joke, so... How do we look at relics in the future? That could be a title of this inspiring image. So let's start with this one. It's perhaps an inspiring thing. I'll read it. I don't know if you can read it, but I'll read it. In the morning paper, I can read the weather report as well as the stock quotes. But when I look out of my window, I only get a weather update and no stock exchange info. Could someone please fix this bug in my environment system? Thanks. I think it's quite interesting because we have to realize that the generation Z, the sort of digital natives who are born now, they look quite reversed at things. And we don't know, we know that, but still when we're making theatre, we tend to forget these things. It reminds me also of a baby swiping a television, like using its iPhone after six months already, that kind of stuff. So... there's still of mind functions often quite differently. So I'll come back to this matter when we talk about how technology or digitalization, it's a difficult term, digitalization, affects our modes of reading a performance and the inherent dramaturgy. So, the introduction was the importance of art in a technological society. I will do these Fiat 2 statements. I will first zoom in a bit, or zoom out a bit. And then I'll come to my point. Blah, blah, blah. The growing importance of art. The world we live in, actually, and that's also something we know, the algorithm like Facebook and all the others, Snapchat and so on, they constantly confirm our cells and our world of living. That means that our world is shrinking enormously, of course. And we're all aware of that again. We're all aware of that. But still, in that kind of situation, the art what we're trying to do is really growing in importance, I think, and art should not confirm our living world or our living circumstances. So, I think the importance, especially when you work in a theater for young audiences, you have to look for other horizons and then looking for other horizons, the art, of course, becomes inside because it's aversive, or it should be, if not confronting, disrupting and discomforting. It challenges you. What's thought and emotion? I must say, of course, I talk about TYA starting from six, seven years old. Of course, it's difficult to disrupt babies, I think, or children of three years old. But still, we can discuss about that. For instance, we abolish the term family shows in our language and our rhetoric because the term family also contains, like, oh, it's comfortable on Sunday afternoon a cake with it. It's not forbidden, of course. It's nice. We do that kind of things, too. But on the other hand, we have to be aware that the context where we live in, you can confront children with horrible things, not horrible things, but things that discomfort them. So I'll talk to... I will explain that a bit later on. When I come to the performance, I will case study with you. A little red Eve, it's called. Because when you're in a state of uneasiness, you start to think also. As Fernando Pessoa said, that what in me feels, thinks, or that what in me thinks, feels. So there's no distinction between feeling and thinking. That's also, by the way, the premises of the Theatre of Brecht. So you have to not only undergo experiences, but also, like, trying to get out of the bubble and say, art can do that. That's why art is ringing with a technical society. And without friction, of course, no brilliance or shivering. So that's a first statement. Let's not be too comfortable. We can discuss about that. Because, of course, we had this discussion also a bit in South Africa two years ago during the National Gathering. And of course, our European context is another context. When you talk about this discomfort in South Africa, it's completely different, of course, because the notion danger is daily in the streets there. So that's another discussion, of course. So it's a bit, perhaps, a European point of view. We can also discuss about that. The second statement that emphasises the importance of art in a technological context, and I use here for the observation of the Dutch professor, Eric Scherder. I don't know if you ever heard about him. Eric Scherder. He's also the guy, yeah. Gaysk knows him. He's from Holland. He's also the guy who says, don't sit down too long. So I suggest that you all rise, and then that's one of the better. So you have to move at least half an hour continuously because otherwise the body gets like or you risk a disease. So what he says is the next thing. Flexible brains, please. And we're talking about TYA now, young people, youngsters. The brain needs to be stimulated and these stimuli, stimuli, stimuli come from the outside. Art relies upon creativity and it's unique in this. That has been researched, experienced with large groups of people. You can obtain the creative effect most effectively by art. Art is a unique combination of peace, ideas, being socially involved or on your own to be immersed in something in combination with feeling, emotional. The first 25 years of a human life are vital, very important, I think. If you propose a child a lot of experiences and stimuli, the brain builds more synapses, contact points. The more synapses, the more complex the brain becomes and the more flexible. So that's another that's a bit of... I don't like most of the time people who tend to instrumentalise art because this is what Eric Scherter does, of course. It's art as an instrument against old age, actually. If you build in flexible brains, you won't get Alzheimer that soon. It's not guaranteed, but it's one of the exercises. Feeling a bit Alzheimer-ish now, but anyway. Next page. I've already messed up the page. Alzheimer. You need some help? No, it's okay. I was preparing really really outside, so I messed up the page. Sorry for that. So... That's all I said. Yes. He also says our kids will need flexible brains because they will have to execute 11 jobs in the future. That will become more and more technological, of course. 