Forest Silent Gathering

For Forest Silent Gathering, a group of audience members meet inside a forest at sunset and follow a soundtrack through headphones. An audio-social architecture is created, in which one can possibly be alone together. Changing distances invite to find new proximities. Absent figures become protagonists. As the communal space takes shape and transforms, Forest Silent Gathering makes us reflect on the relation between community and imagination, as well as on the relation between community and commitment. What is the distance, in which the socially binding powers of the community will lose their effects?

“Perhaps that is the most important point Forest Silent Gathering makes: without everyone's individual decision to believe in a collective story, the possibility for togetherness and shared commitment is lost. How will we survive if we do not value the – incidentally extremely real, yet often presented as fictitious – story that our planet is doomed without our care and responsibility?” (Jasper Delva in etcetera >> read)

“When you are all alone in that forest you also realize how precarious our existence still is, when the insanely complex software that has become our society disappears for a while. How precarious that social software itself is, just like the communities it constantly conjures up for us, according to the whims and sometimes obscure intentions of the moment.“ (Pieter T’jonck in pzazz >> read)

Direction: Begüm Erciyas

Realised with: Matthias Meppelink, Jean-Baptiste Veyret Logerias, Maru Mushtrieva

Sound Design: Eric Desjeux

Dramaturgy: David Weber-Krebs & Jonas Rutgeerts

Research: Ayşe Orhon, Sara Manente

Prop design: Günbike Erdemir

Production: Hiros

Co-production: deSingel, STUK, Arcadia 2022, PACT Zollverein, Platform 0090, Kunstenwerkplaats

With the support of: Vlaamse Overheid

Thanks to: Homo Novus Festival, Musica Impulscentrum voor Muziek

27-30 April 2022          Premiere at Carta Festival, DeSingel, Antwerp

25-26 May 2022           Performances at Hear Here Festival, STUK, Leuven

8-10, 12-13 July 2022  Performances at Munich Kammerspiele

1 September 2022        Performance at Meakusma Festival, Eupen

27-30 April 2023          Performances at Kaaitheater, Brussels

6-11 August 2024         Performances at Metropolis Festival, Copenhagen