Jan Decorte

Jan Decorte (1950) is a theatre maker, actor and director. In Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, he played the role of the protagonist’s son. In the 1970s, Decorte began as a theatre maker and actor with theatre company Het Trojaanse Paard, where, in the early 1980s, he met his life partner and permanent collaborator Sigrid Vinks. In 1981 he directed Friedrich Hebbel’s Maria Magdalena for Kaaitheater Festival. Following the play, Decorte was appointed artistic leader of the company in 1982. The non-profit’s registered office was then transferred to Brussels and Het Trojaanse Paard turned into HTP. In 1987 the name of the company was changed to Jan Decorte en Cie (later, in 1994, a last name change turned it into Bloet). From then on Decorte composed pieces in which classical texts are reduced to their essence, poetic condensations in his own childlike language. “Despite the disruptions he caused in his own joys and sorrows”, Marianne Van Kerkhoven wrote about Jan Decorte, “there’s a clear ‘canyon-leaping’ line running through [his] oeuvre: that of a quest for ever greater simplicity, for theatre’s essence. Isn’t it every artist’s great desire to pass through their own repetitions so deeply, so intensely, to reach the final goal of purity and simplicity?”

Hedda returns home from an overly long honeymoon with her colourless husband. An old lover who is about to break through with an exceptional novel introduces himself.

A unique anthology from the oeuvre of Polish novelist Witold Gombrowicz. An actor pretends to be a writer while putting words to paper. In a series of tableaux, his texts are performed and a fascinating interplay of words and images ensues.

Theatremaker Jan Decorte's first feature film covers the lonely life of a Brussels municipal employee who lives with his mother. To break through his deadly spell of boredom, his attention turns to a girl at the gymnastics club.

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