Salvatore Calcagno / garçongarçon
| Director: | Salvatore Calcagno |
| Writing: | Salvatore Calcagno, Émilie Flamant and Antoine Neufmars |
| Starring: | Mercedes Borges, Juana Caso, Raphaëlle Corbisier, Cristina Freire Lladosa, Claudia Gago, Iker Iguioti, Sandra López Sorgob, Inma Muñoz Oliver, Esti Racionero Balsera, Henar Repules, Guillermo Sevillano, Pepe Serrano, Alba del Valle Esteban and Alejandra Vales |
| Technical direction: | Philippe Baste |
| Lighting design: | Angela Massoni |
| Sound design: | Jean-François Lejeune |
| Video design: | Zeno Graton |
| Make-up: | Edwina Calcagno |
| Production: | Manon Faure - garçongarçon |
| Co-production: | Théâtre Les Tanneurs, Mars - Mons Arts de la Scène, CENTRALE – La Louvière, La Coop asbl |
| With the support of: | Fédération Wallonie Bruxelles - Service du Théâtre, La Comédie de Genève |
| GEN Z: searching for beauty is staged in Madrid in collaboration with La Casa Encendida. | |
“Known for his refined shows that exalt feminine figures or make the stage a fantasy space, Calcagno offers a more socially-oriented show, supported by an ennobling look at inspiring young people”.Alternatives Théâtrales
What do young European people think about the world that surrounds them? Gen Z, which stands for Generation Z and includes young people born after 1995, is also the name of the new show by the Belgian company garçongargon, founded by Salvatore Calcagno, an emerging figure of contemporary European theatre.
The Belgian director and creator of La Vecchia Vacca (Best Newcomer at the Belgian Critics' Awards 2013 and nominated for the Best Foreign Show at the AQCT Awards), Le garçon de la piscine and Lo Sono Rocco among others, conceives of a theatre full of sensuality, where the intimate and the mundane merge into each other, and comprehends the stage as a meeting point for different artistic languages: music, plastic arts, cinema and dance. He's also transferred this vision to his new creation GEN Z: searching for beauty, a show that "questions the school, being in the world, politics, social networks, love and sexuality, the co-existence of generations and the projection in time".
Since 2016, garçongarçon has collected written, filmed and recorded statements from more than 150 young persons in 12 European cities to present a documentary portrait of the ambitions, dreams, fears, desires and loves of the youth. Because, according to the company, "surrounded by new forms of violence and in search of a unique beauty, the Generation Z, the creators and protagonists of the world of tomorrow, have things to tell us about the world of today". "With GEN Z, we don't want to explain: we want to see, to hear, and listen", explains Calcagno. This is a multidisciplinary project that includes workshops, open sessions, debates, residencies and presentations.
After its premiere in February 2018 at Brussels' Les Tanneurs theatre, where Calcagno is also an Associated Artist, GEN Z: searching for beauty -one of the pillars of the project- now comes to Spain in November. The work is the result of an encounter between professional actors and groups of young people in the cities where the team undertake their creative process. At the Autumn Festival in 2018, garçongarçon carried out an art residency with Madrid citizens between the ages of 16 and 22, in order to research and discuss the concerns of this generation. Now, in 2019, they presents the results of this search for beauty, which leads them to narrate "a tale of this ephemeral time, rich in extremes and impulses. A transgenerational history in constant movement".