Through this development phase, Kim Snauwaert wants to explore her position within hyper-personal theatre. Her work is often personal in nature, and although she does not want to abandon this, she continues to search for theatrical forms that can share the personal and make it relevant to an audience. For some time now, she has had a desire to create a performance about her sister, who grew up in a problematic family situation.
In the essay De Tranen van Diderot (Etcetera), Charlotte De Somviele describes a trend in contemporary theatre whereby creators are increasingly presenting hyper-personal performances without any mediation in form or acting. She points to performances that are merely personal testimonies of suffering or trauma, whose impact on the audience is often overestimated. In this context, the spectator risks being reduced to a silent witness.
During this phase, Snauwaert wants to explore how she, as a creator, can deal with these tensions. How do you avoid sentimentality in a personal performance? How does she position herself within this type of work, and how much of herself can or should she reveal? How do you take the viewer out of a purely passive role without losing the personal narrative?
Snauwaert wants to explore this through thorough formal research, in which her sister's story serves as the backbone.
