Working for the large stage
Timeau De Keyser: “Normally, the hierarchy in the theatre world is that you start on location, then you move to the smaller theatres like CAMPO, and only when you are 40 or 50 do you work for the large stage. That’s nonsense, of course, because it’s not that young makers are incapable of doing productions for the large stage, they simply don’t get the chance.” With the support that is now being offered by Toneelhuis, this should change within a few years. “But we should also be moving in the opposite direction,” adds De Keyser. “Older, more experienced theater makers can also create valuable productions for small theatres or on location. But as soon as they reach the top of the pyramid, they are expected to only make work for the big theatres from then on. We should be looking at the whole system more horizontally.”
On apprenticeships with the allies
Bosse Provoost: “We are admitted into the work processes of the coaches and that in itself is an assailable aspect. It’s informative to see them at work, but that certainly doesn’t mean that we should avidly lap up and adopt their ways of doing things. You become acquainted with various methodologies and you seek your own path within them.”
Timeau De Keyser: “The point is that when you are making a production that can reach an audience of a thousand, it simply is different than when you do something for a small stage. It’s very interesting to see how somebody like Jan Farber, for instance, manipulates that system. And in reality, it comes down the fact that if I need help, I can ask them questions. They don’t push their advice on you.”
On directors and collectives
Timeau De Keyser: “I think it’s important to emphasize that I am a director, but at the same time I’m also somebody whose work doesn’t exist outside the context of his co-workers. So I don’t want to be bigger on the poster than the other members of Tibaldus. It’s also like that at Kuiperskaai and de polen, the collectives of Lisaboa and Bosse. Guy Cassiers told us from the start that he didn’t just choose four people, but also the whole dynamics and the artists they’ll be bringing to Toneelhuis in their wake.”
Read the complete article here (in Dutch)
