'BOG.' plays 'KID.': how a simple question to the audience can lead to exciting theatre.

A collection of makers they are. A collection, but not a collective. What an 'f' can't already make up. So language is quite a thing. And crowdsourcing is quite a thing. These makers collect words from their audience, and give them back in a performance. That's 'BOG.', a still fairly young group trying to use language to make theatre to make us think.

A review on the website 'Remonstrants.co.uk' - you get to the strangest places while searching - says the following about a previous project, titled 'GOD.' 'The performance is highly recommended for those who want to be made to think in a light way, for those who want to think about life's big questions in a different way. But don't go there if you are waiting for clear answers.'

Kitchen table

I will tell you honestly: I had only heard of 'BOG.' heard of, they were on my to-do list to go and see someday. So I took the opportunity to have a word with them. I speak to two members of the four-member company, Benjamin Moen and Judith de Joode, both 29 years old. The two other members of the 'collection' are Sanne Vanderbruggen and Lisa Verbelen. The conversation turns to their latest project 'KID.', which they are directing under my favourite director Jetse Batelaan are making.

It is two weeks before the premiere. So soon before the christening, they have barely been on the floor. In fact, when 'BOG.' prepares a performance, the group does it at the kitchen table, with their laptops. But they are already establishing a relationship with their audience. Benjamin Moen explains: 'Almost every week we have a test audience. That's really cool. With that, we try out new things.' Judith de Joode adds: 'We want to investigate how our texts reach children.'

Jetse Batelaan

Actually, that is quite remarkable, such a study. I don't really know it from the world of 'new makers', trying out performance ideas at an early stage. Doesn't that get in the way of their autonomous artistry? Benjamin doesn't worry about that: 'Normally we don't do that, but this time it's really the case that we're building such a formal thing. By inviting audiences ourselves, we can invent the rules for what we've come up with. We need an audience for that, and that also happens to be something Jetse Batelaan often does in his performances.' 'And we've never worked with children before,' explains Judith. Benjamin concurs: 'So it's purely at the research level, and not at the level of: "what do they like?" We're not trying to make a Disney movie for them.'

Crowdsourcing

Which does not detract from the fact that 'BOG.' engages in an interesting form of crowdsourcing. Judith de Joode explains: 'We are a collection of theatre makers, but what we do is also collecting. Since our first performance, we have a whole membership base of audience members who donate their experiences to us. Every time we develop something, we ask those members some questions with the topics we choose. We get responses to that which gives us a better picture.'

Benjamin: 'For this performance, for example, we sent the question, "What is an adult? what is a child? And define the two without a dictionary.''

That questioning works very well, he says: "For our second performance 'MEN.' the question was, "What is an opinion, what is a judgement, what is and point of view?" We got back a huge bucket of answers that also contradicted each other very often. Then you find out that very often we all use the same words but mean something completely different by them.' Judith: 'Now we had a personal question: "What was the moment when you first felt like an adult?" Then you get a lot of answers.'

Expert

The question then arises as to whether you can hear your own text back at a performance of 'BOG.', as a spectator. But we shouldn't see it that way, says Moen: 'It came very much from the desire to hear multiple voices, because we believe these are too big subjects for us to find the answer on our own.' 'We don't just go with the members,' Judith concurs. 'It's part of our research. We also often involve an expert because we want to take a deeper look at it.'

Benjamin: 'The answers the members give never actually end up literally in the performance. We don't copy-paste a performance. The members' input serves as a kind of humus layer. It is the foundation on which we are going to build, We get a lot of inspiration from that. It puts you on a different track to hear what someone else thinks about it. For example, now at 'KID.' is about the question: 'what is an adult and what is a child?' In doing so, you also come across that among adults there is a certain way of looking back at your childhood. We see that all the time. A kind of melancholic or nostalgic mode of looking back. We then want something with that. How do we stand on that ourselves again. Should we say something about that, or should we just show it?'

Judith: 'Doesn't youth itself idealise? What is it like to idealise adult life? Can that also become an ideal? That's how we get all these directions.'

How do you make theatre out of that?

Benjamin: 'For the first time, we are starting from a form arrangement rather than a content theme. We have had a stand designed. It will be a square stand. The playing floor is intersected by a wall, diagonally, and we play on both sides of that wall. On one side the children will sit and on the other side the adults. So we play two performances at the same time. We are the conduit.'