The Channel / Crossing Borders

On a beach near Calais a young refugee prepares himself to swim across the Channel, towards his new future. On the English side, on the chalk cliffs of Beachy Head, a woman bids life goodbye.

The new text by author Gaea Schoeters is mirrored by a recently recovered Shakespeare-text, in which the sheriff of London tries to calm a mob of citizens who want to lynch a group of migrants. The scene shows scary resemblances to the current refugee crisis. Migration is a phenomenon of all times, and so is our primary reaction to it. Each organism repels what is foreign to it: the strangers have to go.

Composer Annelies Van Parys uses the Shakespeare-text as a libretto for a cycle of songs, which set the refugee theme in a historical perspective. The soprano is also the intermediary between past and present, audience and play. Via other spoken Shakespeare fragments she sets the story in a different perspective, turning the personal stories into a sharp reflection of society, both in the 16th century and today – because the similarities are, alas, striking. 

Credits

• Composition • Annelies Van Parys
• Text • Gaea Schoeters
• Direction • Gable Roelofsen / Romy Roelofsen
• Scenography • Anneleen De Causmaecker
• Lighting design • Peter Quasters
• Actors • Katelijne Verbeke / Adams Mensah
• Vocalist • Naomi Beeldens
• Lute • Maarten Vandenbemden