EDIT KALDOR

Point Blank

(2007)

Point Blank is a visual theatre performance in which the narrative is constructed by using paparazzi-style photographs of everyday situations. The 19-year-old Nada has been secretly observing people for years, taking ‘spy-photos’ of them, capturing their private moments. The core of her interest is to trace the various life-strategies that people follow. She wants to map out the options for herself. Driven by this curiosity, she becomes witness to a wide range of – at times extreme - human behaviour. The performance is an occasion for Nada to structure her ‘archive of possibilities’. Together with the audience she contemplates the images, and looks for the implications and patterns that emerge. She aims to get a comprehensive overview and to reach a conclusion: the vision of a life worth pursuing.

Point Blank premiered in 2007 at the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels, and has since been performed at various theatres and festivals in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, France, Hungary, Norway, Portugal, Belgium, Serbia, the United States, Ireland, Poland and China. It is available in both English and French-language versions.

From the press:

“The purpose of life explored through the lens of a camera. A quest that interrogates our contemporary life: solitude, living together, trust in the other.... One hell of a performance!” (Le Soir, Belgium)

“What happens on stage is seemingly simple: someone projects images from a laptop, Nada, the young girl talks, we watch photographs. But in thought and philosophy it is a very rich evening, as well as in terms of the theatre-aesthetical questions that are addressed here. The performance deals with issues like time, humanness, and reality. We watch the pictures, we listen to Nada’s comments, and in the meanwhile, inside each spectator’s head his own film is playing, the images of his own life are being projected. And he is contemplating the question: Indeed, how should one live? Is it good the way it is?” (Revizor, Hungary)

“On a nearly blank stage, in the semi-dark, and in the least confrontational way possible, Nada Gambier self-effacingly and entirely wrecks one’s head. …*****” (Irish Theatre Magazine)

“Point Blank is an investigation into serendipity and wanting to control one’s potential. A simple, understated, yet highly charged theatrical presentation.” (New York Press, U.S.)