Modesta (play of language and lips)

In this work, this play of language and lips, five performers go in search of Modesta. Who is she? A fantasy, a character whose attraction rests on the possibility that she could be real, tangible. A young girl who grows up learning how to turn pain into pleasure. A woman who twists the rules of language and social convention. A sphinx-like character, mysterious because we cannot grasp the source of her vitality. Modesta appears in many guises, in word and movement, asking us to follow her. Ooms & Jäger work from a preference for non-theatrical, eclectic textual material and a distinctly physical approach to acting. In Modesta (play of language and lips), they engage freely with the coming-of-age genre, together with actors Rosie Sommers, Christine De Smedt and Arthur Loontjens. The title refers to the main character in Goliarda Sapienza's book The Art of Joy, written in the 1960s (but published only three decades later). This literary Modesta inspires by how her uncompromising desire, willpower and joy unexpectedly challenged the morality of her time.