KINGDOM is the story of two families who removed themselves from the modern world to live in harmony with nature. But after a few years of living in an environment that is as hostile as it is wonderful, suspicions and resentments start to flare up. The way the land is divided is suddenly deemed unfair and it appears that fate is against one of the two families. The customs of one and practices of the other jeopardise the already very delicate balance in this new society…
Then one day, a fence is erected between the two families. War is declared.
A few metres from the battlefield, the children watch their disappearing world.
Under the gaze of a film-maker, the tragedy is told…
KINGDOM is an epic fable about the division of land, original sin, a story never written, a return to life in the wild, widgeons, eyes turned to the river, wars between families, helicopters, poachers, fires…
TOURING 2021/2022
6 – 14 July 2021 – Festival d’Avignon (Fr)
24 September – 1 October 2021 – Le Théâtre de Liège (Be)
7 – 14 October, 2021 – Théâtre National de la Fédération Wallonie Bruxelles (Be)
19 – 22 October 2021 – Le Théâtre du Nord in Lille (Fr)
27 & 28 October 2021 – Maison de la Culture de Tournai, maison de création (Be)
9 – 12 November 2021 – Le Quai – CDN d’Angers (Fr)
18 & 19 November 2021 – Théâtre de Lorient (Fr)
20 – 22 January 2022 – Théâtre de Namur (Be)
28 & 29 January 2022 – Théâtres de la ville de Luxembourg (Lux)
9 & 10 March 2022 – Le Volcan, Scène nationale du Havre (Fr)
30 March – 3 April 2022 – Les Célestins, Théâtre de Lyon (Fr)
9 & 10 April 2022 – FIND 2022, Schaubühne, Berlin (De)
29 & 30 April 2022 – Le Tangram Scène nationale à Évreux (Fr)
TOURING 2022/2023
18 & 19 January 2023 – Palais des Beaux-Arts de Charleroi (Be)
28 January – 19 February 2023 – L’Odéon, Théâtre de l’Europe (Fr)
2 & 3 March 2023 – Teatros del Canal (Es)
31 March & 1 April 2023 – Teatre Lliure (Es)
13 – 16 May 2023 – Wiener Festwochen (At)
18 & 19 June – Campania Teatro Festival (It)
Written and directed by Anne-Cécile Vandalem
Freely inspired by Braguino by Clément Cogitore
WITH
Philippe Philippe Grand’Henry
Laurent Laurent Caron
Zoé Zoé Kovacs
Élena Épona Guillaume
Vania Arnaud Botman
Film Production Team Federico D’Ambrosio et Leonor Malamatenios
THE CHILDREN
Anja Juliette Goossens/Ida Mühleck
Nastassja Léa Swaeles/Léonie Chaidron
Daryna Daryna Melnyk/Eulalie Poucet
Michka Isaac Mathot/Noa Staes
THE DOGS Ice, Oméga and Olrùn
Stage Design Ruimtevaarders
Composition Vincent Cahay et Pierre Kissling
Director of Photography and Framing Federico D’Ambrosio
Dramaturgy Sarah Seignobosc
Lighting Design Amélie Géhin
Video Design Frédéric Nicaise
Sound Design Antoine Bourgain
Costume Design Laurence Hermant
Make-up Design Sophie Carlier
Assistant Director Pauline Ringeade and Mahlia Theismann
Technical director Damien Arrii
Props Philippe Vasseur
Children’s Coaches Lara Ceulemans, Julia Huet Alberola and Camille Léonard
Camera Operator Leonor Malamatenios
Animal Trainer Victorine Reinewald
Children’s Caretakers Anne Lahousse, Fabien Castan
Script Consultant Bruno Tracq
Light Hadrien Jeangette
Stage Management Baptiste Wattier
Costumes Samira Benali
Children’s Casting Director Kadija Leclere
Production Trainee Elsa Rauchs et Alexis Mullard
Costume Trainee Tatiana Strobbe
Camera Trainee Mounir Benchara
Trainee Assistant Technical Director Antoine Fiori
Subtitles Erik Borgman
Press Relations Dorothée Duplan, Camille Pierrepont, Fiona Defolny, Louise Dubreuil
Administration Lila Pérès
Production Daria Bubalo
Tour Management Communication Jill De Muelenaere
Head of Production, Administration and Sales Audrey Brooking et Eva Wilsens
COPRODUCTIONS
Théâtre de Liège [BE], Festival d’Avignon [FR], Théâtre National de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles [BE], Odéon – Théâtre de l’Europe [FR], Volcan – scène nationale du Havre [FR], Théâtre du Nord [FR], Théâtre de Lorient [FR], Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg [LU], Théâtre de Namur [BE], Le Quai – DN d’Angers [FR], Les Célestins, Théâtre de Lyon [FR], Maison de la culture de Tournai – maison de création [BE], La Coop asbl & Shelter Prod [BE].
