ERF – Helena Elshout

What do you get from your ancestors?
What do you want to pass on to the next generation or not?
And how much influence do you have on that?
ERF is a performance about motherhood and inheritance in which Helena Elshout searches for inherited stories and her own words.

A grandmother leaves breast cancer genes and scrapbooks of a demented butcher. A granddaughter makes her way through a labyrinth of hormones, embryos and freezers. Money and white coats are used to correct a genetic error, to redraw a pattern. But what about all the life we lose along the way?

ERF is about the intertwining of the intimate and the political, about the flying flag of the socially engineered.

Text, concept and play: Helena Elshout / concept and play: Laura Vroom / final direction: Julie Cafmeyer / dramaturgy: Kopano Maroga / coach: Katja Dreyer / soundscape: Ruben Nachtergaele / scenography, lighting design and technique: Steven Brys / technique: Bennert Van Cottem / production support: Koen Massé, Emma Onghena / with support from: KAAP, BUDA, VIERNULVIER, CC Sint-Niklaas, C-Mine, CC De Ververij, deAuteurs, Stad Gent / with thanks to: Anne Kuit, Arnout De Cleene, Campo, Chambres d’0, Charlotte Ringoir, Christine Roggeman, Charlotte Vanden Eynde, Fabián Espinosa, Faja Lobi, Frank Van Neerboom, Frouke Van Gheluwe, Helena Lemonnier, Jacquie Bapura, laGeste, Laura Caroen, Liesbet Hermans, Manoeuvre, Marthe Verhoest, MESTIZO ARTS PLATFORM and the Wipcoop feedback group, Mieke Elshout, Nadia Nsayi, Rachid Laachir, Rebecca Leenaerts, Rona Kennedy, Sibo Kanobana, Sofie Verhoeven, Sofie Verraest – Photos: Sofie Debackere