Tonguecat

“Those seeking warmth, find it in the storyteller’s inflection. In the fire which she harnesses behind her teeth. In the memories with which she caresses you.” A new ice age has begun. Warmth has become a precious commodity. Many are fixated on Ulrike’s tales, which offer intimacy and tenderness in an inhospitable world. While she showcases her services, memories of supressed trauma gradually begin to resurface: As a child she witnessed the brutal murder of her parents, which later leads to her becoming a murderer herself. Ulrike needs to face up to her past, leading to devastating consequences. 

Graduates of the Akademie Musiktheater heute scholarship programme are writing and performing Tonguecat, an opera based on the fantasy novel of the same name, by contemporary Flemish author Peter Verhelst. The young artists contemplate the dynamics of perpetrator-victim cycles: How does a victim become a perpetrator? How is guilt transferred from one generation to the next? How can the cycle of violence be broken?