Tireless diviners of modern excellence, the ricci/forte team couldn’t miss the chance to present a prodigy such as Flemish company FC Bergman, one of the most innovative and original formations on the European scene, who defy theatrical space as well as the audience with their daring, provocative work. The collective, which includes actors/directors/artists Stef Aerts, Joé Agemans, Bart Hollanders, Matteo Simoni, Thomas Verstraeten, and Marie Vinck, has been founded in 2008 and is known for having no boundaries, or rather, for tearing them down as they see them. Their shows include installations at Antwerp Harbour (Terminator Trilogy), a parterre-turned-marble pool (About Reynard the Fox), a four-storey tower (J.R.), a fern wood (Van der Vos), and a village in a forest (300el x 50el x 30el). Everyone is a universe in itself, making use of fantastic architecture. In Stefano Ricci’s and Gianni Forte’s words: “FC Bergman took inspiration from cinema, literature, and art history to create a mix of pictorial aesthetics, modern technology, medieval and biblical allegory, dance, theatre, and poetry. They use references, symbols, and images that are deeply rooted in the audience’s culture and in western civilization. Their tableaux vivant-like installations and their taste for unpredictability and improvisation help them flirt with the limits of what’s feasible to create modern apocalyptic stories, often wordless, though surprisingly capable of plastic force and evocative power. They focus on Man and his struggle between the existential desire to transcend his perimeter and his fear of change, following him in poignant odysseys that transform in tragicomical misadventures.” For the first time at Biennale Teatro, FC Bergman present one of their most famous shows: Het Land Nod (Nod’s Land). Theatre walks out of time and rebuilds, in the Marghera industrial district, the imposing Rubens Hall of the Fine Arts Museum in Antwerp. The show uses no words – only grandiose visual impact, the poetry of image, and the energy of acrobatics.

Featured image: Het Land Nod © Kurt Van der Elst