Tanz im August: Interview with Peeping Tom

We interviewed Franck Chartier from Belgian collective Peeping Tom over the course of Tanz im August festival, where they were present with “32 rue Vandenbranden”. One of the inspirational sources for this piece was Shohei Imamura’s The Ballad of Narayama where an old woman is taken to the top of mountain Narayama by her children, to die. Gabriela Carrizo and Franck Chartier wanted to dig into all the physiological burdens that can prevent people – even those who appear to be at total liberty to do what they want – from ever really escaping their roots, their family or their culture.
The action takes place under a wide-open sky in a mountain landscape with only rickety campers for shelter. We find ourselves in a small isolated community where the inhabitants are confronted with their loneliness. The focus in this creation lies on the internal forces that determine which turn the characters will take; their motives are being exposed and stripped of their consciousness. The borders between what happens in reality and what they believe that happens become blurred. They lose themselves in fear and remain trapped in their own isolation.