SET CONSTRUCTION
Ateliers du Théâtre de Liège [BE] et Ateliers du Théâtre National [BE]
COSTUMES MANUFACTURING
Ateliers du Théâtre National de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles [BE]
SUPPORT
Taxshelter.be, ING, tax-shelter du gouvernement fédéral belge, Wallonie-Bruxelles International, Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles – service théâtre, Loterie nationale
THANKS TO
L’Usine [BE], Compagnie Point Zéro [BE], Projection Room [BE]
Artistic Direction
Anne-Cécile Vandalem
Administration & Finances
Lila Pérès – lila@dasfrauleinkompanie.com
+32 484 14 55 21
Production
Daria Bubalo – daria@dasfrauleinkompanie.com
+32 488 84 58 82
Tour Management – Communication & Distribution
Jill De Muelenaere – jill@dasfrauleinkompanie.com
+32 485 24 89 09
Technical direction
Damien Arrii – damien@dasfrauleinkompanie.com
+32 486 28 71 50
Press
Plan Bey Agency
Dorothée Duplan, Camille Pierrepont & Fiona Defolny
assisted by Louise Dubreil
bienvenue@planbey.com
+33 1 48 06 52 27
Head office
Rue de la Tulipe, 67
1050 Brussels – Belgium
Operational Site
Le Bocal
Rue Van Eyck, 11 B
1050 Brussels – Belgium
With the support of Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles – Theater department
The website was created thanks to Bruxelles Invest / export
Tags: anne, cécile, contact, das fraulein, kompanie, vandalem
Formed in 2008, Das Fräulein (Kompanie) was established to develop and promote the work of Belgian artist Anne-Cécile Vandalem. Its theatre creations are original works conceived, written and directed by the artist herself. Das Fräulein (Kompanie) is currently subsidised by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.
In 2003, Anne-Cécile Vandalem began to create and write the shows ZAÏ ZAÏ ZAÏ (2003) and HANSEL AND GRETEL (2005) with Jean-Benoît Ugeux. Her preference has been for fiction ever since.
From 2008 to 2013, the notion of home played a leading role in her work. It is seen as the perfect place of confinement, through which and with which everything happens. Starting from an ultra-realistic universe, she has defined the context of so-called domestic tragedies on an individual level in (SELF)SERVICE at the Théâtre de Vidy-ETE (Lausanne), on a family level in HABIT(U)ATION (2010) at the Théâtre de Namur (Belgium), and on a collective level with AFTER THE WALLS (UTOPIA) at the Théâtre National de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles during the Kunstenfestivaldesarts. These shows make up the Parentheses Trilogy.
Alongside this trilogy, she also created MICHEL DUPONT with the sound engineer Brice Cannavo to reinvent the opposite of the world in a sound show for adults and teenagers.
