SCHÄXPIR 2025: Ballroom

The 13th edition of the SCHÄXPIR festival will take place from June 3 to 14, 2025. Under the title “WHAT REMAINS”, the theater festival for young audiences is dedicated to the questions of where we come from and where we are going. The festival presents great global stories – cross-culturally, multidimensionally and diversely.

Theater is a place of encounter and a space for exchange and discussion – this is how SCHÄXPIR connects people, experiences and places. Since its beginnings in 2002, the biennial festival has become one of the most innovative and influential theater festivals for young audiences in Europe. It stands for zeitgeist and artistically high-quality theater work. Artists from the local scene meet established international theater-makers as well as young talents, setting impulses with resonance far beyond Austria’s borders.

Ballroom

LazyDay, YawnDay, BoredDay, ShitDay, NotFreeDay, TooTiredDay, WhereIsTheSunDay.

Somewhere, someone was given the task of repeatedly placing the same balls in the same box. Someone does this day after day, year after year, and actually no one knows why. In the hope that the walls will not crush him, he begins to throw them. In this way, Someone makes the balls make longer and longer laps around the room, sometimes gracefully and deceptively lightly, sometimes powerfully and complexly. In the end, if all goes well, they land neatly in the box.

But not everything always goes well. And how much non-good can Someone endure?

While the balls become a burden, Someone Somewhere is trying to unravel a new dimension in space and time – or is this happening in the mind – to escape the colorless monotony.

And when that happens, something arises that could be described as pure magic.

For Ballroom, the audience takes a seat in a converted truck. Inside, visual artist Lodewijk Heylen has constructed a concrete backdrop where juggler Stijn Grupping performs an incredible dance of bouncing balls, with a lot of hard work and a little bit of magic. To the sounds of musicians Jochem Baelus and Frederik Meulyzer, he takes his audience on a wordless journey for everyone aged five and up.

Cast and crew: Post uit Hessdalen (BE) Concept: Stijn Grupping, Ine Van Baelen
Actor: Stijn Grupping
Director: Ine Van Baelen
Music: Frederik Meulyzer and Jochem Baelus
Scenography: Lodewijk Heylen
Choreography: Kinga Jaczewska
Light: Lucas Van Haesbroeck
Stage technician: Bert Laurijssens
Acting coach: Rob Smorenberg
Outside Eye: Koen Haagdorens

Graphic design: Watson Memić
Co-production: Theater op de Markt, MiramirO, CIRKL, Perpodium
Residence: MAD festival
With the support of the Flemish government
Sales: Klaartje Brouns (JE BURO)
With thanks to hetpaleis, Karolien Derwael, Vincent Company, Frans Heylen