Theatrical creativity in the French-speaking Community is prolific and diverse. In a collectively authored work (“Jouer le jeu, De l’autre côté du théâtre belge”) intended to enhance awareness of the history of theatre in the Community on the occasion of its latest festival, “Emulation” (in October), the Théâtre de la Place examines the work of twelve creators, searching for a creative coherence that belongs to the whole Community. For Nancy Delhalle, whose essay “Mouvements d’une histoire” (Movements in a history) forms the book’s introduction and explores the history of theatre in the French-speaking Community over the last four decades, theatre in our society today involves “a multitude of different artistic practices”. Some “trajectories” are departures from a norm, but for Delhalle they remain “singular” and unique in their own way.

Eve Bonfanti and Yves Hunstad ; Claude Schmitz ; Anne-Cécile Vandalem ; Galin Stoev ; Jean-Bonoît Ugeux ; Transquinquennal ; Françoise Berlanger ; Armel Roussel ; Ingrid Von Wantoch Rekowski ; the Groupe Toc ; Patrick Corillon ; Zouzou Leyens: authors and directors and theatre groups mentioned in connection with the Théâtre de la Place in “Jouer le Jeu” have little in common except...the fact that they all belong to the French-speaking Community. It’s difficult to identify a “movement” or a “current” in theatrical creation such as those which in the past have shaped modern theatre.

For Nancy Delhalle, instructor in the Department of Arts and Sciences of Communication at the University of Liège, this is mainly because of the nature of the history of theatre in the French-speaking Community: “Theatre in Belgium is not connected to an established tradition, as it is in France and Germany. This has something to do with the fact that the nation itself is rather young, and with the corresponding absence of a link between national identity and theatrical creation. The theatre does not really become an institution until after the Second World War, prior to which commercial theatre dominated the field.”

Renewal, both aesthetic and...political

The turning point toward a certain modernity took place during the 1970s, with the formation of the “Jeune theatre” (Young theatre), which developed as a reaction to traditional theatre values. “This was a movement that went along with a society that was changing,” Delhalle explains. “In 1968 we saw the end of “Daddy’s Belgium”, and (the rise of) internationalisation. In the theatre there were many artists who were inspired by this revolution in the framework of socio-political thought, and it was significant that they had been trained in the big schools that had been created at the beginning of the 1960s, such as Insas and the IAD, which carried forward the impetus for aesthetic renewal. There was a real transformation of theatrical art, which up till then had been based on declamation and actors as interpreters, that is, as the ones who “carried out” the play.” As Delhalle writes in “Mouvements d’une histoire,” “The idea that it was necessary to unite, educate, and emancipate the public through “theatre on a grand scale” had had its effect over time.”