SIMPLE AS ABC #7 THE VOICE OF FINGERS
Thomas Bellinck | Said Reza Adib (Belgium | Finland)
Schedule
German Premiere
At the time of the Qin Dynasty and the first Chinese empire, fingerprints were used to identify burglars, as well as to sign and seal documents. 2,000 Years later, Europeans would turn fingerprinting into a technology of mass control. After quashing the 1857 Indian War of Independence, British colonial officials in India started experimenting with fingerprints as a swift and simple way to tighten their administrative grip. In 2015, the European Commission published a staff working document evoking the use of detention and coercion to obtain the fingerprints of people who apply for asylum or cross EU borders without official permission and who refuse to be fingerprinted. The document’s authors refer to people obliged to give their fingerprints as ‘data-subjects’, carriers of readable information.
Starting from their shared research into border regimes, theatre maker Thomas Bellinck and journalist Said Reza Adib are writing a play for performers Manizja Kouhestani and Jeroen Van der Ven. From the tiny ridges of their very own fingertips, they will zoom up to a world where skin patterns unlock laptops, and wherein fingers are commandeered by governments as measuring instruments - to decide who has the right to enter which territory.
Biography
Thomas Bellinck is a documentary artist living in Brussels. He studied German Philology at Leuven University as well as Dramatic Direction at the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound in Brussels. He has been working on SIMPLE AS ABC since 2015, a series of performances and installations around the topics of EU border policies and international mobility justice. He is currently working on his doctorate at KASK (Royal Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal Conservatory Ghent), where he co-founded THE SCHOOL OF SPECULATIVE DOCUMENTARY.
Said Reza Adib received his journalist’s training at the Iranian News Agency IRNA and later at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in the field of documentary film. Next to his journalism for several Iranian and Afghan newspapers, he worked for audiovisual information media. For several years, he was the editor-in-chief at Kabul’s Noorin Radio & TV. Most recently, he was active as a co-director for the documentary film EVEN AFTER DEATH and as a journalist for the BBC broadcast CORONAVIRUS CRISIS: EUROPE’S MIGRANT CAMPS 2020.
Musia Mwankumi already participated in various productions during their acting studies and received a Columbina nomination for THE SHELL TRIAL. Columbina is a Dutch award for the season’s most convincing female supporting actor. Mwankumi is a member of the Magdalena Collective with which she, as a performer and scenographer, presented her graduation project DO YOU LOVE HER? in 2023.
Jeroen Van der Ven studied Acting at the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound in Brussels and won the Young Theatre Award of the Belgian Theater aan Zee for his solo performance LEUCHTER. As a freelance actor, Jeroen Van der Ven appeared in both a number of theatre productions as well as in TV series and films, most recently in the Netflix series ROUGH DIAMONDS. Apart from this, he regularly teaches at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal Conservatory Ghent.
Manizja Kouhestani received an intensive preliminary theatre training in the Netherlands before studying drama at KASK in Ghent. She combines her acting studies with appearances in various productions. Most recently, Manizja joined theatre collective STAN for the stage adaptations of Asghar Farhadi's A SEPARATION and ABOUT ELLY. Later this season she will feature in the Dutch-language premiere of Rebekka Kricheldorf's FRÄULEIN AGNES by de Roovers.
Cast
Concept & Text Said Reza Adib | Thomas Bellinck Costume Rachid Laachir Direction Thomas Bellinck Directorial Intern Furkan Ak Dramaturgy Said Resa Adib | Esther Severi Financial Coordination Sandra Raes Oklobdzija Lighting Design Janneke Donkersloot | Stef Stessel Performance Manizja Kouhestani | Jeroen Van der Ven Production Management & Suptertitles Marte van Hassel Scenography Mirjam Pleines | Stef Stessel Stage Kopspel | Jolan Moonen Technology Arthur de Vuyst | Janneke Donkersloot Editing & Translation Mahdieh Fahimi | Jodie Hruby | Sarah van Camp | Ulrike Syha Video Léna Iloo Voice Said Reza Adib | Sajjad Hosseini | Fatima Mousavi
Info
Accessibility
Production & Realization
Production ROBIN Co-Production Theater Antigone | Arsenaal/Lazarus | Münchner Kammerspiele | SPIELART Theatre Festival Supported by the Flemish Government | Kaaitheater | Kask/School of Arts of the University College Ghent | Pianofabriek Co-operation with Münchner Kammerspiele
Thanks to Katia Arfara | Donald Berlanger | Javad Hosseini | Bart Moens | Bardia Mohammad | Gwen Sebus | Dimitri Stuyven | Willy Thomas | Michael von Cranach
