Towel of Babel
This one -of-a kind, interactive, full-immersion theatre experience transcends the boundaries of language. Dutch artists Robert Steijn and Lidy Six bypass distinctions of "us and them" and create a truly living and intimate performance ritual. Each audience member is individually greeted, embraced by an atmosphere delicately poised between dreaming and waking. Storytellers from around the world share secrets and tales as different languages converge and invent a new vocabulary for understanding. This exquisitely personal experience metamorphoses into a party for everyone's ears. Featuring live DJ Cassie 6, live VJ Roberta Marques - and lots of tea.
Held in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Maastricht, Vienna, Horne, Frankfurt, NYC, Munchen. 2002 - 2008
'The most beautiful moment in Tower of Babel must be the entrance of the storytellers. All the visitors are lying in bed, finally surrendering to the warmth of the blankets, to the tea and to the kindhearted people who put them to bed and brought them a cup of tea. The atmosphere is quiet, informal and slightly chaotic. You look at the other visitors in thier beds, and while you faintly hear the lounge-music, your eyes wander across the video-images. And then it happens: a collective entrance of a group of people, you had'nt seen before. It seems they have but one purpose: the beds and the people in them. Here I am, their eyes say - here I am, say the hands holding a book in a language you don't understand. And while the stranger's eyes and lips pour out a stream of incomprehensible words, you start feeling like a beloved child. Not a child of one mother of father, but of all these storytellers. A human child, in a global bed.'
Marijn van der Jagt, theatre-critic vrij Nederland