ANATHEMA

PERFORMANCE IN FRENCH

text José Luis Peixoto
a performance by Jolente De Keersmaeker, Tiago Rodrigues and Thomas Walgrave
with Jolente De Keersmaeker and Tiago Rodrigues

translation Carlos Batista
lighting design and video Thomas Walgrave
costumes An D'Huys
set design Jolente De Keersmaeker, Tiago Rodrigues and Thomas Walgrave

language advice Laurence d'Hondt
special thanks to Martine Bom and Sien Van den Hoof

production tg STAN
coproduction Théâtre de la Bastille (Paris), Festival d'Automne (Paris) and Culturgest (Lisbon)

premiere 14 November 2005, Théâtre de la Bastille/Festival d'Automne, Paris

I think: perhaps there's a light inside people, perhaps a clarity; perhaps people aren't made of darkness, perhaps certainties are a breeze inside people, and perhaps people are the certainties they possess.
(José Luis Peixoto, Blank Gaze)


The first novel Nenhum Olhar (Blank Gaze) by the young Portuguese author José Luis Peixoto (born in 1974) was published in 2000. The following year he received the José Saramago Literary Award. The novel has been translated into several languages, and Peixoto is now considered a major young voice.

STAN asked Peixoto to write ANATHEMA, his first play, for Jolente De Keersmaeker and Tiago Rodrigues, a Portuguese actor STAN has already collaborated with on several times.

This time, his sources of inspiration weren't childhood tales. In this new text, the author speaks of terrorism, fear and violence, from the inside, as it were. How far can one go to defend an ideal? What means is one allowed to use for furthering a cause? How to respond to violence aimed at oneself? These and similar questions motivate the creators of this performance.

Moreover, tg STAN believes that theatre companies should not only perform stock pieces, but that it is of the utmost importance to link up with the creative process of contemporary authors, like they did here.