ECOLOGICAL STORYTELLING IN AN AGE OF EMERGENCY 

With the audiovisual installation SONGOFSONGS, BVDS brings an ecological orgy to the theatre. With pixels, paint and living bodies, a colourful flow of images is created. For this performance, BVDS was inspired by Song of Songs, an erotic biblical creation story. SONGOFSONGS shows a woman in the middle of her life, a woman in (the?) transition. She is called Mommy and, together with a community of lovers, practices loving the more-than-human beings she meets in her intimate practice space. 

SONGOFSONGS does not sing of a hero’s journey, but explores a way of ecological storytelling: a form of storytelling that is not linear but circular, not rational but intuitive, that places conversations above monologues, and relationships above individuals. In which the individual is a being composed of many other beings; with the fungi and bacteria in our guts, and the microplastics in our blood. Eco-storytelling is a way of storytelling that roots us humans back into our ecosystem, into our large wild family of furry, fungal and plant relatives. 

 Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot’s practice works, lives and moves like an infectious event. Creations always move through different bodies and media before landing in the work. 

For SONGOFSONGS, BVDS created all the pixelated landscapes and creatures together with mimes Klara Alexova, Melyn Chow and Sjaid Foncé, with video designer Rodrik Bier-steker, and sculpturist/costume designer Lotte Goos. The Song was composed and produced by OTION. The Walled Garden’s construction and lighting design were created by Julian Maiwald, in close collaboration with Jurr van Diggele, Guido Bevers and Merijn Versnel. The process was supported by Theunis Zijlstra, Jorn Kortooms, Iwan van Wijk, Wybe de Haan, David Knap, TJ Querio, Patrycja Wysokińska, Lea Thomas, Leonie Dijkstra, Lonneke van Eden, Lene Grooten and Anne van Buuren. 

Photo’s: Willem Popelier