#8 Liège: A dream city in times of nightmares
As the Covid-19 pandemic spreads through Europe, Spyros Andreopoulos is visiting the Atlas of Transitions festival of Théâtre de Liège. Restrictions and anxiety for the future cast their heavy shadow on the city and its people. Yet, Liège still spreads the light of openness and human compassion, despite the grim reality of our times. Strong together…
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This must be one of the strangest trips I have ever made, not only for the purposes of our project, but in my life in general. For better or for worst, I have decided to go on with traveling to Liège to attend the Atlas of Transitions Festival, organised by Théâtre de Liège. Since the event wasn’t cancelled (yet), I felt obliged to go, despite the fact that in my country everything had already started shutting down because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A short while later, I find myself in the dark theatre room waiting to watch the play “Z’oiseaux”, a shadow puppet performance co-produced by the French company Les Petites Boîtes, and Le Channel, our partners from Calais. I am surrounded by parents with their children, aged from around two to about six or seven years old. For the next forty minutes follows a remarkable silence, a rare thing when it comes to theatre for children.
Next morning, I can’t seem to get myself together. Feeling quite anxious and my need to return to Athens grows stronger by the second. In an effort to unwind a bit, I decide to stay inside until late afternoon...
Discover the spaces of both inside and outside the theatre.