Sold out in Berlin, Le Havre, Milan, Sao Paolo, Lisbon, Zürich and St Petersburg, we HAD to be part of the test session of Remote: Antwerpen. It all started in the City Park, Saturday the 25th of April. Lara, Helen and Lize were the lucky guinea pigs. We want to share our experience with you without giving away too much. Because that would spoil the fun and mystery. And boy, it was!
Remote: Antwerpen is part of the series Remote x from Rimini Protokoll, a Berlin-based theater collective founded in 2000. Rimini Protokoll's core purpose is to pry apart the sense of reality and present all its facets from unusual perspectives. Faces behind it are Stefan Kaegi (Swiss), Helgard Haug (German) and Daniel Wetzel (German). They met as classmates, studying theatre studies at the Avant-gardist German Theatre School Institut für Angewandte Theaterwissenschaft of Giessen. They are often mentioned as inventors of a new wave of documentary theatre and of the theatre movement known as ‘Reality Trend’ (Theater der Zeit), which has exerted a powerful influence on the alternative theatre scene.
Rimini Protokoll’s theatre explores the unseen networks between different cultures, cities, countries and continents, revealing the hidden lives of globalisation. It investigates the realities and unexpected situations of everyday life beyond the headlines and behind the statistics. In their projects they seek out the fine line between fiction and reality. Instead of presenting actors performing characters as part of drama texts they present people whom they find through elaborate research and casting procedures. Experts of the all day reality, professionals of a theatre of the real world. The ‘actors’ present themselves in front of a national theatre crowd used to watch the perfect fake instead of the imperfect but real. Astonishment assured! Since 2000, Rimini Protokoll has brought its ‘theatre of experts’ to the stage and urban environments. Stefan Kaegi believes that theatre is already present in the public spaces: “I believe that in the streets, there’s already a lot of theatre. Our lives are staged”.
Rimini Protokoll has been hailed as one of the most interesting theatre phenomena in Europe and honoured with numerous awards, including the Faust Theatre Prize in 2007, the European Prize for New Theatre Forms in 2008, the silver lion of the Biennale for Performing Arts in 2011 in Venice and theatre-maker Stefan Kaegi in particular for the 2010 ECF Princess Margriet Award.
Rimini Protokoll breaks down the walls of theatre and takes us on an excursion through the city. As a local we discovered the city through an intriguing new aspect. It’s not a touristic guided tour and if you are a local, you won’t discover a lot of new places. However you’ll experience the city in an extraordinary way:
Every tour starts off at Stadspark (ed. City Park). The groups are rather big. As soon as you receive your audio guide you feel united with the other participants. Although you are all hearing the same mysterious voice, everyone is experiencing the tour differently. You become each other’s spectators and experience an isolated way of unity. Being in a group makes you feel safe, and makes you step out of your comfort zone. You do some things that you would never dare to do on your own. This goes hand in hand with some incredible situations. The tour ends on a location you have probably never been.We can’t share with you any more information, as we don’t want to make a tongue slip and spoil the performance. You really have to see it for yourself! But we can assure you that if you open yourself to it you won’t regret taking part of Remote: Antwerpen. Be curious, be bold and discover Antwerp city in virtual reality!
Rimini Protokoll
regie : Stefan Kaegi & Jörg Karrenbauer
premier: Thuesday 28th of April
28/04/2015 – 16/05/2015
If you follow my tracks, can you read my thoughts? (quote)
Text by Lize Colson and Lara Richir
Pics by Helen Van den Poel