<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Object-based production\nin which miniatures and cameras are used to portray life in 17th-century\nIndonesia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looming in the distance as you enter the theatre you can see the contours of the scale models on the stage. The tables are crammed with miniature sets that form tiny worlds populated by tiny, 8cm-tall figures that will later come to life and tell stories of great events. Welcome to Hotel Modern, the theatre company that has made its name with its unique form of object-based theatre, and their latest play Our Empire<\/em>, which brings tales from the early history of contact between the Netherlands and Indonesia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The members of Hotel\nModern are artist Herman Helle and actors Arl\u00e8ne Hoornweg and Pauline Kalker. In\npast plays they have reimagined the battlegrounds of the First World War, and\nthe horrors of a Nazi death camp. Rather than making work that is unbearably\ndark, however, their obvious devotion and humour injects deep compassion into\nthese miniature figures, these tiny puppets so carefully and caringly brought\nto life in beautifully constructed biotypes. We watch as, with tireless\nconcentration, the trio move around the stage. They use their cameras with\nprecision timing so everything the\naudience sees on the large screen is bursting with life. In this case, it is\nlife on the Indonesian Archipelago in the 17th-century, subjected to interference\nfrom external forces that is initially gradual, later increasingly active \u2013\nfirst come the Portuguese and then the Dutch with their \u2018enterprising\nmentality\u2019 on colonial trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We see lively\nmarkets selling nutmeg and cloves, and elegant dances at the royal court; we\nsee infighting, villages in flames, and political machinations on board a ship\nbelonging to the Dutch East India company. This play marks a glorious start of\nwhat will become a trilogy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 23 december 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We watch as, with tireless concentration, the actors move around the stage. They use their cameras with precision timing so everything the audience sees on the large screen is bursting with life. In this case, it is life on the Indonesian Archipelago in the 17th-century, subjected to interference from external forces that is initially gradual, later increasingly active \u2013 first come the Portuguese and then the Dutch with their \u2018enterprising mentality\u2019 on colonial trade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2878"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2881,"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2878\/revisions\/2881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}