BARZAKH

The Arabic word barzakh names a border space between two worlds, where souls wait in sleep for a final judgment — a situation recognisable to people awaiting trial in pre-trial detention. Through workshops in Belgian prisons, detainees and theatre-maker Thomas Bellinck wrote a new performance together and determined what appears on stage.

The opera repertoire is the starting point: operas often romanticise crime and incarceration — does that match reality? Composer Osama Abdulrasol translates the workshop material into music for singers and chamber orchestra. Barzakh questions the worldviews of opera and takes a critical look at the prison system.