Paradise Blues

During her travels in Africa, Southern India, Europe and North America, actresse and theatermaker Jessa Wildermeersch interviewed different people about their vision of the afterlife.
By engaging in converstaions with people from different backgrounds and ages, Western and non-Western ideas about life after death are juxtaposed. And by extension also about life before death.

With this performance, Jessa wants to investigate how our image is culturally and religiously determined on the afterlife and how much is driven by our own imagination and desires. To what extent do the stories and myths we create around the afterlife tell something about how we live now. With Paradise Blues we tell on a quirky, musical and methaphorical way how these personal stories relate to the major (historical) myths.

Driven by the warm compositions of harmonica-master Steven De bruyn, Wildermeersch moves like a nomadic figure between different worlds. A rooftop in Rwanda to the metro in Brussels, a kitchen in Ostend to a courtyard in Bolzano. Expect a journey between urban myth and universal stories, an uppercut with comfort.

Who saw her last performance Days without data and L'étude, know that Wildermeersch' associative narrative style gives a poetic, surprising and captivating performance.

Director
Jessa Wildermeersch
Music
Steven De bruyn
Dramaturgy
Els Theunis en Fien Leysen
Scenography
Saskia Louwaard
Film
Julie De Clercq
Photography
Koen Broos
Production
Het Laatste Bedrijf / Het Nieuwstedelijke
With the support of
Gallop Tax Shelter
Premiere
November 14, 2019
Playing period
https://www.nieuwstedelijk.be/project/paradise-blues