Wednesday 25 and Thursday 26 November 2015:

- 13:00 – 18:00 : public rehearsal

- 20:30 : performance

Free admission

Dutch spoken

Please register via [email protected].

More information: http://www.discordia.nl/ en http://www.detijd.be/

One of the most prominent theatre collectives in the Netherlands participates in ‘The Corner Show’ at Extra City. Since the early eighties, Maatschappij Discordia introduced a radical new manner of making theatre and an unprecedented approach to the repertoire of theatre texts – from Shakespeare and Chekov to Beckett. The performances of Maatschappij Discordia appear to be greatly indebted to the visual arts and art history.

The collective will develop their contribution by working for two consecutive days in the exhibition. Their starting point is the 19th century opera, ‘The Mute Girl of Portici’, by the French composer Daniel François Esprit Auber, on a libretto by August Eugène Scribe. When this opera was performed at the Munt/ La Monnaie opera house in Brussels on the 25th of August 1830, on the occasion of the 58th birthday of Dutch king Willem I, it triggered an explosion of nationalist fervor: anti-Dutch riots broke out. Symbolically, the opera is considered the start of the Belgian revolution and the corner stone of the Belgian state.

With ‘periakten’ Maatschappij Discordia does not present a completed performance, but makes the audience privy to the work that precedes every performance and that is seldom or never made public. In what can be considered a continuation of their project ‘The Republic’, a monthly evening of text and conversation organized together with friends such as the collective ‘t Barre Land in the arts centre De Balie in Amsterdam, the presentation will be an accumulation of notes on a blank page. During the day, visitors can witness the process of preparing for a performance to-come, while provisional results will be presented in the two evenings of the event.

In collaboration with theatre group De Tijd.

periakten

A) Corner stone (definition)

1. Foundation of society (crypt.)

2. Part of a building

3. Fundament

4. Initial concept

5. Floor stone

B) It’s not unusual that actors are asked: “What do you do during the day?”. Here is a possible answer: “We sit in a corner practicing dramaturgy”.

C) Dramaturgy (definition)

The general term for the principles of drama, in which both the universal or a-historical characteristics of the drama are described and studied, as well as the unique or historical aspects of it.

D) Some of the actors might make stage props like the periakt, or scene attributes. Sometimes one bakes angular cookies.

E) We’re inviting you to follow our day work. In a temporary archive, we’ll be assembling aspects of a political gesture that is fundamental to modern Belgium: its separation from The Netherlands. Our findings will be shared via a performance in the evening.

Language Dutch