In 2014, Anne-Cécile Vandalem began exploring the modalities of posture and imposture. She questions a subject/individual’s capacity for action and transformation of reality within different societal spheres, and within her writing addresses the issue of disclosure and fragility as an honest and/or strategic posture. Her creations LOOKING FOR DYSTOPIA, STILL TOO SAD TO TELL YOU and WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU? each in their own way bear witness to these new aesthetic concerns.
In 2016 she created a diptych on sadness, comprising STILL TOO SAD TO TELL YOU (video installation) and TRISTESSES.
ARCTIQUE, which premiered in 2018, is the second part of a trilogy on the end of humanity through major failures of our time.
In 2019, Anne-Cécile Vandalem joined forces with the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz to create DIE ANDEREN, a show performed in German by the company’s actors.
In 2020, the artist was preparing to recreate TRISTESSES in German for the Burgtheater in Vienna but this was postponed due to the COVID-19 health crisis.
Tags: about, anne, cécile, das, das fraulein kompanie, fraulein, kompanie, vandalemBorn in 1979, Anne-Cécile Vandalem is a Belgian actor, writer and director.
After studying performance at the Royal Conservatoire in Liège, Anne-Cécile Vandalem started her career in acting, working for Belgian directors and theatre companies such as Charlie Degotte, Dominique Roodthooft and Transquinquennal.
She started writing for theatre in 2003 with ZAÏ ZAÏ ZAÏ ZAÏ (2003) followed by HANSEL AND GRETEL (2005)*, and she has had a preference for fiction ever since.
Between 2008 and 2013, she set about writing and producing a trilogy on the topic of home as a place of confinement and isolation through which and with which everything happens. Starting from an ultra-realistic universe, she has defined the context of so-called domestic tragedies on an individual level in (SELF) SERVICE (2008), on a family level in HABIT(U)ATION (2011), and on a collective level with AFTER THE WALLS (UTOPIA) (2013).
Alongside this trilogy, she also created MICHEL DUPONT, RÉINVENTER LE CONTRAIRE DU MONDE, a sound fable for adults and teenagers.
In 2014, Anne-Cécile Vandalem began exploring the modalities of posture and imposture. She questions a subject/individual’s capacity for action and transformation of reality within different societal spheres, and in her writing addresses the issue of disclosure and fragility as an honest and/or strategic posture. This has led to three creations in different media: STILL TOO SAD TO TELL YOU (video installation), WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU? (project in the public space) and LOOKING FOR DYSTOPIA (multimedia work).
After these came TRISTESSES, the first part of a trilogy on the end of humanity, which premiered at the Festival d’Avignon in 2016. TRISTESSES combines theatre, film and music, and earned her the award for the best show at the Prix du Théâtre 2016 (BE), the prize for the best foreign show at the Prix de la Critique 2018 (FR) and the “performing arts” writing prize from SACD (BE).
ARCTIQUE, the second part of this trilogy, was presented at the 72nd Festival d’Avignon. Blending theatre, film and music, the show is a detective novel set against the backdrop of global warming.
KINGDOM, the final part of this trilogy, premièred at Festival d’Avignon in July 2021.
Anne-Cécile also works abroad, particularly with the Schaubühne in Berlin (DE), where she created DIE ANDEREN, a fable of anticipation that tells of the abuse taking place in a small village that gradually closes in on itself in the wake of a terrible event. The arrival of a stranger fleeing the fires in the south awakens hostile, protective behaviour.
Anne-Cécile is currently adapting DIE ANDEREN for the cinema.
* These two shows were written with the actor Jean-Benoît Ugeux.
Tags: anne-cécile, bio, biographie, biography, vandalemAnne-Cécile Vandalem spent every Monday in Brussels’ Ribaucourt neighbourhood, meeting the locals and passers-by to discuss their feelings about the performing arts and their opinions regarding the different ways these are financed.
At the end of the dialogue, Anne-Cecile offers to produce a piece of art for them in exchange for the time they granted her. The meetings raised a lot of questions, namely about reciprocity, generosity, commitment, mediation and solicitation.
