A project about the precarious economy of hope.
Not here, not now. Hope is all about then and there. Today, the people deciding which futures are possible are the CEOs and technocrats running the governments – the experts of the neoliberal status quo. So what if hopelessness is not the lack of hope, but a lack of space to imagine alternatives?
For There Will Be Light, Studio Julian Hetzel takes the equivalent of a basic income of their own cultural funding and gives it to one person. In other words: someone will receive €15.000. Everybody has a chance, everybody can apply. During one week, every day for 6 hours the audience is invited to explore an artificial beach, to follow the interview process to find the chosen one and to apply. Alternative expert committees select the chosen one. We cast for life.
There Will Be Light is a project about life as art and art as work. The real performance begins after the applause, at the very moment when the show is over and the audience returns home. For one year, seven days per week, 24h per day, the “chosen one” starts performing an improvisation called life.
So stop working and become an artist!
Director: Julian Hetzel
Performers: Christine van Stralen, Louis van der Waal, Niek Vanoosterweyck, Agat Sharma
Dramaturge: Miguel Angel Melgares
Artistic advisor: Sodja Lotker
Assistant dramaturge: Madison Jolliffe
Sound design: Johannes Helberger
Head of production: Saskia Reynolds
Production: Mariska van Zanten, Marieke van den Bosch
Technical coordinators: Siemen van der Werf, Cas Dekker
Technicians: Sybren Danz, Vincent Beune, Cesco van der Zwaag, Krzysztof Burdzy
Panel recruiter en coach: Yvonne Wierenga
Communications & PR: Michelle Franke
Interns: Billy Ka and Maren Seidel
Special thanks to the panel of experts and the local performers.
For further details and to apply for an interview: www.therewillbelight.com
Co-production: WEST Den Haag, SPRING Performing Arts Festival, Grand Theatre Groningen
With the support of: Fonds Podiumkunsten, City of Utrecht, Fonds 21, VriendenLoterij Fonds, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds
“Our system makes it easier to accumulate capital, rather than giving it away.”
“The uncanny ambiguity of hope: Julian Hetzel’s There Will Be Light”