11 jobs of which we don't even know the name or the existence. So I must say I was quite astonished by reading, of course, we know somewhere all of that, but when he points really the scientific level to what art can provoke in these young brains it's quite astonishing, actually. An example of a possible job is this. So in the future perhaps we don't speak about come and paint our walls. The painter we have to call the painter. No, it will be a sort of how do you call it? Software designer of wallpaper or something. That could be one job our children could execute, and then probably five years later there's another technology they have to study again and find another job. That's the world that's coming ahead of us. So we better get prepared, and art can be very essential in this kind of situation. Okay, are there any questions already? You have to watch the time. It's okay. No? Good. Or not good. Okay, let's go to the heart of the matter now. The performances. This is a trailer. Hopefully it plays. It was performing outside. New technology. Luckily I have still some pictures. Luckily I still have some pictures. Or if Harkun could I'll show you some pictures first. So this is the performance I would like to play study with you is Little Red Eve performs I made in 2014 for the man, for Image Foundry the man, my company. If you see these images I don't know whether it rings the bell of course the Belgians, they know it but it's still here. We can go via internet perhaps but no, the technician is not in the room. Anyway. So when you see these pictures does it ring a bell? You know what kind of story this would be or could be? No problem. Little Red Riding. Exactly. First I want to make a sort of historical digression before we go to Little Red Riding. Well, get a prize. Get a next lecture. So technology is a new magic sometimes we hear that statement. Or most of the time you hear, technology, don't do that in theater and it's killing poetry etc. All these cliches. But we must realize that technology has always influenced the theater. Think of the gaslight that abolished the candles which were too dangerous in the 19th century for instance or the fascination for the pepper's ghost which was the first kind of hologram also in the 19th century. There were entire performances dedicated to the principle of the pepper's ghost or even earlier the so-called shoe-shaped theaters. They were in the 17th and 18th century adapted because theater makers at that time wanted to adapt adventurous novels which were very popular at that time. So it's an ongoing story technology in theater. But first we have to define before we go to Little Red Eve or Little Red Riding Hood what is technology and what do we speak of now in these times when we speak about technology. Basically it's everything of course. It's a screen, it's a camera it's the audio headphones even my glasses are a form of technology because it's prosthesis to watch the audience. But also games of course and parabolic mega-screens that fill a whole movie theater or domes that simulate the whole world. I have pictures of that that they're behind. Ah, it's how come back? Okay, that's good. So what I tried to do in Little Red Eve based on Little Red Riding Hood was mixing the craftsmanship of puppets with technology which ended in a mixture of the use of cameras, projections, microphones, headphones and miniature worlds. So why did I decide to use technology? It was not a decision actually it was a kind of necessity because what I wanted to do was telling a story for kids from seven years old I think and then youngsters and adults on the other hand but two different stories based on the same content. So the Little Red Riding Hood story everyone knows of course because it's a story about the Little Red Riding Hood visiting her grandma by the wolf and her grandma also the symbolical underlying content of Little Red Riding Hood is of course beware of the man because the wolf is the man of course behind the trees who can reach at you. So as you all know in Belgium that was in 2014 we still have a kind of post trauma of the Dutru thing you know Dutru the famous pedophile who is still in jail I hope so I wanted to make a performance which is really relevant at that time but trying to mix two kind of stories in order to do that I only could use technology because the people so the youngsters or the children and the adults they saw the same performance but they heard a completely different story which was of course quite disconforting because imagine that I have two sons not daughters but then I'm sitting next to my daughter and I hear this kind of strange evolving story about a pedophile trying to lure a young girl that's a I had a lot of questions after the performance what did they hear, what did the children hear and they heard a completely different story which is quite humorous actually and quite funny so you had a strange situation that in the most tensioned moments the children started to laugh and the adults said but strangely they loved it so I had to try to build in some danger in the performance which was a bit of the aim to try to do this story so why do I tell this? because I think if you use technology pure as a technique or as a gadget it won't function or people will very easily look through it if you try to make it a necessity in order to realize your performance then it's I hope a better way of dealing with this kind of technology again technology, low technology headphones ah there is a technician hello sir just need internet if that's possible yes ah this is sound this is by the way this is by the way this is by the way why are you so late? I have an appointment with a tram yes that's what I want baby ok some reason for that my husband is a tram the nice man how is his left brow how is his left brow not on the list mom how is his left brow Eva you know that you have to take care of that how do you know? Eva, but she called me little red Eva but talk, start with names go bad beautiful but a little bit too strong are you not going to take care of it? and what if we lose it? I know ah yes, I have more women to say and what if we get hungry