The second part of the project aimed to incorporate the citizen more profoundly in the creation of the work itself, by affording him/her the role of creator (he/she now becomes responsible for the development as well as the resources necessary for the actual achievement of the work).
So, this segment invited the sponsor to become the co-creator of a piece of performing art that Anne-Cecile Vandalem would produce in collaboration with him or her.
It is meant to allow everybody to be much more than inactive observers of a practice that either goes beyond them, or excludes them altogether, but of which they become an integral part.
This version no longer focuses on the element of collaboration between artist and citizen, but rather on the idea of the gift, the contribution and the risk of trusting an artist with your feelings.
The citizen will not be asked to participate in the production of the work of which he is the instigator, but to plainly accept it, whatever the outcome may be.
A specific context will be conceived to facilitate the scope of the initiator’s feelings or wishes, as well as the space to express dissatisfaction or disappointment concerning the final outcome.
A small, isolated village somewhere in the middle of Europe on a rainy and gloomy autumn evening. It’s been raining frequently; in fact, unceasingly, for months. Alda Ackermann, who manages the »Old Continent« hotel with her husband René, runs over a boy on her way back from a meeting with the village headman – and to top it all, she’s steaming drunk thanks to all the booze served at the meeting. The boy is on the run and just wants to get out of there as quickly as possible. But he is injured and cannot be taken to hospital without Alda being busted. So he is treated in the village and hidden in the hotel. Soon the other villagers grow curious and suspicious; resentments, erotic longings, demands and revenge fantasies are all directed at the stranger who becomes embroiled in a variety of conflicting interests and asks himself many questions about the village: Why are there no children living there? By which rules do the few inhabitants co-exist? Why are they all so strangely wary? He begins to suspect that there is a dark secret.
DIE ANDEREN is a creation produced by Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz performed by the Ensemble.
Tags: anne-cécile, das frauleinPremiere on 28 November 2019 – Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz (De)
TOURING 2022/2023
25 – 28 August 2022 – Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz (De)
2025, somewhere between Denmark and Greenland. Six strangers are lured by an anonymous letter into stowing away on a former luxury cruise ship bound for Greenland. On the way there, the boat towing the cruise ship abandons in on the high seas. Our strangers will drift away in international waters until they find themselves trapped in the ice…
ARCTIC is a political thriller featuring six characters trapped in a scheme devised to make them disappear. In her new production, Anne-Cecile Vandalem once more uses the language of cinema in the service of a theatrical and musical fable of the future.
Conception, writing, direction Anne-Cécile Vandalem
Set design Ruimtevaarders
Dramaturgy Nils Haarmann
Artistic collaboration Sébastien Monfé
Original music and sound design Pierre Kissling
Lighting design Erich Schneider
Direction of photography Federico D’Ambrosio
Video design Guillaume Cailleau
Operator Florian Baumgarten, Moritz von Dungern
Costume design Laurence Hermant
With actors of the Ensemble :
Bernardo Arias Porras
Veronika Bachfischer
Jule Böwe
Stephanie Eidt
Felix Römer
Ruth Rosenfeld
David Ruland
Kay Bartholomäus Schulze
PRODUCTION
Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
COPRODUCTION
Das Fräulein (Kompanie) (Be), Théâtre de Liège (Be), Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg (Be)
In cooperation with the European Theatre Network PROSPERO
2016. Far right parties are on the rise throughout Europe. In the countries of Northern Europe, National Awakening—an antidemocratic, populist movement led by Martha Heiger. In Martha’s birthplace, a suicide has taken place. Leader’s visit to the peninsula for her funeral is announced. Ellen, a young teenager, sets out to assassinate the woman threatening her and her country’s future. But on the day of the funeral, the situation drastically changes…
TRISTESSES is a theatrical performance whose main theme is the relation between power and sadness. Borrowing the conventions of detective fiction and political comedy, Anne-Cécile Vandalem explores with humor one of the most formidable political weapons of the day: making the masses sad. Through cinematographic stage design, she shines a spotlight on the power of the media and the ways censorship functions in the open or, insidiously, in the shadow.
