Tooth of Time | Tim Natens

In his latest theater performance Tand des Tijds, director and actor Tim Natens focuses on the figure of Gerard Soete, the Belgian colonial police commissioner who was commissioned in 1961 to make the body of the executed Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba disappear. Soete dissolved Lumumba's body in sulfuric acid and kept some incisors as private souvenirs, two colonial trophies: a gruesome act of which Natens unravels the symbolic, historical, and political charge by completely crawling into the skin of the colonial police inspector. Delivered to his account, the audience is carried along into a troubling issue about complicity, reparation, and guilt. Tand des Tijds takes the web of stories around the murder of Lumumba as its subject, and challenges the mechanisms of historiography by staging the colonial violence behind it unvarnished. Text and acting: Tim Natens Eindregie: Mike van Alfen Dramaturgie: Bart Capelle Coaching: Jovial Mbenga, Haider Al Timimi, Jos Verbist Scenografie: Sven Roofthooft Lichtontwerp: Lucas van Haesbroeck Techniek: Rodion Gholobov, Koen van der Meersche Grafisch design: Mario Debaene Productieleiding: Sandra Diris, Nona Bal Producent: Moussem Nomadisch Kunstencentrum Coproducenten: Antigone, Monty Met thanks to: Christophe Engels, training center Destelheide, Joppe Wouters, Ludo De Witte, Walter Zinzen Met the support of: Vlaamse Gemeenschap, training center Destelheide