Miet Warlop / Irene Wool & NTGent: "One Song"

A concert that never stops repeating and reinventing itself ... A public standing in between ecstasy and exasperation. A show-metaphor for a miniature but universal society.

A group of performers enters the arena for a mesmerising ritual about farewell, life and death, hope, and resurrection. Together, they go through extremes: through sung text, images and objects, oxygen and sweat, they evoke our "condition humaine". Again and again, someone stands up to push their boundaries. They defy time and express a deep human need: the moment when we can transcend our thinking body. In "One Song", a history resonates that has both artistic and personal significance for Miet Warlop. Her reflection on theatre as an art form leads to a physical concept in which we recognise elements from previous productions. It typifies Warlop’s artistic signature that such themes and motifs sometimes resurface years later: in her oeuvre, everything is connected, implicitly or explicitly. It is circular, like life itself, in many ways. Through the metaphor of a live competition/concert, including a commentator and a cheerleader, Miet Warlop invites us in "One Song" to form a community and lift each other up, as in a celebration. The temporary thus becomes the universal, and the personal becomes something of the collective. That is the subtext of "One Song": how one song can give meaning to a whole society. Unity in diversity.