120SQM DRESS - photo by Edith van den Elzen

Double Bill | 120SQM DRESS & CRUSHIN‘ REAL HARD

Thommy Kraft
za 21 sep - 20:30 - 22:00
za 21 sep 2024
20:30 - 22:00
  • za 21 sep 2024
    20:30 - 22:00
    Zaal 3
    De Constant Rebecqueplein 20A

A double bill by visual theatre maker, mover and puppeteer Thommy Kraft with their performances CRUSHIN' REAL HARD (40 min.) followed by 120SQM DRESS (20 min.)

TEXTILE WORLDS

Fabric alters this space called ‘stage’. It creates an alternative world, worlds, which bear the potential for transformation. Blurring the physical boundaries – its concreteness, its reliability – the stage becomes something fluid; an offer for playfulness. Sensitivity is the guiding principle for these emerging worlds. Everything transforms. Constantly.

Each textile work plays with the idea of continuous spatial liquidity: softening the space, overflowing it, witnessing its collapse and discovering an entirely different one. The textile itself alternates freely between its roles as scenography, costume and amorphous material.

CRUSHIN‘ REAL HARD

CRUSHIN' REAL HARD delves into the realm of emotions: the exhilarating yet overwhelming state of having a crush, to be precise. Feelings, seemingly so big, they flood the entire stage. As the audience bears witness to this emotional journey, the fabric landscape slowly spreads out, taking over the stage and transcending its initial boundaries. Finally, when all the space is consumed, CRUSHIN’ REAL HARD exhibits the transformative potential of submitting to this hyper-emotional state and the possible discovery of an unknow cosmos inside of us.

120SQM DRESS

There is more to be learned from wearing a dress for a day, than there is from wearing a suit for a lifetime. (from ‘the faggots and their friends between revolutions’)

As a visual essay, this work explores the connection between masculinity, sensitivity and the craving for softness. A giant textile slowly unfolds and takes over the stage, creating a fabric scenography. With the support of a wind machine, this scenography begins to move, dissolving all spatial and social limitations in a textile ocean. A head appears amidst the waves, a pair of shoulders, then a torso, until the ocean transforms into a beautiful skirt. 120SQM DRESS exhibits the beauty and playfulness of exploring one´s own identity and body.

About Thommy Kraft

Thommy Kraft works as a visual theater maker, mover and puppeteer in the Netherlands. Their artistic background is located in Visual Theatre and Puppetry as well as in Mime. Within their work, Thommy is constantly searching to combine elements of visual and physical theatre to create hybrid forms that consist of moving bodies and animated material.

The empty space as a starting point, they often work with stage-consuming scenography in order to explore its potential to transform and/or queer the given space.

Credits

concept/construction/performance Thommy Kraft | sound design Isadora Tomasi, Moa Holgersson | costumes Erik Metz | light design Joachim Fleischer | advisor Ari Teperberg | outside-eye Laura Boser | dramaturgy Madison Jolliffe | supervision Julika Mayer

supported by Hochschule für musik und darstellende kunst Stuttgart, Academy for Theater and Dance Amsterdam, lbbw stuttgart, studierendenwerk stuttgartc1