Tags: anne-cécile vandalem, das fraulein kompanie, Productions, still too sad to tell youIn STILL TOO SAD TO TELL YOU, ten screens invite you to an intimate experience where tears, as they are put on display, also beg to be collected. Faces may become stages and landscapes depending on whether your vision blurs, a tear forms, you break into tears or sob, you cry a river or a torrent, you wipe or share your tears, in silence, in gasps, in deep sighs, loud, short or long cries interspersed with words, whole or truncated, whether you suffocate or drown…
STILL TOO SAD TO TELL YOU is directly inspired by I am too sad to tell you (video self-portrait by artist Bas Jan Ader). As she pays homage to this almost five decades old motif, Anne-Cécile Vandalem takes it up in order to better displace the gaze and multiply the angles of approach. She proposes an immersive installation made up of several portraits—women, men and children, some actors, some not, famous or unknown—so many faces offered and tears shed—in order to question the anthropological (temporal, social and cultural) but also the plastic dimensions of the topic at hand: the pleasure of tears and their representation.
STILL TOO SAD TO TELL YOU is the counterpoint to SADNESSES, Das Fräulein (Kompanie)’s next production.
This small-scale installation locates the topic on a strictly individual level and unveils the aesthetic power of solitary lachrymal manifestations; in turn, SADNESSES explores this theme in a public setting in the middle of a community. In the former, the language of tears—a language that enacts the powerlessness of words and stipulates the difficulty of action—yields a semiology of sadness. In the latter, the artist exposes daily sadnesses precisely when language is tantamount to a weapon; explores the power relations at stake, but also the active transformational power of emotions.
Tags: 2015, das fraulein, festival, kompanie, march, national, still to sad too tell you, théatre, xsTOUR 2018
23 January – 3 February 2018 – Théâtre National Wallonie Bruxelles (Be)
8 – 10 February 2018 – Théâtre de Namur (Be)
16 & 17 February 2018 – Comédie de Reims – Festival Reims Scènes d’Europe (Fr)
30 June & 1 July 2018 – Festival au Carré – Mars – Mons Arts de la scène (Fr)
TOUR 2018/2019
18 – 24 July 2018 – Festival d’Avignon (Fr)
11 October 2018 – International Theatre Forum TEART, Minsk (By)
7 & 8 November 2018 – Le Volcan, Scène nationale du Havre (Fr)
15 & 16 November 2018 – Le Festival les Boréales, Caen (Fr)
21 – 24 November 2018 – Le Théâtre de Liège (Be)
29 & 30 November 2018 – Espace Jean Legendre, Compiègne (Fr)
8 – 11 January 2019 – Les Célestins, Théâtre de Lyon (Fr)
16 January – 10 February 2019 – L’Odéon, Théâtre de l’Europe (Fr)
14 & 15 February 2019 – La Comédie de Saint-Etienne (Fr)
4 & 5 April 2019 – FIND Festival / Schaubühne (De)
TOUR 2019/2020
22 & 23 November 2019 – Palais des Beaux-Arts de Charleroi (Be)
4 – 8 December 2019 – Le Théâtre du Nord à Lille (Fr)
8 – 11 January 2020 – Le Grand T, Théâtre de Loire-Atlantique à Nantes (Fr)
16 & 17 January 2020 – Le Carreau – Scène Nationale de Forbach et de l’Est mosellan (Fr)
22 & 23 January 2020 – Le Théâtre, Scène nationale de Mâcon (Fr)
30 & 31 January 2020 – Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg (Lux)
5 & 6 February 2020 – Thalia Theater Hambourg (De)
8 & 9 July 2020 – Almada Festival in Lisbon (Pt)
WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU? is an artistic project that takes place in the public, private, intimate and daily space of citizens whose tax money contributes to financing artistic endeavors. The goal of this project is to ask citizens a performative question about the value of artistic acts, moments, and exchanges; a question about the effects that art produces and the means necessary to their production. Much of this encounter happens through the conception a work of art which citizens are given the opportunity to commission.
