HOLY

At the crossroads of theatrical and musical practices, Martha Canga Antonio presents HOLY, a sensory experience that explores the sacred as a state of being in constant reinvention. Performers and audience move through different spaces as a collective, explore different ways of being together. Neither fully a concert nor a performance, HOLY creates a space that is at the same time personal and collective – where audiences shed conceptual frameworks, certainties, and self-images to allow inner lights and echoes to emerge. 

Constructed from and around a constellation of multifaceted talent, HOLY arose out of a collaboration between a maker-writer (Martha Canga Antonio), two creative producers (MarieUmuhoza & Vivi Focquet), a scenographer (Jozef Wouters/Decoratelier), and a cast of hybrid performers who cross the boundaries of music and dance. 

It is a journey, a passage, a moment suspended in time, where freedom exists beyond words, and peace is found even in intensity. A sacred space, shaped by and for a shared displacement of the performers and the audience.

For me, HOLY is a self-created space, a state of mind & heart, that becomes sacred after we let go of our egos and ideas about the world. A space that can be found individually but also created with others. A space of light, however dark the outside world may seem. Of inner peace, however forcefully we choose to express it. Of freedom, when words fail to describe it. — Martha

• Martha Canga Antonio (1995, she/her) is an actress, creator, performer, and musician. Her work, averse to disciplinary boundaries, begins with personal reflections stemming from her experience of being in the world. These take shape bit by bit, whether in music, film, or performance. The common denominator in all her artistic projects is an attempt to open doors to spaces within herself, to externalize them and thus allow others to enter. 

Marie Umuhoza and Vivi Focquet have dramaturgical, production, and artistic experience in both performing arts and music. Marie Umuhoza is responsible for the programming of La Bellone's international Africa Is In The Future Festival and has worked with Milo Slayers, Stanley Ollivier, and Castélie Yalombo. Vincent Focquet is a regular collaborator with Sophia Rodriguez and was the house dramaturge in the Side-Show circus company. The duo developed a unique practice within Decoratelier and Gouvernement, in which they inextricably link dramaturgy and production, succeeding in fully embracing the artistic line. 

• Jozef Wouters (1986) is a set designer, theatre maker, and visual artist. Wouters’ career in the performing arts led him through Scheld’Apen, d e t h e a t e r m a k e r, and a.pass. Since 2017, he has been a regular member of Damaged Goods. As an independent artist-in-residence, he develops various projects there, based at Decoratelier in Molenbeek. He worked as a set designer for Meg Stuart, and his own work includes INFINI, Underneath Which Rivers Flow, The Soft Layer, and A Day is a 100 Years. He designed Flow, the only outdoor swimming pool in Brussels, which was built in collaboration with the surrounding neighbourhood.