Arts Centre Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium

“Verdonck excels in creating breathtaking images. In my view, devising beautiful scenes is without a doubt his biggest talent.” – Message left by Vooruit visitor Marlies on www.vooruit.be about ‘End’, one of Kris Verdonck’s previous performances.

Kris Verdonck, a Flemish theatre maker on the verge of an international breakthrough, never makes just another performance. In I/II/III/IIII, he suspended four female dancers from a carousel, in ‘End’ the actors were up against machines, and in Actor # 1 the audience was guided past three highly technological, awe-inspiring installations: a basin filled with clouds, a dancing jackhammer with a will of its own and a talking hologram. In his newest performance, Verdonck takes the next step in his research on the relationship between man and machine, between animate and inanimate objects. ‘K, a society’ is Verdonck’s biggest project to date. He has created ten installations on the oldest mining site in the Ruhr area at the request of the renowned German theatre company Theater Der Welt. These installations can later be seen at Vooruit.

Verdonck and his new troupe A Two Dogs Company will be setting up the installations throughout the Vooruit building. You’ll see a drowning businessman using his briefcase as a lifebuoy, floating figures, a wall of gossiping faces, and much, much more. The guide is the only living character. Verdonck’s installation trajectory exudes the atmosphere of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, in which Josef K is tried for unknown reasons as he finds himself in an impenetrable web of administration and bureaucracy.