NÔT

On stage are white fences and unmade beds. Eight performers, at the same time dancers and drummers, bring this strange, frenzied and liberating fable to life. For NÔT – "night" in Cape Verdean Creole – Marlene Monteiro Freitas drew inspiration from the tales of One Thousand and One Nights: stories about love, freedom and war. She uses the ambiguity present in these stories as a creative engine for a performance that once again showcases her unique choreographic style: intense performative presence, powerful aesthetics, grotesque and carnivalesque elements, fragmented movements, nonsensical language.

Monteiro Freitas creates a chaotic world ruled by (patriarchal) terror, in which movements arise from obedience and coercion. For the first time, she works with masks, placing even more emphasis on the expressive physicality of the performers. The overwhelming soundtrack, with live drums, sets the rhythm of the performance and brings even more chaos.

NÔT unfolds as an artefact of multiplication, projection, alienation and enchantment. It is a disruptive, explosive, and energetic spectacle, both in form and content. How to survive when you can only rely on yourself? Will we make it through the night?

Copresentation Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Kaaitheater, Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles