His spaces grow within a specific framework that is shaped by dialogue; with the director, with the choreographer, with the text, the music, the movement, with the dramaturg, with the production team, with the artists and builders in the workshops, with the stage technicians. Ultimately, the built space engages in a dialogue with the performers, and, through them, in a conversation with the audience.
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Who can resist Don Giovanni? Since the premiere of Mozart's iconic opera in 1787, the seducer manages to captivate both characters and audience, and time and again he escapes the call to change his libertine lifestyle. Every time the work is performed, Don Giovanni is given one last chance to improve his life. Every time he refuses. In a space reduced to its axes, director Tom Goossens attempts to break the vicious circle by going into reverse.
musical direction Francesco Corti / direction Tom Goossens / choreography Femke Gyselinck / dramaturgy Naomi Beeldens, Maarten Boussery, Carine van Bruggen / scenography Sammy Van den Heuvel / costume design Sophie Klenk-Wulff / light design Dennis Diels
A story about migration. A physical plea for more collective responsibility, in response to a world in which there seems to be ever less common ground. The performers explore an inhospitable landscape with unexpected qualities, driven by the harsh techno-inspired soundscape of cellist Alfian Emir Adytia. Their language of dance and circus reveals both the strength and vulnerability of people in search of security.
concept and choreography Pia Meuthen / dramaturgical advice Camille Paycha, Julian Vogel, Guido Janssen / scenography Sammy Van den Heuvel / costume design Sanne Reichert / light design Bart Verzellenberg / music Strijbos & van Rijswijk, Davide Bellotta, Alfian Emir Adytia
/Beijing Music Festival 2025
Alban Berg’s opera is based on an unfinished play by Georg Büchner. In his composition, Berg gave an unstoppable momentum to the fragmentary scenes. Johan Simons takes us inside the mind of a man who is losing his grip on reality, or rather, a man who finds himself at the mercy of ruthless, mad world.
The space is the inside of Wozzeck's head: his canvas, an off-kilter and eerie playground over which he has no control. Moving shadows make one question the static nature of the space.
musical direction Alejo Pérez / direction Johan Simons / dramaturgy Maarten Boussery, Koen Tachelet / scenography Sammy Van den Heuvel / costume design Greta Goiris, Flóra Kruppa / light design Friedrich Rom
Together with French mezzo Lucile Richardot, B’Rock’s Vocal Consort and chamber musicians honor female composers from the early Middle Ages to the present day. As the music resounds an almost immaterial column dances to the changing airflows in the concert hall, evoking a mystical presence that binds the many-facetted musical landscape.
The concert was staged in De Bijloke Ghent and the Philharmonie Essen.
musical direction Andreas Küppers / dramaturgy Albert Edelman / staging, scenography and light design Sammy Van den Heuvel
During his final days in hospice, Rogério Rodrigues, a respected Portuguese journalist, started taking notes to write his final article. He died before he could finish it. His notebook went to his son, Tiago. When he opened it, all he saw were lines and scribbles. Mixing memories, songs and fragments of his father’s writings, the son aims to imagine the unwritten pages of his father's last work, a small victory over death.
A testimony to absence, the floor of the hospital room where Rogério dies again and again, has grown into a mountainous landscape, a portal to another world.
text and direction Tiago Rodrigues / dramaturgy Kaatje De Geest / scenography Sammy Van den Heuvel /costume design Ilse Vandenbussche / light design Dennis Diels / original music and arrangements Hélder Gonçalves
Made entirely out of steel, this mysterious object it is not quite a shipwreck washed ashore or the ruins of some kind of military devide in the desert, but what it does is connect. Weighing more than a ton, it demands the atmost concentration and collaboration from the performers to balance it and create space for solos and partnerwork.
concept and choreography Pia Meuthen / dramaturgical advice Camille Paycha, Julian Vogel, Guido Janssen / scenography Sammy Van den Heuvel / costume design Sanne Reichert / light design Bart Verzellenberg / music Strijbos & van Rijswijk, Davide Bellotta
Two angels land battered and bruised in a married couple's garden. They are taken in by the couple but instead of nursing them back to health, the couple clips their wings and uses their heavenly powers to enrich themselves under the guise of charity. Composer Du Yun and librettist Royce Vavrek address the dark abyss of modern slavery and human trafficking.
musical direction Johannes Witt / direction Jorinde Keesmaat / choreography Pascal Merighi / dramaturgy Lalina Goddard / scenography and costume design Sammy Van den Heuvel / video and light design Frouke ten Velden
What starts as a seemingly simple desire — Susanna and Figaro want to get married— quickly degenerates into a comedy of intrigue. This opera is the first of three collaborations between composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte.
The ideas of the Enlightenment are omnipresent in this work. These are characters who want to build the world anew. And to do that the old must be deconstructed. First the castle is flattened and neatly laid out on the floor, then the architectural drawings that preceded the castle are washed away, and finally the floor itself is lifted to uncover the garden, nature as its most comfortable.
musical direction Marie Jacquot / direction Tom Goossens / dramaturgy Lalina Goddard, Tom Swaak / scenography Sammy Van den Heuvel / costume design Dotje Demuynck / light design Luc Schaltin