I AM BLOOD - a medieval fairy tale 18

   "My theater is always art
it takes place in the zone of life after death.
My actors - my "beauty warriors" - perform dead heroes,
who appear and revive their lives."  

In 2000, Jan Fabre wrote a theater text/poem about one of the basic components of the human body: blood. In his work, the central theme of which is the medieval body image, he also reveals the physical and mental wounds we have carried within us since then. The sharp opposite of religious thinking imbued with guilt is the unbridled, natural joy of life.

"Bodies trying to free themselves from physical limitations and taboos become liquid: they turn into blood, the body's fuel," says Fabre, in whose play the viewer is treated to bloody, gruesome, ritualistic scenes - torture, menstruation, castration, exorcisms, orgies, etc. he faces. In the apocalyptic, grotesque images, white-dressed brides, grooms, knights appear... Fabre seems to have lifted them from the paintings of Brueghel or Hieronymus Bosch. When writing the text, Fabre was also inspired by the mystical writings of the 12th-century Benedictine abbess, Saint Hildegard of Bingen, who described visions of the body, healing powers, plants and animals.

In 2001, I Am Blood was the first Fabre production, which was presented at the Avignon Festival, in the courtyard of the Papal Palace. Due to its success, the performance was presented again at the 2005 festival. The production, which traveled to several continents, was received with appreciation by the press and the public worldwide. Now, in 2024, at a time of new senseless wars and bloodshed, Fabre brings the text to life with a new concept, with the participation of the actors of the National Theater and the dancers of the Bozsik Yvette Company.

The Belgian Jan Fabre was born in Antwerp in 1958. Both in his country and abroad, he is considered one of the most versatile artists of his generation, who is not only a theater creator (writer and director), but also a visual artist.

He pushes the boundaries in all genres, his performances are poetic concepts, fascinating ancient rites, stage visions of the philosophical questions that concern him incessantly. At the 2024 Madách International Theater Meeting (MITEM), the Hungarian audience was able to get to know the eight-hour performance Mítikasz top (On top of the Olympus).

► ‘I AM A SERVANT OF BEAUTY’ - JAN FABRE