HUTAN-HANTU - Toni Kritzer & Lou J. Seidel - Theater Bellevue
Empty spaces do not exist: the floor on which we perform in Dutch theaters is usually made of Keruing wood. Keruing mainly grows in Indonesia and is a seriously endangered tree species due to illegal deforestation. Where this tree comes from, a life-threatening whirlwind blows through its roots. The floor of our stage is smeared with blood. What does it mean to stand on this no-longer-tree, but-not-yet-ground, on this body murdered by colonial violence?
HUTAN-HANTU - Toni Kritzer & Lou J. Seidel - Theater Bellevue
Like ghosts
We look at these trees as ghosts. They haunt the space and whisper stories about the rainforest beneath our feet. Walking through these botanical evidences of genocide, our movement becomes restless, innocence feels impossible. The ghosts show themselves in traces of wooden memories: scars, scratches, marks, cuts.
They hold a séance for these spirits to keep with their memories: to make loud the sound of a tree falling in a forest.
About the makers
Lou J. Seidel is a visual artist and set designer with a background in props and furniture making who understands her own body as part of her work. Lou likes to call himself a compassionate trespasser . Her work is usually spatial, often interdisciplinary and explores the boundaries between installation, performance and experience. Her landscapes want to take over where words reach their limits. In her practice she is based on the idea that empty space does not exist and therefore pays attention to the fact that every space has a certain history, time and materials that were once part of something else.
Toni Kritzer is a trans nonbinary performance artist, born in the German countryside and now based in a forest in the Netherlands. With a background in theater and theater directing, their work is interdisciplinary and hybrid: from performance, writing, herbalism to community gardening. An undercurrent of utopian thinking flows in all their works. Their artistic practice is committed to queer ecology, to wild artistic responses to the climate crisis. Toni graduated from the Theater Directing course in Amsterdam, but is more interested in providing tools for collective navigation than in giving directions.
This performance is part of the Amsterdam Fringe Festival.
Dates and times
Tuesday 10 September | 18:00 - 18:45 |
Thursday 12 September | 17:00 - 17:45 |
Sunday 15 September | 17:00 - 17:45 |
HUTAN-HANTU - Toni Kritzer & Lou J. Seidel - Theater Bellevue
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