Flax, baby! Flax! [interludes]

opera-performance directed by Marie Ilse Bourlanges and Liza Prins
at A Tale of a Tub, Rotterdam – August 2024

Libretto written by Liza Prins and Marie Ilse Bourlanges, informed by the Songs of Flax workshops series they hosted at A Tale of A Tub throughout 2024
Musical compositions by Bergur Anderson and Liza Prins
Performed by Bergur Anderson, Joana Guiné, Logan Hon Mua, Robin Becker, Romy Day Winkel, Giulia Damiani, Bitna Youn, Miriam van Rijsingen, Pilar Mata Dupont, Berenike Melchior, Liza Prins, and Marie Ilse Bourlanges.
Scenography and choreography by Marie Ilse Bourlanges and Liza Prins
Clog dance co-developed with Berenike Melchior

On 24 and 30 August 2024, Flax, baby! Flax! premiered at A Tale of a Tub. This experimental operatic performance works through the labor-intensive process of transforming flax into linen fibers, while aiming for cross-historical solidarity. Twelve performers have brought the installation to life, using our flax harvest and sculptural reinterpretations of pre-industrial flax-tools as they sing of work conditions and natural resources, capitalist industrialisation and desires, political agency and love. The piece is structured into four acts that echo the manual processing of flax from plant stem to textile fibers—rippling, breaking, scutching, and heckling—comprising nine songs and a contemporary reinterpretation of a clog dance. 

Photography by Kyle Tryhorn
Many thanks to the team of A Tale of a Tub

Flax, baby! Flax! was made possible by the support of Mondriaan Fonds, Gemeente Amsterdam Stadsdeel Zuid, EU Council, and the European Mobility Grant.