One Song

A concert that never stops repeating and reinventing itself ... A public standing in between ecstasy and exasperation. A show-metaphor for a miniature but universal society.
A group of performers enters the arena for a mesmerising ritual about farewell, life and death, hope, and resurrection. Together, they go through extremes: through sung text, images and objects, oxygen and sweat, they evoke our ‘condition humaine’. Again and again, someone stands up to push their boundaries. They defy time and express a deep human need: the moment when we can transcend our thinking body. In One Song, a history resonates that has both artistic and personal significance for Miet Warlop. Her reflection on theatre as an art form leads to a physical concept in which we recognise elements from previous productions. It typifies Warlop’s artistic signature that such themes and motifs sometimes resurface years later: in her oeuvre, everything is connected, implicitly or explicitly. It is circular, like life itself, in many ways. Through the metaphor of a live competition/concert, including a commentator and a cheerleader, Miet Warlop invites us in One Song to form a community and lift each other up, as in a celebration. The temporary thus becomes the universal, and the personal becomes something of the collective. That is the subtext of One Song: how one song can give meaning to a whole society. Unity in diversity.