We Have Never Been Here Before



Ģertrūdes ielas teātris, Ģertrūdes str. 101a
Tuesday, May 5, 19.00
Wednesday, May 6, 19.00 / this show is sold out!
In English
Duration 1 h 20
Tickets at Biļešu Paradīze (www.bilesuparadize.lv), New Theatre Institute of Latvia, Miera str. 39-2 (payment in cash only).
Ticket prices – 10 eiro and 7 eiro (discount for pupils, students, retired people and people with disabilities).

An undercover police officer disguised as a clown, a man in drag losing his high heels in a riot, trees planted in the middle of a motorway: the autobiographical lecture performance ‘We Have Never Been Here Before’ asks what the shape of hope in the dark is and how we can remain empowered when our worlds are being ripped apart and life itself is threatened with extinction.

For a decade, The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination (Labofii) has brought artists and activists together to carry out theatrical direct actions across Europe. But for its 18th experiment the collective is retreating for a moment to the relative safety of the stage to collectively ask some disturbing questions about how to change our world. We Have Never Been Here Before takes the audience through a blast of autobiographical stories of resistance where the impossible merges with the improbable. Sitting uncomfortably between witty confessional, popular education and an absurd rehearsal for the apocalypse, including a game show-like “call a friend” skype conversation with key thinkers such as David Graeber and Naomi Klein, We Have Never Been Here Before is a journey of empowerment in a time when hope seems so slippery. Do we have the courage to take life so seriously that we are prepared to lose everything in order to protect it?

Performed by John Jordan, labelled a “domestic terrorist” by the UK police and “magician of rebellion” by the press, the performance is set to a live soundtrack by his son composer Jack Jordan. The show is combined with a four-day workshop on “art, activism and climate change” run by Labofii co-founder Isabelle Fremeaux, which asks: “What holds us back from action that is appropriate to the scale of the social and ecological crisis unfolding today?”

Conceived by The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination (Labofii)
Performance John Jordan
Workshop Isabelle Fremeaux
Live soundtrack Jack Jordan
Design Audrey Bouvier & Jonathan Vidal (of MIT Collective)
Film Kyp Kyprianou
Directorial advice Sascha Flocken
Light Olivier Bourguignon
Skype talks with David Graeber, Naomi Klein, Paul Mason, Rebecca Solnit et al.

This project is the activity of “Imagine 2020: Art and Climate Change” network supported by the EU programme “Culture” and Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia.



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