photo: Leo Maki
MISSA MAMA NOVA
a danced choir ritual about the mother figure (2024)
After the mass on the sinner, now the mother takes center stage. In MISSA MAMA NOVA, the mother archetype is embodied by a community of eight performers: a mother’s body (a dancer in her sixties) and a mother’s soul/breath (a musician on flute/recorder) are flanked by six children (a queer choir of six young adults, on the brink of potential parenthood themselves).
photo: Koen Broos
In MISSA HOMO SACER, the texts of the Ordinarium were still heard in their entirety, sung by a homogeneous ensemble. In MISSA MAMA NOVA the church liturgy crumbles — in lyrics, choir sound and audio design. The musicality of MISSA MAMA NOVA is both classical and tribal, as it breaks open the tradition by going back to the source of giving voice: the sigh, the hum, the cry, the heartbeat, the lullaby.
The iconic Stabat Mater Dolorosa transforms into a Stabat Mater Gloriosa: a new, language-no-problem-libretto with lyrics in Latin, English, the mother tongues of the performers and snippets of sound language. The performers are given space for their own personalities to equally break through the uniformity of the community: the score opens up for improvisation and solos — dancing between tradition, deconstruction and rebirth.
Everyone can be queer, in their acts of queerness.
Everyone can be a mother, in their acts of mothering.
MISSA MAMA NOVA is a space of dust, ashes, mist and water. The audience sits in a circle around an arena, hearing and sensing the performers before and behind them. A surround light and sound installation invites them back into the tomb of the Divine Feminine, where we look for the mother in the cracks of patriarchal catholicism. MISSA MAMA NOVA becomes a celebration of the Mother in all of us, an ode to the continuity of nature and the fluidity of identity. In the absence of the Father, we search for our own (hu)man-hoon and parenthood: a rite of passage in which queerness is an act of playfulness, care and openness — no longer a label of otherness.
credits
A mother's body (dance) Fumiyo Ikeda A mother's breath (recorder) Dodó Kis
A body of children (six-part queer choir) Charlotte Dommershausen, Dominic Kramer, Timo Tembuyser, Amir Vahidi, Jules Vermei & Hélène Vrijdag
Concept, composition, text & direction Timo Tembuyser Assistent direction & Dramaturgy Lena Meyskens & Jonas Istace Choreography Fumiyo Ikeda Direction coach Pim Veulings Sound design Jo Thielemans Light design Timo Tembuyser & Gilles Pollak Styling & MUA Sara Schoon Technical direction Pieter-Jan Buelens 2nd tech team on tour Bert Demeulenaere & Arthur De Vuyst Production Timo Tembuyser, Muziektheater Transaparant & Festival Cement, Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam
Thanks to Melih Gencboyaçi, Davy Pieters, Leonie Clement, Vinny Jones, Yentl Gijbels, Alberto Martínez, OTION (Guillermo Armand Blinker), Kai Detering, Mar Sala Romagosa, Sjaïd Foncé, Jonathan E. Brito, Wijnand Gomes, Sonia Sheridan-Jacquelin, Mara Snip, Damani Leidsman, Casa Saga & Podium Bloos