Irakese Geesten/Iraqi Ghosts

In 2006, the young Iraqi theatre-maker Mokhallad Rasem arrived in Belgium from Baghdad. In Iraqi Ghosts he describes the incredible violence and growing alienation during the recent wars in his country. Together with two other Iraqi artists and two Flemish-German actresses he stages an explosive clash of different realities in which surrealism and reality become one. This performance will hit you like a sledgehammer.

In 2010, Iraqi Ghosts, Rasem’s first major project in Belgium, was selected for the Theatre Festival and earned him the title of Laureate at Theater Aan Zee festival ‘for the craft and drive with which he shares a personal experience with us through images that are both ambiguous and striking’. De Standaard newspaper nominated it as one of the five best performances of 2010. Mokhallad Rasem, who is the son of one of Iraq’s most famous actors, graduated as an actor-director and worked at the National Theatre in Baghdad for more than five years.

Without the war I could not be in this show. Thanks to the war. Without the war I could not make you applaud in the end. So in the end, while you’re applauding, don’t forget to say…thanks to the war.

See also: Iraq, War on Culture,
a debate (in English) with Ruddy Doom, Sami Zemni, Christopher
Parker, Dirk Adriaensens, Ali Bader and Lieven De Cauter (mod.), on the 23rd of March at the Kaaistudio's.