Niet De Zandman

NOT THE SANDMAN
A radio play séance

A huge mess in the attic: piles of clothes, antique toys and waiting moving boxes. We are in the 'Landhaus' of Florian's youth. The structure creaks and whispers. The Dutch-German screenwriter has come here with the job of a lifetime, but ghosts from a bygone era threaten to completely derail his artistic ambitions. Florian has returned to his native village deep in Germany to to clear the vacant 'Landhaus' of a recently deceased family member. A week earlier, however, Florian accepted a prestigious assignment: create a contemporary adaptation of the infamous 'Der Sandmann'. To meet the approaching deadline, Florian uses language assistant LIZA. The inhumanly empathetic LIZA soon registers connections between the age-old horror story and the history of the 'Landhaus'. While Florian clears the rooms and tries to complete the writing assignment, LIZA starts to worry about Florian's disturbing parallels between fiction and fact; between past and present.

With Niet De Zandman, the Rosa Ensemble invites you to take a seat in the middle of a radio play séance. Percussionists Mei-Yi Lee and Bart de Vrees bring the mysterious legacy from the 'Landhaus' to life and take you into an audio-musical reconstruction of Florian's unlikely family history. But… is what we hear real? And who is actually listening to whom here? In this intimate séance setting you will be taken into reflections on the responsibility we bear for our own reality.

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CREW
Mei-Yi Lee playing and percussion
Bart de Vrees sound design, composition, playing and percussion
Florian de Backere idea, scenario and game
Eveline Didderen game, image and lighting design
Michiel Bijmans dramaturgy and game advice
Arnoud Kaldeway lighting design advice