actually for the bubble the bubble? check yes that one lives on the side of the city alone? check young young sir I want to open a wardrobe on this evening I can't buy anything I always walk with my mother boss and then I feel you, you, you I give you money I don't know how to read stupid pedagogues I don't know how to share so leave me I don't know how to read a bit dark, it was a very dark performance so sorry for that we need to switch up the lights for the next round do you believe your fairy tales was the last sentence this gives a bit of a wrong image because it was dark of course because of the technology and the small miniature world but the performance as such wasn't dark for the children I mean what I actually wanted to make was a kind of life animated movie and thus the use of cameras, filming also miniature world so you saw the miniature on stage but it was also a film so a film of which you had the soundtrack in your ears that was a bit the aim I must say it was a wonderful I had a wonderful team by the way young people and it was a bit of hell of making it because sometimes they said are we working for the adults now or for the children? we mixed up ourselves during the performance what the audience didn't know also was that some scenes were synchronized so they heard some scenes they heard the same thing so in my memory there was seldom a performance of which the parents and the kids talked so much after the performance because they were exchanging the experience of course and what was also funny you saw one image there with the playboy problems with the rabbits which was a bit of a dairy image of course and then when you ask children what did you see they all say rabbits wonderful rabbits that's all what they see of course the adults had a slightly different interpretation so another thing I want to talk about is that thanks to the headphones or the headphones helped to install a certain climate of forbidden intimacy which was also one of the topics of course of the performance because you really have that close the voices in your ear which by the way was difficult for the actors because they couldn't speak out loud too much we also had to train that quite a lot but that's another example of where technology can add something or can bring something to the performance which in this case was quite vital to the performance we also by the way experienced with the venue so we made a small kind of venue because I noticed when I was like standing 50 meters behind you didn't really because in your ear you had it very close and then when you saw it was too far so that wasn't possible so we had to limit the capacity also of the people quite a thing actually okay perhaps you noticed also in the trailer the use of video puppets that's of course because otherwise it wouldn't be fair an idea landed by the famous artist Tony Orsler I don't know if you know the name he's one of the plastic artists in the 70s 80s who made these projections on balloons and every kind of different surfaces he was the first to do that that helped and the dying of the grandma because she has lupus in the performance she has lupus yes lupus it was actually a balloon that just went up to the sky so an image was gone that was her death okay so there are of course other means of using other means of no time for jokes anymore using technology in the field of visual theater I'll show you some examples of another performance that's a very iconical that's not a performance that's just a visual essay that's Lara Croft of course talking about games and boys it's Brawl Stars now which is very popular so yeah this when we had the technological minor problem so we traveled thousands of miles to indulge in a major experience with an airplane not so good or we stay at home and settle for a simulation we can't imagine that but so they build a whole dome I can't remember where exactly in Germany outside of Berlin exactly no I was there 10 years ago really? is that okay with the audio for the recordings? can you speak out loud? yeah let's go on it's nothing extraordinary it's just weird to come in and you feel like the temperature just went up 15 degrees and you're like oh okay and you go swimming and then you go eat and then you go up and then you're in Berlin again so it's like time travel exactly and do you forget that it's a completely artificial simulated surrounding or? no because you look up and there's just a building we really like the blue sky and the Jim Carrey movie yeah it's a true mission true mission yeah so you know it's nothing yeah that's also ahead of us existing already okay so I'll show you another performance why the child is cooking in the polenta not a very optimistic title actually very dark company doing very awkward shows no that's not true so it was a circus kind of performance as is a good example on the side of the big ball there's text prediction and other things that are happening I just mentioned that it's just an example but what I want to talk to you about is how technology offers a possibility of bringing a new kind of consciousness of what is possible to present two youngsters these days and how that influences our dramaturgy a popular narrative today of course is the one who is presented by games we all know that of course but bit like the 18th century novels were influencing the staging we could draw parallel to games today popular genre what happens on a dramaturgical level in a game it works by triggers most of the time so you go over something and then suddenly a door is opened or a secret lock is unlocked etc this often works by mere associations so you walk through a world that is evoked and in which things are triggered so rather than following a story from A to B to Z Z or A to D and then etc we don't follow characters throughout a fixed storyline even if the story is told reversely it's a totally different principle and also we go from level to level to level and that's also something I became aware of when I saw my son's playing you have to to gain something you have to perform well you have to earn