Who are you when no one is watching?
Who do you see when you look yourself in the eye?
Who do you lose when you let yourself go?
Are you wearing a mask or is the mask wearing you?
When night falls, our bestial nature comes out. The meeting place is The Last Mermaid, a nightclub where Coco rules over the dance floor as Queen of the Night. With a mix of music, spoken word and dance, the creatures of the night indulge in being their true selves. The roaring twenties in full orgiastic swing. No vice or virtue is forgotten, no intoxicant left untouched. But the many bells and whistles hide a deep malaise. Coco confronts, balances, holds up a mirror in which society shows its true face – and it’s anything but a pretty sight. Like no other, she dares to ask: Who will be the last one standing?
For Jaouad Alloul, the provocation for this performance was the moment when a member of the European Parliament with an anti-LGBTQIA+ agenda was caught – mid-lockdown – at a sex party for gay men. It uncovered a level of hypocrisy and power abuse that needs to end urgently.
Venus In Libra is a manifesto, a dialogue, a radical act of resistance against everything conservative. Venus In Libra searches for balance in a world that does not learn from its mistakes. There is a need for transparency, softening, feminization. For radical love and sex with consent. Individual expression and collective awareness. Hospitable encounters and heartfelt embraces.
Who represents the status quo, and which side of the (r)evolution are you on?
Downloads
- Program Venus In Libra (PDF) 457 KB
concept, text
- Jaouad Alloul
- Jeroen Vanluyten
research
- Jeroen Vanluyten
director
- Jaouad Alloul
dramaturgy
- Jeroen Vanluyten
composition
- Jaouad Alloul
- Jan D’Haene
composition electronic music
- Hanne Torfs
musicians
- Jan D’Haene
- Dirk Fryns
- Juno Kerstens
- Hanne Torfs
choreography by Jaouad Alloul and Hendrik Lebon
- Jonas Vandekerckhove
Choreography of the creatures of the night
- Sagì Amir Gross
light design
- Tim Clement
costume design
- Mario Leko
scenography
- Daphne Okon
Creatures of the night
- Mick Galliot
- Naomi Celis
- Elaine Hakkaart
- Saloua Hassani
- Joep Lange
- Klaas Mertens
- Faisal Muhammadu
- Helder Onkelinx
- Lieke Oolders
- Lilith Pas
- Dane Schippers
- Flora Van Canneyt
dance, performance
- Hendrik Lebon
production
- Toneelhuis
with the support of
- de Tax Shelter van de Belgische federale overheid
- Casa Kafka Pictures Tax Shelter
thanks to
- Markus Weis
- Paulo Henrique Lustosa
- Johan Petit
- Céline Buren