seks(e)(n)

No more gender inequality according to de KOE and mugmetdegoudentand. The companies were inspired by Goethe's novel Die Wahlverwandtschaften, set up as an amorous experiment in the style of Temptation Island. Do the characters fall prey to their passions and drives, the so-called laws of nature? Or does reason prevail? Even then, the ending was catastrophic.

In seks(e)(n) the novel is stripped down completely. Using the same ingredients – two men, two women, a garden – the theater makers embark on a totally new experiment, in a contemporary climate. In Goethe's time, nature was still a place without people: we could not exist without it, but it could exist without us. In 2020 we have occupied, controlled and conditioned almost every square inch of the earth, depriving it of its wildness, its unpredictability. What is still ‘natural’?

Seks(e)(n) is about pigeonholing and labels, about definitions and appropriations, about freedom and malleability. Four people work their way through a lexicon of new and old terms, trying to grasp and refine them. Seks(e)(n) is about

• De KOE is a laboratory for research, experiment and innovation with a hedonistic bent. Through an ever changing process our texts and our repertoire, our autobiography and our reading, our memories and our views, continue to make different connections with each other, resulting in authentic and playable material for witty, humorous and personal performances, apparently apolitical.

“Hun wapen: spelen! Met woorden en beelden! Maar wel op het scherp van de snee. Slechts een haarbreedte verwijderd van wie ze zelf zijn. Maar net die haarbreedte telt: ze opent het veld om echt te spelen met betekenissen, om kwesties te benoemen én te ontmijnen in één beweging.” – Jury Het Theaterfestival