something in order to get to the next level so on an unconscious level this is frightening actually because it's like again confirming our meritocracy we live in so that's a kind of neoliberal principle which is confirmed by play because you have to perform and then you can go to the next level so the stress and the level of you have to is already installed in these brains of these young people of course games have other advantages because on a rhetorical level and even thinking so there's some advantages too but on an unconscious level I get sometimes frightened but so games are structuring games structures are defined by those elements I mentioned and this narrative I think is influencing the way youngsters decode performances especially when they grow older of course so it's not I go from image to image to image or from sentence to sentence to sentence and I follow a story even if it's told backwards no it's the whole thing the whole time so the kind of simultaneously they cope with is enormous so what I tried to do in this performance was really sort of throw it into the public like text projections images there was a silent clown also doing things so an extreme degree of simultaneously and then a lot of programmers which are or most of them are middle aged like myself so no pun intended no and so and they said yeah it's nice performance but it's a bit too much too much too much too much I must say I never heard this critique from young people because they never say it's too much because they live in a world that is too much the whole time so and that's not even again confirming their their image but still it's a way of dealing with the performance so this is kind of question also to the audience who are all leaving now so shut down or we have to go to the toilet perhaps so I think there is a new kind of consciousness we have to be aware of as a maker that the degree of possibility of throwing elements on the stage has become I think much larger than than before so let's not be afraid of making performances that perpetuate or install at first sight increments incomprehensible paradoxes and not only on a content level but really in the living environment we create in the imaginative world okay so just some last images of this was the actress inside of the ball and there were projections and she was singing actually she was an opera singer so it was a kind of strange kind of image that was also an image we build a kind of puppet of three meters and half so you get it was based on a book actually in three parts and the second part was playing in a school with a very severe director and she was the head of the school of course three meters and five high so we had a kind of Alice in Wonderland feeling the last thing just fine just very quickly so it's not down in any map true places never are it's a beautiful quote by Herman Melville so I told you already in the beginning we did also a performance called Buston which is called the Tempestia but it's made actively the title so it's not the storm but beast that's it that's it so and that was you know the story probably is based on an island well yours, Kalle Castello, made the performance based on a planet it's not an entirely new idea because there is a movie Forbidden Planet I don't know if you know it and from the 60s I think it's very awkward movie really it's really nice with probably the robot and so he made the performance where the imaginative was kind of futuristic and it worked wonderful there is also of course the movie Black Panther with Wakanda the new kind of village or city let's say it was completely futuristic where the white people don't have anything to say anymore it's a beautiful movie I think it's an action movie but it's also based on actually a sort of rather really quarrel so it's a far echo Shakespeare also so I think we live in a time of science fiction it was before a bit of a niche but everything is shifting so rapidly because of science that takes quantum leaps altering our regular paradigms in a dazzling way so it's now become I think a cultural force and it works very well with children and not only with boys the girls are already also fascinated so something triggers in their imagination when you use this futuristic kind of imaginative so we can say we have to make a world that is based on scientists and not on ruled by politicians because all our problems are scientific not political and also there is of course this famous example of the Back to the Future you remember there is this tablet used in the movie dates from 85 so and Apple came with the iPad in 2010 so 25 years later so that's also a force we have to think even on the stage I think it's pretty boring I have to conclude even on the stage you can really try to invent some kind of new formulas or new kind of imaginative which are because you really have to invent everything when you work with a futuristic imaginative course because it doesn't exist towards the unknown is literally what is happening once on stage so yes that's enough and I will conclude with another that's a trailer but I will prefer to have a Q&A that's perhaps an interesting thing so what was before a planet and because it was situated on a planet it became at a certain moment the monster cannibal and the monster cannibal was created by two huge legs and then someone behind the desk was filmed and made a kind of spaghetti so his head was kind of spaghetti head which is a very beautiful image I thought invented by the makers so it's quite simple actually just spaghetti and two tomatoes and you have a face so that's great it's also very futuristic so you can use low technology as said so that's the last one planet Nivaniv and that's what I said it's about two aliens who come and observe humanity and I'll show you the last time if you almost got that and that's now for you to show so that was that so a little bit of an overview of five years' trails we followed at the other demand so if you have any questions let's have a little bit discussion the ones who are standing are you finished now? yes you finished yes