An Anthology of Optimism
Cure for pessimism.- De Standaard (BE)
One of the best performances all year, and easily the most intelligent.- Artshub (AU)
8/5 Fri 19:30
8/6 Sat 19:30
8/7 Sun 14:30
Venue| Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, Warehouse 1
Ticket Prices| 450 660
70 minutes with no intermission
No late seating.
In English with Chinese/English subtitles
Pre-show talk 30 minutes before the performance in theater lobby
After-performance discussion in English with Chinese interpretation after each performance
Created by
Pieter De BUYSSER & Jacob WREN
Produced by
CAMPO
Production Management
Philippe DIGNEFFE
Slides
Mathilde GEENS
Performed by
Pieter De BUYSSER & Jacob WREN
Co-produced by Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture; Brut, Wien; Kunstenfestivaldesarts 09, Brussels; and Camp X, Kopenhagen
Jacob WREN, Canadian writer and maker of eccentric performances, and Pieter De BUYSSER, Belgian writer, philosopher and theatre-maker, first met in 2000. They felt a great affinity with each other and started an intensive correspondence resulting in An Anthology of Optimism.
The pair wrote a letter beginning with the following phrase “An Anthology of Optimism is a pre-emptive celebration of a critical optimism we tentatively hope will increase in the twenty-first century.” They sent this letter out to writers, artists, thinkers, scientists, politicians, business people, etc. all over the world, asking for a response, a contribution. This contribution could be anything: a photograph, a piece of music, an object, a short text, a drawing or painting, a film or video, or perhaps something they had not even thought of yet.
In sending out this letter, Pieter and Jacob hoped to learn something about the possibilities for critical optimism in the twenty-first century, understanding critical optimism both on an intimate personal level and in relation to the larger socio-economic realities of our times.
The setting for this lecture-performance is simple: just Jacob and Pieter alone on stage, using the contributions they received as a framework for their own realizations and reflections upon the theme, delightfully enacting an ongoing process of research into how critical optimism might actually function in our contemporary world. They take the spectator on a journey through the splinters of today’s ultimate dreams for tomorrow, gathered up from different corners and layers of the world.?
CAMPO
At the beginning of 2008 Victoria, an adventurous production company for the performing artsin Ghent, merged with the Nieuwpoorttheater to form the new Belgian company CAMPO.
The substantive legacy and artistic expertise of the two organisations were united in a new arts centre with a challenging new artistic plan.
Victoria was a multi-purpose company with many elements. It was a place where artists could grow and experiment, a producer and a platform for presentations, a hotbed of new theatrical developments, a crossroads of international trends, a festival organiser, a meeting place for artists and a residence for homeless artists. It catered to all generations and was active in a wide range of disciplines.
It was Victoria’s ambition to produce a rich assortment of performances, both large and small-scale, local and international, with intriguing debuts as well as popular international successes. Its productions ?Bung (2004) and That Night Follows Day (2008) were presented at the Melbourne Festival to great acclaim.
Over the past few decades, the Nieuwpoorttheater arts centre developed a program around the themes of the meaning, relevance and representation of the arts and arts centres on the threshold of the 21st century. Fundamental research was conducted into the relationship between art, community, cultural identity, popular culture, power and the social context. The centre attracted a large movement of artists who made and exhibited art which felt itself to be socially responsible without losing its artistic individuality.
CAMPO is a broad artistic umbrella incorporating every aspect of theatricality in the very broadest sense of the word. Important activities include production, creation, hosting, education by establishing links with artistic training courses and socially inspired work. CAMPO supports, feeds, provokes and questions artists, and aims to create and show artistically strong, innovative and relevant work.
Pieter De Buysser
Pieter De BUYSSER is a Belgian writer. He studied philosophy in Antwerp (UFSIA) and Paris-8 Vincennes Saint-Denis. In the last ten years he has written seventeen plays for different companies and directors including: Monty, Beursschouwburg, NTGent, M?nchener Kammerspiele, De Queeste, Lod, Th??tre de la Place, Walpurgis and others. He created the theatre company Lampe, named after the valet of Kant. For Theatre Company Lampe he has written and staged three trilogies: The Critique of the Touched Reason, The Critique of Powers, and The Critique of Pragmatics. His plays have been translated into German, French, English and Italian.
Jacob Wren
Jacob WREN is a Canadian writer and maker of eccentric performances. His recent books include Unrehearsed Beauty (Coach House Books), Families Are Formed Through Copulation (Pedlar Press), Le g?nie des autres (Le Quartanier) and the upcoming novel Revenge Fantasies of the Politically Dispossessed. As co-artistic director of Montreal-based interdisciplinary group PME-ART he has co-created En fran?ais comme en anglais, it's easy to criticize (1998), Unrehearsed Beauty / Le G?nie des autr es (2002), La famille se cr?e en copulant (2005) and Hospitality (2008). He has also collaborated with Nadia Ross and her company STO Union. Together they have co-written and co-directed Recent Experiences (2000) and Revolutions in Therapy (2004). In 2007 he was invited to Berlin by Sophiensaele to adapt and direct Wolfgang Koeppen's novel Der Tod in Rom(1954). He frequently writes about contemporary art for C Magazine.
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