Crossing The Line Festival
Theater Babel Rotterdam
Theater Babel Rotterdam is the only professional theater company in the Netherlands that embraces ‘the other’. Babel works inclusive, with people you’ll recognize and people you’ve never seen or met before. Babel works towards a world where we understand one another. Where speech confusions are pronounced. Where misunderstanding is translated through imagination.
Our company is formed by actors with and without a disability, we call them our regular actors and our guest actors. In this inclusive collaboration they work together with professionals developing their skills on different levels. On a daily basis they train together in the morning and rehears or perform in the afternoons. Babel produces professional theater productions as well as educational theaterproductions.
Paul Röttger, general director as well as theater director of the company, is currently preparing our new production ‘Romeo’s & Julia’s’ that will premiere in spring 2022. More info on Paul Röttger can be found on paulrottger.nl. During the digital festival you’ll be able to enjoy three productions directed by Paul : ‘From J to Jessica’, 'Piazza Della Vita' and ‘I through the other’. A full overview of inclusive theater productions directed by Paul can be viewed here.
Theater Babel Rotterdam, started through a collaboration between the former ‘rotterdams centrum voor theater’ and ‘Pameijer’. Since January 2016 the company is funded by the city of Rotterdam as the first inclusive professional theater company in the Netherlands.
More info : www.theaterbabelrotterdam.nl
Theater Babel
EVENTS
I Through The Other
SAT 16 OCT
SAT 13 NOV
What does your mother say about you? And about your birth?
How does your father feel about the choices you make in life?
How does your sister or brother talk about their relationship with you?
In I Through The Other 28 actors from Theater Babel Rotterdam show themselves at their most vulnerable. They tell intimate stories about themselves, through the gaze of the other. Director Paul Röttger interviewed a family member of each player about birth, childhood, the life of the player and their mutual bond. Together with writer Erik Ward Geerlings, Paul developed these interviews into monologues.
In a multidisciplinary setting of dance, circus art and music, and life-size projections, the players tell their personal story 1 on 1 to the audience.
I Through The Other is an invitation to get closer to yourself, through the story of the other.
From J To Jessica
SAT 25 SEP
“Why can't I be who I want to be?”
Jessica's story,
transgender and actress at Theater Babel Rotterdam.
She tells her story openly, leaves nothing unspoken, shows herself vulnerable and does not shy away from taboo.
Her fellow players are inspired by her story.
They too turn inside out with candid, vulnerable and (un)everyday confessions about their youth, about sexuality, about who they can and can't be.
A performance with old and contemporary vocal music by a choir of 34 actors with and without disabilities, surrounded by spectacular 360 degree projections.
Babel Documentary
Cancelled
Piazza Della Vita
SAT 23 OCT
Paul Röttger about Piazza:
“As a child i was fascinated with town squares. Almost every village has a square. Centered around are a church, a newsstand, the municipality. You meet each other on that square, everyone has to cross it.
To the municipality to get married, to the church to bury someone, to the store to eat. All aspect of life come together on that square."
For Piazza della vita we asked ourselves: what happens on a town square? Writer Erik-Ward Geerlings and myself fantasized and dreamt and that was our base for a script for 36 actors. Themes that we used are loving, waiting, rejection, exclusion, death. In short, life.
The square in Piazza della vita is filled with our visitors and our actors. Together. They can look unabashedly at each other. Without lyrics, because there’s no dialogue. There’s a lot of singing. In many different languages: Japanese, Icelandic, Keltic.
We work with a huge group of actors whom are very divers. A community with elderly and young people, big and small, with impairment and without. This is the community i dream of. A community where you can and are allowed to see and meet everyone. A community where you can be who you want to be. In which you can be.”
Piazza della vita’s themes are connected to the city. That’s why we play on location, in a building on the Eendrachtstraat 81 (a sidestreet of the Witte de Withstreet). Actually, the building is a 19th century gym. In the city centre.
Piazza della vita will be an intense, sensory, disruptive, humoresque, esthetical, and sometimes harsh theatre experience.
Moving Portraits
SAT 30 OCT
Swedish circus artist Carina Klingsell, who performed with Babel in Paul Röttger’s performance Ik via de ander, made two inclusive dance duets, titled Moving Portraits, in which a regular Babel player and a Rotterdam circus artist work together.
Swedish circus artist Carina Klingsell, who performed with Babel in Paul Röttger’s performance Ik via de ander, made two inclusive dance duets, titled Moving Portraits, in which a regular Babel player and a Rotterdam circus artist work together.
The performance starts from the individuality of each player, their unique characteristics, habits and talents. Klingsell worked with them around themes such as confidence, comfort and safety to develop their own physical portrait. The two duets stem from the preferences, quality and individuality of the players, with movement and circus as a means of expression.
At a time when we can only share intimacy with a select few, Klingsell tries to expand this: you get to know the strangers on stage, purely through their movements, while you share a common virtual space for 20 minutes.
“Circus has always been a place where inclusivity is important,” says Carina Klingsell. “A place where everyone is welcome, regardless of your abilities and talents. I want to continue to bring this mindset into the 21st century.”