yes also thank you for the live viewers so if there are any questions I don't know it's a bit of a just one question because we were talking about video games aesthetics and how that children already have a lot of impressions at the same time and you said you used that also as a strategy in the performance but do you think that it's important to go with their aesthetic world or to talented? yes that's a very good question I think both because the performance I talked to while the child was talking was cooking in a polenta into the enormous simultaneously some moments which were very concentrated where the story really had to be told so of course you try to I don't I understand your question very well because what I said was perhaps a bit too consumeristic you don't have to go with them because you're confirming that again of course but it's more like a sort of form or the margin in which you can do some or I rephrase that the dramaturgical strategies you can deploy on a stage and the variety of it are much broader I think than before perhaps because they were used at the classical fairy tales which we've talked about the ranges become bigger without confirming them the whole time of course because then they could better stay at home and play their games of course and then of course within this variety you can tell a certain content which is probably different than in games I think but it's a question we also ask ourselves where do we go to and how far can you go and where is it to it's a narrow margin again it's a bit tangential but you mentioned there's quite a bit the first 25 years are crucial that's what Eric Sherwood says it seems like a lot of years there's a lot of years why so many years I don't know something with the brains at your 25th you're probably at the height of your brain possibilities I'm a bit older so probably it has to do with that but I was really astonished that it's scientifically proved that art stimulates in that way the synapses and that you build another brain when you go and see art whether it's theater or exposition the range is much bigger than only theater but that's amazing actually and so he says it's really a report about elderly diseases like Alzheimer's dementia in general that it really helps it's not a guarantee but it helps you get it later so that's a comfort you get it but you get it later so other questions no? from the three examples like one of them was a little red writing quite a standard story and the other ones were more futuristic yes exactly is it easier to use new technologies in futuristic stories than in normal stories in general or do you think it's dependent in the theater? I think it's more logical when you work with futuristic imaginative like Yoastit or Hiret Jakobs and Femke Stalard the two young makers of the last performance it's quite evident that you use but in a way I had a bit of a problem with the title of this lecture because cameras are so embedded in every performance now so we even forget that it's like high-glasses or hearing aids so yeah I think Yoastit was very clear I asked already let's do something with the futuristic since he's quite a famous author now and he's always working into the unknown and the futuristic kind of touch so I really wanted to work with him because he has that kind of flow in his work and he immediately said like I want to work with this and that and that and it involves included cameras but the use of camera also that will bring us too far but we can also discuss later on is also a bit of not always that evident I think in theater because I want to stress also in every show I showed you there was fierce live acting of course because that's still the basis the technology is sort of helping us but it's not the subject as such but the lecture was a bit intended to take away some fears about technology in the theater because there's a lot of like what I said before in poetry let's not do it but if used in an interesting way I hope then it can really work I think if you try to make it's the same accounts for puppets I think which with each performance we try to ask ourselves do we really need these puppets for this kind of content so we always start for a content and then see what means are are necessary for instance if you make a performance a cloning of course the use of puppets could be wonderful then you make it really necessity besides a thousand other ways to do that in Shakespeare times they always said oh we're in the woods now text decor is insane so it's how you deal with things of course but I find it fascinating and I always find an extra value also because these young children are always fascinated by how do they do that sometimes that much that they forget the content so we always have to discuss after the performance half an hour about what's the right way to give to the things you do means you put into the performance but yeah it works like hell actually the planet even it was really like in the beginning it was difficult to get it spread but now it's like a big success because it touches something that they live with so and the interesting thing is that the perspective is reversed so it's actually aliens who talk about humans and humans are naked puppets so that's also a bit of a straight thing actually yeah there was one child who cried like because in the first they come up and then they have an introduction and then they they show the first puppets so they take away a kind of blanket there's this naked puppet which is beautiful because of the nakedness it has a vulnerability to human kind actually and so this one child said am I in a porno show now so he was kind of a naked puppet but that's also a thing they forget it after a minute they're completely forgotten you can't put or it's difficult to put naked people live on stage but you can't do that you can do that with puppets so again that's another necessity you can to find when using puppets it always has to have a reason I think not a logical reason but a reason forced by the imaginative other questions or do I have a coffee thank you very much