This project is designed as a multistage course in which participants are encouraged to reflect on, think through, and test the mechanics of desire at work in every artistic act or negotiation.
By performing itself as a service that makes available a series of skills to patrons, the project creates the conditions for a deeper exchange on the question of art: who looks at art, and who does art look at?
PRACTICAL MATTERS
Future patrons will first call a special phone number to set up a meeting to discuss their commission with the artist.
The object of the commission should not necessarily be artistic in character, but citizens will be expected to justify why they would see fit to ask an artist to produce it.
The artist and patrons will discuss the terms of the commission in a 30-minute,public negotiation.
If the negotiation succeeds, the artist will produce a response to the commission, no matter its content. Patrons will commit to receiving the response—no matter its form—and to be present when it is produced.
Production will occur on a date determined by the patrons and the artist together and scheduled during the project’s hosting period.
Tags: commitment, generosity, Guillemins, L’Esact, mediation, QUE PUIS-JE FAIRE POUR VOUS, reciprocity, Ribaucourt, Shopshop, solicitationIn 2013, while UTOPIA is created in a theatre and Anne-Cécile Vandalem completes the first conception phase of DYSTOPIA project, an
unexpected event occurs, the ground rises, the walls tear apart and DYSTOPIA project collapses.
The sudden disappearance of DYSTOPIA leaves a void for which the artist works to find meaning.
Quickly one hypothesis seizes her : what if this void is the result of the tabula rasa treated in UTOPIA? Has the fiction joined the reality,
exceeding it with grandiose?
And Anne-Cécile is pushing further the hypothesis: what if the disappearance of DYSTOPIA and the effectiveness of the tabula rasa were the proof of dystopia’s realisation?
Anne-Cécile Vandalem will entrust the story’s elements in the analysis of several specialists in their fields (medium, sports analyst, engineer
astronomer, commercial engineer, lawyer, police officer, linguistic reviser) so that they put to the test her hypothesis: the incarnation of her subject in the reality and the completion of dystopia.
In the manner of Don Quixote by Orson Welles and Terry Gilliam, of Clouzot’s Inferno or more contemporary of Virus by Lars Von Trier, Looking for DYSTOPIA places the artist in the context of
powerlessness over the future of her creation : facing the undeniable autonomy of any artistic work and the inability to predict how it will
incarnate.
Based on the principle of self-fiction, the artist turns the contingencies attached to reality to reconfigure the story of an unfinished work and to
leverage its potential endings with malice.
Let’s recall that this process occurs just after the Trilogy of parenthesis, whose role is to circumscribe, in three shows, how people resort to
fiction to transcend reality.
A process that if one wanted to believe it was not premeditated ends in a final twist.
Tags: after the walls, das fraulein, dystopia, kompanie, looking for dystopiaThe last part of the Trilogie des parenthèses, After TheWalls (UTOPIA/DYSTOPIA) continues to explore the links between individuals and where they live, and one last time tackles the issue of the isolation of mankind.
UTOPIA is a fictional conference, a theatrical celebration,during the course of which an architect shares his visions of the future: an unprecedented architectural dream, a real utopian explosion, as a solution to the social, demographic and ecological challenges of our era.
In After the Walls (UTOPIA) a speaker shakes upper conceived ideas on contemporary habitat. A cheeky and quite insane theatrical piece by a Belgian playwright who dares (…) It seems impossible while watching this show not imagining a sequel or response. Anne-CécileVandalem intended it.
H. Le Tanneur, Les Inrocks, November 2013.
Tags: 2013, 2014, after, das, fraulein, kompanie, the, utopia, walls