Europe: visite à domicile

Zigzagging from country to country

What is Europe? Is there any such thing as ‘Europeanness’ – a European cultural identity – or is it no more than a geographically defined area? Today, 65 years after the first attempt at a union between six states, Europe is still embroiled in continuous processes of change.

In Home Visit Europe, the Berlin-based theatre collective Rimini Protokoll juxtaposes the rather abstract idea of a European federation with the individual nature of a private home. 15 spectators – or are they participants? – sit at a table in the living room of a private home. The entire performance is contained in a suitcase and is laid out on the table. What initially resembles a political gathering quickly becomes a game as maps are unfolded, a soundtrack gradually becomes audible in the background, problems need to be solved, and joint decisions need to be made. Personal stories and parliamentary rituals are woven together, with participants zigzagging from country to country, from citizen to citizen, and criss-crossing the entire continent.

• Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi and Daniel Wetzel studied at the Institut für Angewandte Theaterwissenschaft in Giessen and work together (in various combinations) under the name Rimini Protokoll. They have spent the past fifteen years taking some of the world’s key stages by storm with their unadulterated brand of documentary theatre. In 2014, they were one of the headliners at the Kunstenfestivaldesarts with the stunning production 100% Brussels, which featuring a hundred Brussels residents in a quasi-scientific representation of the population of Brussels.

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