Jan Martens & fABULEUS

‘There are some stories which need to be retold by each generation.’ Virginia Woolf, 1927

We are thirteen.
We are between fourteen and nineteen years old
and (don’t) feel like girls or women.
We talk.
We speak the words of writers and thinkers,
from Virginia Woolf to Susan Sontag,
from Toni Morrison to Maggie Nelson.
They take shape in us.
We find shape in each other.
We make ourselves who we are
and what we want to become,
what we can become,
because the possibilities are infinite.
We are a snapshot of the now.
A state of affairs.
A manifesto for the future.

In PASSING THE BECHDEL TEST, choreographer Jan Martens opts for language in a radical manner. Because free speech is one of the few instruments left to liberate ourselves.*

Together with 13 youths, Jan draws up a report on the state of affairs in matters of gender diversity and gender equality in the world today. They crawl into each other’s skin and into that of women authors and personalities from the past and present, from Woolf to Winterson, from Sontag to Solnit. Text fragments from letters, diaries, lyrics, essays and TED talks form the frame of the performance. Drawing on his choreographic perspective, Jan Martens designs a manifesto for the future.

* paraphrasing Rachida Lamrabet

CREDITS
BY: Jan Martens
WITH: Isabel Braamkolk, Noor Caestecker, A. Claassen, Renée De Coninck, Luna Glowacki, Bente Govaerts, Noor Hollemeersch, Birgit Lesage, Marie Libens, Hannah Peiren, Celina Vercruysse, Yanou Van Dessel & Mirren Vandenberk
ARTISTIC ASSISTANCE: Kimmy Ligtvoet
DRAMATURGY: Peter Anthonissen
ADVICE: Rudi Meulemans
LIGHTING DESIGN: Elke Verachtert
COSTUME ADVICE: Lotte Stek
SURTITLING: Erik Borgman
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT: Teresa Wouters & Sylvie Svanberg
DISTRIBUTION: Vincent Company
INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION: A Propic / Line Rousseau & Marion Gauvent
THANKS TO: Renée Copraij, Fransien van der Putt, Moos van den Broek, Simone Atangana Bekono & Siska Baeck
PRODUCED BY: fABULEUS & GRIP
CO-PRODUCED BY: tanzhaus nrw & STUK
WITH THE SUPPORT OF: the Flemish Government & City of Leuven