
After the stage performance SPARE TIME WORK (2021) we continue our exploration of social roles and power relations in shoe/farm. This time we start from the places where we grew up: a farm in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen and a shoe shop along the Belgian coast.
We invert the dance floor of SPARE TIME WORK: from the gray floor that represented the environment of school, office, golf course and nursery we shift to a sand-colored ground from which semi-industrialized agricultural scenes and scenes around dinnertime for breadwinners unfold. We engage with customs, habits and specific sayings associated with farm life and shoe sales: “Life’s hard on the farm” and “Customer is king!”. With a nod to the typical West Flemish work ethic of “Doe mo deure” and “Ni neffest je schoen loopn”, we stand in our ancestors’ shoes drawing on our own experiences and imagination as “daughters of”. We question how our family ties and origins have influenced our ideas about labour, class, money and a way of being in the world. What does it mean to be daughter, employee and heir at the same time? Homegrown and self-made?
In our lifetime, we’ve witnessed changing working conditions and relationships between producer, seller and consumer due to for instance, the relocation of production processes, the rise of internet shopping and new nitrogen regulations. In shoe/farm personal experiences of ‘shoe’ and ‘farm’ are linked to broader social issues concerning production processes, working conditions and consumerism. When Melissa’s father sold potatoes to Mc Cain (a large frozen potato company), children at school called her a potato. In Germany, “Kartoffel” is used as an insulting term for “typical German”. But what would it be like to really be a potato? Gooey, crusty or notoriously toxic? What if the Nightshade family was a big family? We slip into the skin of potatoes and take their names: Laura, Nicola, Desiree, Charlotte, Baby, Pearl.
shoe/farm - family business will be a black box performance where the audience sits partly on stage. Wrapped in blue jeans, old lace, ribbons and ropes we oscillate between vagabond and high fashion. The performance follows an associative line, traversing the boundaries between the world of shoe and farm.
concept by buren (Oshin Albrecht & Melissa Mabesoone) created with Oshin Albrecht, Melissa Mabesoone, Benjamin Cools, Vera Martins, Benne Dousselaereco-productie: Kaaitheater, Kunstencentrum BUDA, workspacebrussels, C-takt, KAAP, de Brakke Grond, Theaterfestival Boulevard, STUK, Perpodium, apap-FEMINIST FUTURES, a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union with the support of the taxshelter of the Belgian federal government through Cronos Invest