The many lives of the Family Turna is an Intercultural and Interdisciplinary art project, dealing with the theme of ‘(Im)migration’. Theatre groups from 8 different countries take part in it. Their experiences in intercultural and interdisciplinary projects have constantly been deepened and will get a new impulse in this project. The participating countries are: The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Turkey, Brazil, Nicaragua, United Kingdom and Aruba.
The theme ‘migration’
Where we are does strongly effect who we are. Migration can break or make people and change their identity. Migration is of huge importance in society due to economical and political globalism (amongst others). The motives for migration vary from personal wishes to economical and political necessities. However, the tensions it causes to the migrants and the new the society where they live in, are the same, such as: the feeling of being ‘the stranger’ or ‘in between cultures’.
Changing Horizons history
The first idea of the project was born in the minds of Nicoline Nagtzaam and Els van Poppel (Nicaragua) during the congress of IDEA in Hong Kong in 2007 and with support of Maria of Bakelen developed into a first draft. Nicoline Nagtzaam who as a writing director already had done a lot of interdisciplinary projects, at home and abroad, formed as the ‘spiritual mother’ of the project a so called ‘braintank’. This group worked out the first draft for a project plan and approached different theatre groups to work together in this project.
The ‘braintank’ contained Nicoline Nagtzaam, Maria van Bakelen, Ilgin Abeln, Lenne Koning, Kanya Huigens en Tom Willems. Each theatre group was asked to deliver a document of its country’s migration history and each group chose its own main character. Then Nicoline Nagtzaam wrote for these different main characters and the many migration histories for each country, another scene with its own color and story line. Seven in total. The scenes were translated in French, English, Spanish, Turkish and Papiamento. With this scenic material all directors with their theatre groups could work in their own way and were asked to operate in a interdisciplinary way.
The theatre groups of Nicaragua, Aruba, Brazil and the Netherlands came together in Belem, Brazil, during the IDEA congress in July 2010. After exchanging the scenes, the first mosaic performance ‘The many lives of the Family Turna’, was created by the artistic team, led by Nicoline Nagtzaam. This first mosaic performance was shown at the Margarida Schivasappa Theatreat in Belem during the IDEA congress. Changing Horizons now From the 29th of July until now the groups from France, Belgium, Turkey, Aruba and the Netherlands came to Vleuten, to work together. After exchanging the scenes, they created the second mosaic performance ’De vele levens van de Familie Turna’, that you’re about to see.
Many thanks to all the theatre groups, partners and people for all the work they did in this project. Special thanks to Kanya Huigens (braintank), Xavier Serge Martin and Anny Mokotow & Hans van der Velden, (for translating of all Central Scenes in French and English). Tom Willems, project coordinator UCK
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