Çitfler, Turkey. Ali sits by an apricot tree, where his grandfather tells him stories. As time goes by, these stories become more and more abstract. De Abrikozenboom is a patchwork of stories about memory, confusion, and the migrant trajectory. We sat down with Joeri Happel, Lieselot Siddiki and Ali Can Ünal of KULÜP KİLİM to talk about their new piece, premiering at NTGent on the 16th of January.
Can you tell me more about this performance?
It started with Ali’s stories of his grandfather. Our collective is called KULÜP KİLİM. Kilim means carpet in Turkish. These old Turkish, Anatolian carpets are filled with stories. Ali’s first memory was a song he heard on television at his grandfather’s place in Turkey. His first memory of it is his grandfather watching television and singing a song about carpets.
His grandfather used to tell him stories under an apricot tree. He started with a story about his village, and how it was attacked by an army. They were getting closer and closer, and everybody was panicking. All of the villagers gathered at the marketplace. One person in the crowd said: “Stop! I know who can save us. His name is Ali Can!” He puts Ali directly into the stories. But his grandfather also had Alzheimer’s. So our performance is also about memory, confusion, history. If you’re a storyteller, stories are memories. History is also a sort of memory. There’s this beautiful thing of our histories, how it slips away as your brain cells burn out.
<img class="editorial-image-50-left" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/61eebcc683107b99137f4423/658ec286005946f4a66d9efd_Joeri%20Happel%20and%20Lieselot%20Siddiki%20(c)%20Valerie%20De%20BackerDC_De_Abrikozenboom_0.webp"/>
<img class="editorial-image-50-right" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/61eebcc683107b99137f4423/658ec1e946e668ae229107bb_Joeri%20Happel%20and%20Lieselot%20Siddiki%20(and%20Ali%20Can%20Unal)%20(c)%20Valerie%20De%20BackerDC_De_Abrikozenboom_%201.webp"/>
What is your approach to storytelling?
The stories we tell don’t have a beginning, a middle, or an end. It’s fragments and snippets that form one big story. Memory is so subjective, it echoes. That being said, I would say we have four different ways of telling a story. Firstly, we have sketches that go into the performance aspect of storytelling. Secondly, there’s the use of a record system; in the past, a lot of migrants used to send K7 tapes to Belgium, Germany, Holland, and back and forth. It was kind of a letter, but also because some people at the time were illiterate. We make use of these methods in the performance.
We’re going to include Turkish fairytales and messages…Thirdly, there’s the Meddah, the traditional Turkish storyteller, who really brings the idea of telling a story. The fourth kind of storytelling is more suggestive and implicit. They are echoes of all the stories. We tell stories through objects. We like to play with cardboard boxes. These boxes contain stories, memories and objects. It’s kind of a memory palace. We’re also using a lot of NTGent’s used props and backgrounds. There are a lot of things in our piece that are used by others.
<img class="editorial-image-50-left" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/61eebcc683107b99137f4423/658ec1e83d98b9ecd51c78c8_Joeri%20Happel%20and%20Lieselot%20Siddiki%20(and%20Ali%20Can%20Unal)%20(c)%20Valerie%20De%20BackerDC_De_Abrikozenboom_%209.webp"/>
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What role does language take in your storytelling?
We don’t speak Turkish, but Ali does. We all love the language. We approach this in echoes. Everything will be presented in at least two languages. We also work with subtitles, or we speak for each other. But our mode of communication goes beyond the speech, which will make it understandable to all, I think.
The paradoxical thing about our storytelling is that we don’t use that many words. It’s about storytelling, but it’s also a lot of visual communication. The stories are going to be represented by some types of visual motifs. It’s a layered approach to storytelling. And when we speak, it’s more about the speech than it is about the exact words.
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We don’t like to have a cerebral approach to theatre. We’re intuitive, chaotic, hopping from one thing to another. It’s been fun to let go of the control. We have enough material to make five shows, but none of it is polished. There’s a lot of improvisation, a lot of research.
In theatre, we sometimes feel the urge to show off and beg for people’s attention. With this performance, it’s more about contemplating. We want the audience to fall into the world that we are creating together.
We don’t like to have a cerebral approach to theater. We’re intuitive, chaotic, hopping from one thing to another
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<img class="editorial-image-50-right" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/61eebcc683107b99137f4423/658ec27b39b8ba9d61a41478_Joeri%20Happel%20and%20Lieselot%20Siddiki%20(c)%20Valerie%20De%20BackerDC_De_Abrikozenboom_%2016.webp"/>
The first word that came to mind when I read about your performance was “vulnerability”. How do you relate to these stories, to one another
We never really talked about it. I think we care a lot for each other and we are very close, which helps to listen to the stories, to talk about our own stories.
A lot of these stories are about being a hero. When Ali tells a story, there’s always struggle and a fight. We re-translate it to other contexts. At the end of the day, these stories are about power, and injustice. This allows us to re-contextualize them, to position ourselves in them.
At the end of the day, these stories are about power, injustice
<div class="editorial-banner"> <div class=“editorial-credits”> @sssiddiki / @joerihappelenlucasvandervegt / @ali.can.unal / @ntgent </div></div>
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