LUNATICS AND POETS | Postcards from a Better Place

About the piece

In “Postcards from a better place”, Lunatics and Poets illuminates the dark side of human nature. From an infantile game to overt violence, it is the inner darkness that confronts us with irreversible acts, shame, and guilt. This performance is a poetic portrait of the shadow side that, at the same time, makes us human.

The set refers to rooms in which emotionally charged moments occur in an almost filmic way, and in which the inner and outer worlds begin darkly overlapping. We need light to do a performance about darkness. Light and dark can’t exist without each other: darkness does not exist without light, and vice versa.

Everyone has dark thoughts and emotions. Our inner darkness is a large part of who we are, but we don’t often talk about it: it’s always a bit hidden, in the shadows. We examine the darker side of life, both at an intimate individual level, and at a world level. Where do dark thoughts and emotions come from, and under what circumstances do they surface? 

About the company

Lunatics and Poets is an interdisciplinary dance company and creative studio based in Amsterdam, founded by Anna Jacobs and Hanna van der Meer. They create work for theatre, film, and installation, in which choreography, visual art, and fashion merge.

Through movement and fashion, they give form to impermanent identities, emotions, and beliefs. They speak a new universal language of gestures, movements and visuals, taken directly from daily life. It is poetic and absurd, light and dark at the same time.

They bring audiences together and instigate a dialogue based on diversity. Spectators are captivated by a world that they have never seen before, and depart with a reflection on their inner landscape, in order to see a collective footprint and future.

Their most recent works include the installation The Land of no Curtains, which premiered at Festival d’Avignon (2022) and the performance The People look like Flowers at last (2021) The duet I am a poem, there is no way out won the Club Guy & Roni Partner Award at RIDCC (2018), the Golden Butterfly Award Dance Fest (2019), and first prize at Festival 10 Sentidos Valencia (2020). Their short film The long goodbye (2020) premiered at Fashion Film Festival Milano in January, 2021. Among their past works, the film installation and theatre performance South of No North has had performances and screenings in The Netherlands and abroad, including at Cinedans, Dansmakers, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Korzo The Hague, Grand Theatre Groningen (Jonge Harten Theater Festival), National Theatre, and Rotterdam Theater.

PERFORMANCES

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 18 

8:00 PM

Ateneo Theatre, Ciudad del Saber

Post-show discussion

TECH RIDER

Country: Netherlands

Category: Selected Company

Directors: Anna Jacobs and Hanna van der Meer

Directors’ assistant: Merit Vessies

Composer: Rik van den Heuvel

Light design: Samon Presland

Light: Maarten van Burken

Set design: Ascon de Nijs

Costume design: Samir Duratovic

Costume department: Lea Maria Kahl

Production: Fiana De Raaf, Floortje Halters