Arts Centre Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium

After collaborating with Peter Vermeersch for a number of plays (e.g. 2000’s ‘Larf’), De Pauw returns to work with LOD composer Jan Kuijken, with whom he created ‘Die Siel van die Mier’ in 2004. Together they wrote a score for what they describe themselves as a “dramatized concert”, i.e. a play in which the music is just as important as the music. Musicians from the worlds of jazz, rock, classical music, opera and pop will try to find a universal language.

Josse De Pauw’s play ‘Liefde’ was inspired by Charles Bukowski’s poem ‘Love is a dog from hell’ and Thierry De Cordier’s ‘Handworst’ drawing. At the start of the play, a sound engineer is adjusting two small microphones for both of the actors. We can just manage to hear the young actor say: “… that’s what love is all about, right?” Though the old man replies, we can’t hear what he says, because his microphone is not working yet.

Josse De Pauw: “Liefde / zijn handen is a performance that is constructed technically, verbally, and musically before our very eyes. Constructed out of love before the audience’s eyes, word for word, note for note.”