PENTHESILEA

With a desire to open the programme to diverse visual arts events, the BPS22 welcomed the theatre project of five mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary artists, meeting at the crossroads of theatre, music and visual arts. Their work focused on the story of Penthesilea, based on the play written by Heinrich von Kleist, a leading figure of the German Romantic movement.

The story follows Penthesilea, the unvan­quished Amazonian, who is shot in the heart with an arrow: the arrow of love. The arrow is fired by Achilles, who she desires then destroys, before devouring him and succumbing to death. Alone on stage, Françoise Berlanger evolved before a backdrop of several large fibreglass paintings designed by the artist Marcel Berlanger. The paintings depicted different motifs that together composed a type of rebus. Marcel Berlanger, who is a contributor to the Hainaut Province Collection, has col­lab­o­rat­ed with the BPS22 team several times, notably during a solo exhibition at the Academia Belgica in Rome.

Direction and Performance Françoise Berlanger - Visual Arts Marcel Berlanger - Music Cédric Dambrain & Patrick Delges - Set & Costumes Thibault Van Crae­nen­broeck - Lighting Xavier Lauwers