11.05.26 – 12.05.26, six degrees of separation, master's project of Melanie Barelds with Tist De Maeyer

Avondland is a theatre production that explores the boundary between installation and performance. It is a quest to create a symbiosis between different artistic media. The production is based on the Prose Edda.

The Edda, recorded by Snorri Sturluson, preserves some of the most iconic and poignant stories from Norse mythology. Many of these tales have their origins in ancient pagan traditions. Most of the mythological material appears in the first part of the work, Gylfaginning (“the deception of Gylfi”), which recounts both the creation and the end of the world. An epic theme that resonates strongly with our current times.

Are we ourselves living in an end time? Avondland does not seek a definitive answer, but rather offers a form of hope that can coexist with pessimism, even hand in hand with despair: a hope that arises from pure uncertainty about what the future will bring. A hope of hopeful pessimism.

The story of the Edda offers a mythical framework from which we can reflect with a fresh perspective. It raises questions about the world we live in today, without the ambition of offering a ready-made or definitive explanation.

Language: Dutch

Audience advisory: Blood, Physical violence, Intense light and sound effects, Claustrophobia.

Credits

• Director: Lander Merckx
• Supervision: Kristof van Baarle and Martine Clierieck
• Lighting and set design: Jasper Hardy, Jorun Cocquyt and Lander Merckx
• Choreography: Jenneke Slaets, Lander Merckx and Noor Flamey
• Performers: Jenneke Slaets, Lander Merckx, Max Keustermans and Noor Flamey
• Text: Max Keustermans and Lander Merckx
• Sound design: Thijl Merckx and Lander Merckx
• Live music: Renate Spelmans (bassoon), Erik Bassier (clarinet), Pia Spelmans (violin), Hilde Jonckheere (double bass), Joeri Van Hove and Jean-Pierre Vanhee (trumpet), Martin Lopez (percussion)
• Sponsorship: Ampli and MT rental
• With thanks to: Bardia Mohammad, Frederik Le Roy, Madonna Lenaert, Simon De Winne, Gert Van Hyfte and the KASK Drama students

Inside an old abbey turned into a self-made green paradise, a group of outcasts live a dream life away from modern society. They collect rainwater and make Bio-Harmonizers. They harvest medicinal herbs and chant together. Their perfect world — built with reused tyres filled with dirt,”total honesty”, and a deep hate for Big Pharma — is a carefully organised home of wax-sealed bottles and nutrient-loop composting. This peaceful life starts to break when their beloved leader, The Boss, stops following the rules and goes rogue.

The group gathers in the Abbey’s cloister to address the crisis: what are they going to do about The Boss? As a tense psychological confrontation erupts, “unspoken truths” take over, quickly turning the meeting into a dangerous mental battle. As they maneuver through their own delusions, their hippie world begins to crack and feel more like a controlled experiment.

Credits

• Performance and text: Maxim Goossens, Fatou Kâ, Bjarne Liveyns, Aniesha Akoua N. Tchimou, Manon Van Ranst
• Guided by: Luanda Casella
• With assistance from: Abigail Gypens
• Special thanks to: Simon De Winne, Bardia Mohammad, Minard, NTGent, Arca Theatre and KASK Drama

Cruel as only women can be, that's how they are. They look you in the eye and stab you in the chest with a smile.

The performance takes its cue from Lysistrata, the Greek comedy in which women withhold sex to force an end to war. It foregrounds the intimate entanglement of private desire and public power.

Drawing on this starting point, third-year students from KASK & Conservatorium collaborate with actors from Het Scheldeoffensief, guided by Ika Schwander and Sophia Bauer. Together, they ask what resonance such a gesture might have today. Bringing their different bodies, biographies and perspectives into the space, they shape a bold, hybrid piece of theatre. Sharing the stage as a collective, they probe the shifting dynamics between intimacy, power and resistance in the present day.

Four characters – or are they elements? – find themselves inside a game of which they don’t really know the rules. Nonetheless, they play along. They tremble, jerk, rock their way through vaguely familiar situations and scripts.

