Shoe/Farm - A Family Business

With plenty of humour, buren use personal stories to cast a critical light on consumerism and working conditions

"What we used to eat, we now put on your feet!"

In shoe/farm - a family business ‘shoe shop’ and ‘farm’ merge into a fictional family business. Picturesque scenes portray a farm where shoes are grown, harvested, branded, and sold. As daughters of a shoe shop and a farm, Oshin Albrecht and Melissa Mabesoone question how family ties and background influence ideas about labour, class and family. What does it mean to be an heir in addition to being a ‘child of’? Homegrown and self-made?

In buren’s first group performance for the black box, they perform specific tasks as a team and family of four. From a collection of clogs, glass boots, and denim shoes, they shine a light on fetishistic relationships to the shoe and contemplate what it would be like to stand in someone else's shoes. From the low-wage worker in the shoe factory to the have-it-all fashionista. In a playful and layered way, they manoeuvre from a pre-industrial era to late capitalism.

The performance is situated between music theatre, visual performance, and choreography; with instruments and props that are part of the scenography, they shape music, sound, and rhythm out of work-related actions and assembly-line work.

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Concept buren Performers Oshin Albrecht, Melissa Mabesoone, Katja Dreyer, Léa Dubois Light design Vera Martins Sound & music in collaboration with Benne Dousselaere Outside eye Charlotte Vanden Eynde Construction scenography Sjoerd Van Leeuwen Extra eyes and ears Thuy Lê Thi Thu Costumes in collaboration with Anthea Demoen Instruments in collaboration with Gert Aertsen Production assistant Katlijn Vanhulle Production Caravan Production Coproduction Kaaitheater, Kunstencentrum BUDA, STUK, C-takt, de Brakke Grond, KAAP, Theaterfestival Boulevard, Perpodium With the support of the Flemish Community, the Flemish Community Commission and the Tax Shelter measure of the Belgian Federal Government via Cronos Invest