At Theaterfestival Boulevard new sketches of Matti Braun's The Alien are developed with the choreographer Henriette Hale and performed at the Verkadefabriek with a series of amateur actors. Also a full day of the If I Can’t Dance programme in Den Bosch is devoted to Braun’s oeuvre and interests, to allow for a local audience to tap into the wider context of the work. The lecture performance V.S. will be performed again and the film The Music Room by Ray is screened in the evening.

Departing from a script written in 1963 by the illustrious Indian film director Satyajit Ray, who never succeeded in producing it as a film, Matti Braun wrote an adaptation of The Alien for theatre. He introduces us to the extra-terrestrial being, The Alien, who with his spaceship crash lands in a pond in the Indian countryside. Though many of us in general lines might recognize the story, for there are rumours that Steven Spielberg was profoundly inspired by this script for his famous film E.T.

The Alien befriends a local boy, Haba, who is a bit of a rascal living in the near-by village. The alien is a generous trickster too who causes the crops of the local farmers to ripen and the lotuses in the pond to open. This confounds and confuses the local population and leads to many speculations. As is the case for the villagers, who in line with their mythological and religious beliefs, anxious but also hopeful, ask themselves if these tidings predict a better harvest. A young journalist, Mohan, that has come to research contemporary village life and spends what should be his romantic honeymoon researching rural life in India much to his new wife’s distaste, is fascinated by the news which feeds his expectations of science. The village is in the throws of other technological developments also, namely the drilling of a new water pump by a brash foreign engineer who quickly involves himself in the village life. The local entrepreneur responsible for these technological advances, tries to turn the mysterious crash landing to his advantage, interpreting the space ship as a temple that should be restored and exploited as a place for worship. And so the The Alien fairytale quietly poses questions about modernism, alienation and progress that are as relevant for now as then.

The Alien
Concept: Matti Braun
Choreography: Henrietta Hale
Music composition: Li Chuan Chong
Kantele players: Anna-Karin Korhonen

Actors: Beth Healy – The Alien, Mees Jongema – Haba, the boy, Joris Link – Mohan, the journalist, Nathalie Zonnenberg – Kalyani, Mohan’s wife, Felix Janssens – Devlin, the engineer, Roos Gortzak – Bajoria, the entrepreneur, Lily van Ginniken – Haba’s grandmother, Astrid Schumacher – Sarkar, the homeopath, Joris Brouwers – Govinda, the peasant, Zhana Ivanova – Pramanick, the postmaster, Sander Meijers – Battacharji, the Hindu priest, Jelle Bouwhuis – Biswas, the Christian priest, Jo’o Guerreiro – the Sadhu.

The Alien is a project by Matti Braun, initiated by The Showroom/Kirsty Ogg, and is a co-production of If I Can't Dance, Project Arts Centre, and The Showroom.

Special thanks to: Aileen Healy, Marten Jongema, Sanja Mitrovic, Grant Watson, Boost (Amsterdam), Lloyd Hotel (Amsterdam), Imperium (Leiden), BQ Gallery (Cologne).