Belgian performer Valentijn Dhaenens has travelled the world with critically acclaimed theatre shows BigmoutH and SmallWar and Unsung following his Fringe First win in 2018. His latest production The Van Paemel Family opens at ZOO Southside (main house) on 4 August as part of the Big in Belgium season. Dhaenens recreates a Flemish theatre classic by Cyriel Buysse and seamlessly slips between 13 different characters to engage with as many digital individuals.
Through the lens of a story set in 1903, it dissects our western world, where, to this day, classes and communities don’t speak each other’s language, and where oppression by the one percent has resulted in a fierce social struggle.
Valentijn Dhaenens graduated from the Antwerp Conservatory in 2000 as a master in the Dramatic Arts under Dora Van der Groen. He is a co-founder of theatre company SKaGeN and has acted in performances by, amongst others, NTGent, KVS, Kaaitheater and Ontroerend Goed. His film and television work, includes De helaasheid der dingen (Felix Van Groeningen), Stranger in Paradise (Guido Henderikx) and Girl (Lukas Dhont). The films De helaasheid der dingen and Girl received international acclaim, including at the Cannes Film Festival, where Girl was awarded the Camera d’Or. Dhaenens took the lead role in Dutch documentary fiction film Stranger in Paradise, which was nominated for the European Film Awards, opened the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in 2017 and took home the IDFA Special Jury Award. The film also received several accolades at international film festivals. Dhaenens’ theatre breakthrough came with BigmoutH, an ode to rhetoric, followed by the equally successful monologues SmallWaR and Unsung, which won a Fringe First in 2019. For his performance in The Van Paemel Family he was awarded Best Actor of 2022 by the Belgian Actor’s Guild.
SKaGeN is an Antwerp-based theatre company that has been producing highly successful plays in Flanders and the Netherlands since 2000, Their success derives from a combination of high artistic standards and accessibility. The SKaGeN productions BigmoutH and SmallWar toured internationally in 17 countries worldwide, including the USA Hong Kong, China, New Zealand, and Australia.
SKaGeN was formed by members of a class that graduated from the renowned Antwerp Conservatory, headed by a lion of Flemish theatre, Dora van der Groen, and the internationally acclaimed theatre and opera director Ivo Van Hove. The group has developed into one of the leading theatre companies of its generation and developed a reputation for adapting great novels for theatre including La Peste by Albert Camus, Voyage au bout de la nuit by L.F. Céline and Berlin Alexanderplatz by A. Döblin. SKaGeN are Valentijn Dhaenens, Korneel Hamers, Mathijs Scheepers and Clara van den Broek.
The Van Paemel Family is produced with the support of The Flemish Community, PerPodium, Tax Shelter & De Studio Big in Belgium
The Van Paemel Family is presented within the context of national showcase festival Big in Belgium which provides a platform for some of the most significant theatre companies from the Flemish part of Belgium. This year SKaGeN is accompanied by companies Ontroerend Goed and Wunderbaum, together they present 4 shows at ZOO. Each one of them is a success on the European mainland and is now presented for the first time to the Edinburgh audience, ready to break new ground and aiming to create a greater visibility for Flemish theatre on the international scene.
SKaGeN will also present SneakPeek Shadow Game, the world’s first real-time digital documentary available at ZOOTV (via zoofestival.co.uk and edfringe.com) during the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
