Sexy and lonesome

A simple composition about the endless interchangeability of people and things (but actually we just want you to wake up in someone else’s house).

You dream of an empty room in a country house. You hear someone pacing about in an adjacent room. You don’t know why, but you know who it is. You want to go to them. A door leads you to another room, which is also empty, as are all the rooms after that. You go up some stairs, then down some stairs. Everywhere is empty. (Somewhere, there are footsteps.) You walk and walk, until you end up back where you started from – you realise you are in an endless circuit of empty rooms.

You wake up and dress as quietly as possible. You exit, leaving the key behind.

This is where you start.

In this physical, visual production, Gerben Vaillant – in collaboration with Fleur van den Berg and performers Charlotte Gillain and Felix Schellekens – brings several fascinations together. Ben Willekens’ lonely paintings of empty rooms; a relationship heading for the rocks; the marginalised art of pantomime; the endless parade of people walking out the door following a bad one-night-stand. A production that is both sexy and lonesome, in which the endless interchangeability of people and things becomes palpable, while at the same time the performers have everything and nothing to lose. 

Over Gerben Vaillant

Gerben Vaillant (1994) is an interdisciplinary performance-maker. During his studies on the AHK’s mime course he developed a fascination for making productions centred around the distance between people and reality: where people do not manage to become (part of) a whole. He works, sensitively yet radically, with different forms: text, dance, visuals, philosophy, trash – it can always go in any direction, but usually it’s atmospheric, and sometimes confusing. His ultimate aim is to contribute to creating a representation of reality in a way better suited to us.

Credits

concept and direction Gerben Vaillant collaboration and final direction Fleur van den Berg performance Gerben Vaillant, Charlotte Gillain, Felix Schellekens and Timon Persoon music Timon Persoon light design (advice) Paulina Prokop