“Through the use of reality as a looping moment, the piece reflects the absurdity of a repeated present without progress. It appeals by looping. Repeat, repeat, progress! The body becomes the limitation.” – Coach

“Fragile and bizarre, mixing artificial detachments, the organic machine becomes a mirror in which obsessions emerge.” – Jim

“The characters, manipulating situations, act as characters.” – Rock

“Many characters are corporate stock phrases. With stock phrases the glimmers of differentiation win.Playing with mixing what’s alive and what isn’t. What strikes most upon first viewing is the quality of the gestures highlighted through breathing. The work is arguably scripted.” – Tie

Credits:

• Guided by: Nathan Ooms
• By and with: Giel Luyten, Arnaud Muco, Pepijn Vermeulen & Anton Rys
• Thanks to: Anna Franziska jäger, Simon De Winne, Bardia Mohammad, Danspunt, Trefpunt, KASK Drama.

"All trans/it long" is an internal transformation that erupts from a festive improvisation. The shared moment stems from a transmission of "Commonstro".

Credits:

• Conception: Milø Slayers
• Performers: Fatou Kâ, Manon Van Ranst, Lena Van Speybrouck, Sainabou Johm and Aniesha Akoua N. Tchimou
• Special thanks: Yasen Vasilev, Anastasia Antoniadi, Chiheb Slaoui, Kim Ramiandrisoa
• Supported by: Stad Gent

“Als God niet bestaat, blijft toch altijd de vraag bestaan wie dan wél het menselijke bedrijf bestiert, alsmede de gehele op deze aarde bestaande orde.”

When Woland and his grotesque entourage, including a giant talking cat and an eccentric witch, descend on atheistic 1930s Moscow, the city is turned upside down. While Moscow's literary elite panics, a story unfolds that transcends the boundaries of time, reality and humanity.

The Master is imprisoned for his novel about Pontius Pilate, and his beloved does everything in her power to save him and his novel.

Pontius Pilate and Jesus meet before Jesus' execution. Will Pilate intervene, and how long will his conscience haunt him?

In The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov presents an eclectic parade of characters who reject all authority and all forms of control, especially that of reason. Dialogues from The Master and Margarita is an adaptation and selection from Bulgakov's novel, directed by Timeau De Keyser and Hans Mortelmans in collaboration with third-year students from KASK Drama.

As has become customary¹ : buckle up, pour yourself a good glass of vodka, bring your Communist Manifesto and your Bible, sit back and enjoy this magical, biblical, Russian adventure.

Dutch spoken.

Credits

• Cast: Mathisse De Sutter, Lotus Friede, Winand Keymis, Anouk Lacroix, Bjarne Liveyns, Giel Luyten, Mina Maréchal, Anton Rys, Pepijn Vermeulen and Frieda Vranken
• Coaching/Direction: Timeau De Keyser and Hans Mortelmans
• Text: The Master and Margarita (1940), Mikhail Bulgakov, translated to Dutch by Marko Fondse and Aai Prins, selected and adapted by Timeau De Keyser and Hans Mortelmans
• Poster image: Bjarne Liveyns
• Image of tram: Van den Bossche, P. 2011, Gent tram to Moscou
• Thanks to: KASK Drama, Minard, Simon De Winne, Bardia Mohammad

¹ See De Kersentuin

During the Drama Festival, drama master’s students present their graduation work. Offbeat and classical drama, crossovers, performances and multidisciplinary work can be seen at de Kazematten, CAMPO, Minard and Arsenaalsite. The Drama Festival runs from 14 to 21 June 2025.

With ik denk dat het ouder heet, collectief modderspot (Mira Cole, Winter De Cock, Robbe Embrechts, Hanna Mensink & Seppe Somers) presents a theatre performance about parenthood.

In this youth performance (10+), the group creates an absurd world in which five characters try to build the ‘ideal’ parent together. By playing out different scenarios and ideas, they discover what they really expect from a parent – and whether the perfect parent actually exists.

