Atropa

The paradox of peace is that it needs to be conquered.
With violence.
(Tom Lanoye)

In Atropa, the taboos of a generation, characterized by its thirst for emancipation, are sung in a language she understands best: that of pumping beats and razor-sharp poetry. Atropa tells the story of the war for Troy and unites the classical and the contemporary in terms of theme as well as language. Writer Tom Lanoye transformed the age-old story of the struggle between East and West into a critique of contemporary imperialism. The war waged by men in Atropa is at the expense of the woman, who loses child, love, body and ground to her oppressor. Greek women come face to face with Trojan women, who after the occupation of their city prefer death to a life of oppression. At the end of the war, it is up to the only man to convincingly defend the values of the survivors.
 
Atropa is a bacchanal of language and music in which the struggle for power gives way to a celebration of vulnerability. For their directorial debut as makers on the big stage, Naomi Velissariou and Floor Houwink ten Cate convert the stage into an arena of musical violence and visual spectacle. In Dennis Vanderbroeck's scenography, the audience comes within easy reach of the tragedy. Lanoye's ultra-rhythmic stabs of language are matched by the sound design of Joost Maaskant and Jimi Zoet, which varies between the genres of techno, doom and hardcore to hip hop, trap and drill. The costumes of MAISON the FAUX turn the battlefield into a female death fashion show. 

___
* Intersectionality is the phenomenon that "social inequality occurs along different axes that intersect"; the notion that individuals in a society experience oppression based on a multitude of factors.
___

ABOUT THE TEXT
Atropa. The revenge of peace. was written in 2008 by Tom Lanoye and premiered that same year at the Avignon festival, directed by Guy Cassiers. In 2012, Lanoye won the prize for stage texts, because in Atropa he "searches for the roots of the evil called war and violence" and thereby "analyzes the game of power", according to the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature. In the version by Velissariou and Houwink ten Cate, Atropa is a tragedy as it is intended: a linguistic celebration to music, in honor of contemporary gods.

ABOUT THE MAKERS
Naomi Velissariou and Floor Houwink ten Cate have been working together for five years in various constellations, including the productions Sontag (2017), The HM Concert (2019) and Pain Against Fear (2020). For Atropa they join forces in a co-direction, their joint storming of the big stage.