Without fear life would be over quickly. Fear provides protection, it sharpens your mind and makes you alert. Fear can be exciting and give you a kick. But it can also create barriers and prevent you from taking a step into the unknown. Fear limits your freedom and can be at the root of xenophobia, causing irrational hatred. Phobia is about what happens when you try to keep an open mind despite your fear of the unknown. When you accept the unpredictability of the other and realise that if you don’t want to suffer you should avoid to inflict pain on others and meet each other as equals, as people.

For Phobia Club Guy & Roni uses a text by the French writer and philosopher Albert Camus as inspiration. During World War II, Camus was founder and editor of the resistance newspaper “Combat”. In 1946 a series of essays under the title ‘Ni Victimes ni Bourreaux’ (Neither Victims nor Executioners) was published in this magazine.

The show is created and performed by a cast of dancers from Club Guy & Roni and the Slovenian dance company En-Knap, and actors and musicians of Slagwerk Den Haag. En-Knap has a raw and unpolished approach to theatre making. Club Guy & Roni already worked successfully with Slagwerk Den Haag; the artistic connection is strong, just like the drive for innovation and collaboration with other disciplines. Both companies like to reinvent themselves and offer the audience a new experience. In this production the percussion instruments mainly include donkey and horse jaws; with music made by the Mexican composer Hugo Morales, complemented by haunting songs about life and death.

Phobia will premièred at the Noorderzon Performing Arts Festival 2015, followed by a tour in autumn in large and medium sized venues.

Cast

Camilo Chapela, Angela Herenda, Dunja Jocic, Veerle van Overloop, Adam Peterson, Luke Thomas Dunne, Ida Hellsten, Bence Mezei, Nik Rajšek, Ana Štefanec, Tamás Tuza, Pepe Garcia, Niels Meliefste, Enric Monfort