In an ever-changing scenography, the characters re-enact memories they long for. They seek parental intimacy with each other. They give shape to each other's wishes and losses. Gradually, they discover how they themselves have become parents – for themselves, for each other, even for their own parents. They fill the void, see how it constantly reforms, and find parenthood in unexpected things: in the light, the wind, the cracks in the sofa, the dust swirling up from the vacuum cleaner.

With this performance, we want to offer a safety net. A place for thoughts, a touch, comfort and a laugh – for everyone who is growing up or has grown up without a parent figure.

Credits:

• makers & players: Mira Cole, Winter De Cock, Robbe Embrechts, Hanna Mensink, Seppe Somers
• guidance: Jan Steen, Freek Vielen, Gina Beuk
• lighting design and technics: Ramses Mensink
• scenography: Elena De Lie
• poster: Stella Brouwers
• image: Alies Torfs
• thanks to: Sumalin Gijsbrechts, Kristof Van Baarle, Bardia Mohammad, Frederik Le Roy, Madonna Lenaerts, Simon De Winne, kunstencentrum CAMPO, hetpaleis.
  

In BOTOX (NO EMOTIONS), actors reveal their deepest vulnerability — or are they just really good at acting? Sadness is carefully staged and chewed over, authentic acting is stripped down to the bone. There is laughter, sometimes intentional, sometimes because someone stumbles over an emotional metaphor in the form of a wooden stool. You watch, you cry, you wonder if you should even be here, you google ‘can I leave a performance art piece while it's still dark?

What happens to the sincerity of emotions when they are observed? It is a search for what is real, and whether we can ever fully reveal it.

Credits

• by and with: Lander Merckx, Melanie Barelds, Noa Van Dongen, Domien Huybrechts, Tist De Maeyer
• image: Emma Ostyn
• thanks to: Bauke Lievens, Simon De Winne, Madonna Lenaert, Mieja Hollevoet, Carolina Maciel de França, Bardia Mohammad, Flore van den Eynde, onze klas.

MEET THE ARTISTS

Katarzyna Kozyra (1992), a blond and provocative multidisciplinary artist known for her raw and challenging portrayal of marginalized bodies. She believes in giving a voice to the silenced, using her art to amplify those often overlooked. Born in Poland, raised in Amsterdam, and discovering her Jewish roots later in life, she embodies a complex, multifaceted cultural identity that fuels her fearless and electrifying art.

Banasha Suleimankheil (1993), a feminist performance artist in exile. Born in Afghanistan but raised in the Netherlands, she grapples with a profound identity crisis. Her art can be described as self-referential, as it solely exposes her personal experience of female suffering. She confronts the male gaze by presenting her body on her own terms, transforming her vagina into both a weapon and a canvas.

In the major retrospective exhibition “My Nemesis”, Katarzyna Kozyra dives into the relationship with her best friend and life-long enemy Banasha Suleimankheil. She looks back at this turbulent but very meaningful friendship to portray a decade of exchange between two strong-willed women trapped in a female artist’s body. Their lives were a constant competition but also the driving force behind their oeuvre. Who was the most traumatised artist? The most fuckable? The true feminist activist? With a hunger for success bordering on madness they exploited their beauty, sexuality, ethnicity, traumas, and just like Barbara Kruger, turned their bodies into a battleground.

Content warning: verbal violence, sexual violence, bodily abjections and suicide.

Credits

• Van & met: Manizja Kouhestani en Fiene Zasada
• Eindregie: Abigail Gypens
• Scenografie: Emma Onghena
• Muziek: Jan de Tremerie
• Mentoren: Luanda Casella & Frederik Le Roy
• Affiche: Lars Duchateau
• Met dank aan: Martha Balthazar, Bardia Mohammad, Simon de Winne, Jan Steen, Astrid Vansteenkiste , KASK DRAMA, CAMPO Victoria, LaGeste, De Kazematten, kunstencentrum BUDA, Minard, NTGent.