Performance
TWO. is not a solo by Lisa Verbelen & Hendrik Lasure
Tue 04 Oct 2022BOG. & Het Zuidelijk Toneel
I read in a book
thinking is a form of feeling
and feeling is a form of thinking
I was so happy to know
there are not only two ends of the line
not only two ends of the road
that you can be both
that things can be found in between things
After her solo performances ONE. and ALL., Lisa Verbelen will form a duo in TWO. with celebrated jazz musician Hendrik Lasure.
Starting from the theme of opposites and inspired by Taoism and hip-hop, Lisa and Hendrik are creating a music album. Together with director Suze Milius they will turn the album into a theatrical concert.
TWO. is not a solo is an exercise in re establishing the idea of opposites; to experience what exists in between two extremes. What happens when two people meet.
Expect a musical and theatrical concert, words and music that make you feel and think, both hard and soft, both dark and light, with smoke and fire, water in the desert, not ugly nor beautiful, all yin and yang, about you and me.
‘Lisa Verbelen is a remarkable musical performer. (...) Her renderings on stage are intimate, lucid, decisive. She calls out the complexity of all things, which is then translated into a comprehensible score for her audience. What she does is imbued with rhythm; an internal beat. It is no exaggeration to say that ‘she's got it’.’
- the jury of the Operadagen Rotterdam Award 2018.
Sofie Knijff
About Lisa
Lisa Verbelen (1988) studied Theatrical Performance at De Toneelacademie in Maastricht, and a Master in Music Theatre at the Conservatory of Den Haag.
Together with five others, Lisa founded the theatre collective BOG. in 2013. BOG. is based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and creates performances based on texts written by the creators themselves. BOG. is driven by the longing for an overview, for naming, folding out, zooming out, rearranging, categorizing and summarizing all the things that we humans try to capture but are too big to grasp. Like life, opinions, or believing.
Under the wings of BOG. Lisa makes solo work: ONE. Solo by Lisa Verbelen (2015) and ALL. solo by Lisa Verbelen (2019). These works have been on tour mostly in the Netherlands and Belgium, and ONE. also in Rumania, England and Iran.
ONE. solo by Lisa Verbelen was nominated for the BNG Bank Nieuwe Theatermakersprijs 2016 in The Netherlands and was awarded with the prize for Best Vocal Design at Fadjr International Theatre Festival 2017 in Teheran. In 2018 Lisa received the Operadagen Rotterdam Award for her contribution to music theatre. ALL. was selected in 2020 for the Theaterfestival in Belgium being one of the most remarkable performances that season.
About Hendrik
Hendrik Lasure (1997) studied piano at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and was awarded with the Toots Thielemans Jazz Award at his graduation in 2017.
Hendrik is a musical jack of all trades, known for his band SCHNTZL, the ensemble Warm Bad, the trio Thunderblender, or APQ, or Bombataz or in the band of An Pierlé.
SCHNTZL, the celebrated and many-awarded duo he forms with Casper Van De Velde, gets praised for its quirky idiom with references to the minimalism of Wim Mertens and Philip Glass, enriched with contemporary electronic elements and improvisation.
The album Garden Head by the ensemble Warm Bad was awarded with the Sabam Jazz Award 2020.
Hendrik also composes music for film and theatre, including the performance Talkshow (2018) by Suze Milius, in which Lisa performed as an actor. Out of this collaboration the wish was born to work together, and get to know each other's language.
Credits
by and with Lisa Verbelen and Hendrik Lasure
director Suze Milius
dramaturgy Roos Euwe
lighting design Emanuel Nijkerk
technician Timo Merkies
production manager Lena Meijer
english sidekick Emma Wierda
album mixed by Jens Bouttery
backing vocals album Annelinde Bruijs, Jens Bouttery, Ilias Moen
production and publicity BOG. & Het Zuidelijk Toneel
in cooperation with De Grote Post
with the support of Fonds Podiumkunsten, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, Melanie Foundation
with thanks to Ballhaus Ost, De Pianofabriek, De Brakke Grond