Piece by Alain Platel and Arne Sierens

Rock music booms, neon lights flash, bumper cars zoom about. Kermis in Las Vegas, the louder and garish it gets, the less one talks, a seemingly endless state of euphoria. Then, suddenly: silence and a slow aria by Bach. The steering handle provides support and looks like a cross, the car turns into Noah’s ark, safely guiding the people to their destinations.

For Alain Platel was Lourdes, one of Christianity’s most sacred places of pilgrim-ages, only a spiritual inspiration and not topic of his »Bernadetje« production: Like rock concerts and kermisses offer religion and churches both escape from daily life and human company and support. There isn’t really such a great difference between love parade and religious pilgrimage. And in the middle of a completely normal family is a small girl, all dressed in white, who looks very much like Bernadette Soubirous from the southern France town of Lourdes.

»Bernadetje«, just as the previous »Mother and child« (1995), is the result of Platel’s collaboration with the well-known author Arne Sierens. As a stage production, »Bernadetje« soon obtained cult status and received invitations to perform in cities and festivals throughout Europe; Paris, Amsterdam, Newcastle, Salzburg, Marseille and Avignon should be mentioned in this context.

The combination of enthusiastically executed scenic experiments, social engagement and touching humanity make Platel, who was born 1956 in Ghent, an exception on the modern European stage. It is now the second time that one of his productions can be seen at the euro-scene Leipzig after »La tristeza cómplice« (»The shared sorrow«) 1996 with the Les Ballets C. de la B. company.