While sleeping, the human body is vulnerable. A feeling of security and peace helps us every night to withdraw from the world. But what if the social protection as we know it, suddenly falls apart?
The Guardians of Sleep creates a quivering microcosm within theatre’s coordinates of time and space. Six performers disclose various levels of intimacy to the groups of spectators. By sharing individually their personal archive of visual memories, they unfold their own life stories.
This creates, gradually, a feeling of proximity and deep empathy between them and the audience. Once the narration comes to an end, the performers, one by one, let themselves fall asleep on stage. As they are falling asleep, they try to keep eye contact with their listeners, thus inviting them to take over the role of guardians of their sleep.
Ambivalent relations between light and dark, activity and passivity, looking and being looked at resonate with and against one another. A look that often stays on the surface of things, in The Guardians of Sleep gets challenged by an act of exposed abandonment. How much responsibility can you take for someone you don’t know? When does the activity of looking at someone turn into watching over that person?
The Guardians of Sleep has been generated by and still nurtures performative practices and pedagogical processes within theatres, museum and educational spaces.
- concept & direction
- david weber-krebs
- performance
- julien bruneau, luanda casella, alondra castellanos arreola, matthew day, zoë demoustier, irena radmanovic
- lighting design
- jan fedinger, martin kaffarnik
- costumes
- anne-catherine kunz
- dramaturgical advice
- sébastien hendrickx, lara staal
- artistic advice
- marie urban
- sound advice
- david helbich
- video
- luca mattei
- illustration
- eva le roi
- production manager
- leonie persyn
- production
- infinite endings
- co-production
- kaaitheater, kunstencentrum BUDA, zeitraumexit. with he support of the flemish authorities and the flemish community commission
- thanks to
- pianofabriek, mimeopleiding AHK amsterdam
- première
- september 2017, wunder der prärie, zeitraumexit, mannheim