http://www.compagnie-cecilia.be/

Compagnie Cecilia was founded in 2006 by Johan Heldenbergh, Marijke Pinoy and Arne Sierens. These three theatre-makers had previously worked together in various set-ups over a period of 10 years. Johan Heldenbergh performed in Arne Sierens’ production Mijn Blackie (1998), which forms the first reference point. Heldenbergh and Marijke Pinoy worked together intensively with Theater Zuidpool. Both performed in several productions by Arne Sierens, who previously worked at various theatre companies, including Dastheater.
All three artists had staged leading productions in the period before Compagnie Cecilia. Pinoy created Yerma vraagt een toefeling (2005), a coproduction with Het Muziek Lod and Theater Zuidpool. Heldenbergh toured the parish halls of Flanders with Massis, The Musical (2003), a coproduction by Dastheater and Theater Zuidpool. Sierens created a furore with the trilogy Moeder & Kind, Bernadetje and Allemaal Indiaan (1999-2000) which he made together with the choreographer Alain Platel.
The parable Maria Eeuwigdurende Bijstand (Dastheater, 2004) is the key performance which these three artists created together and which forms the origin of Compagnie Cecilia.

For all three, Compagnie Cecilia was also the first time they were together in a single organisation. They opted for a dynamic artistic model in which they constantly take up changing positions and roles. Sometimes Sierens sets to work with the two others as author-director, such as with Trouwfeesten en processen enzovoorts (2006) and Broeders van liefde (2008). On other occasions, Marijke Pinoy creates and performs a piece herself, such as Soeur Sourire (2007). Johan Heldenbergh also writes, performs and directs his own creations such as The Broken Circle Breakdown featuring the Cover-ups of Alabama (2008). Working in this way, Compagnie Cecilia has been able to develop its own utterly unique repertoire.

The three are also united in their pursuit of authenticity. They create independent theatre that presents the spoken word closely linked with physicality and music. The words never stand alone. All three opt for ritual and physical theatre that can have as direct and emotional an effect on the audience as possible, as if they were athletes of the heart. Compagnie Cecilia aims to make theatre which dares to go into every corner and in all directions and to transcend boundaries. Theatre which dares to alternate between ugly and beautiful, which, without shame but also with trepidation, addresses the ‘entrails’ of existence, the despairing soul, and which shows suffering but also the ridiculous. For Compagnie Cecilia, it is all about these contrasts.

Arne Sierens scored a hit with Altijd Prijs (2008), a theatre production about two young men and their troubled relationship with the world. It features Titus De Voogdt and Robrecht Vanden Thoren, two actors who, together with Mieke Dobbels, are gradually forming part of the expanded core of Compagnie Cecilia, and they give a highly physical performance, propelled by live musical accompaniment by Jean-Yves Evrard and a choreography by Koen Augustijnen that is both rough and tender in equal measure.
The female counterpart, Apenverdriet (2009), is a production about two women (played by Wine Dierickx and Marijke Pinoy) that shows how the doubts, fears and expectations of different generations are not so different as one thinks.
Together with Mieke Dobbels, Johan Heldenbergh created The Broken Circle Breakdown featuring the Cover-Ups of Alabama (2008) which is set in the world of country and bluegrass music and tells the story of a couple suffering the greatest possible loss.
In 2010, Arne Sierens will be creating Schöne Blumen, a performance which provides an insight into the bittersweet world of nightclubs and ladies of pleasure. In 2011, Titus De Voogdt and Johan Heldenbergh will be working on Vorst-Forest, a coproduction with the KVS in which they go in search of a pure theatrical language. Expressive, funny and memorable, with no excess baggage. De Voogdt and Heldenbergh are a tried-and-tested duo and guarantee empathic melancholy, authentic helplessness and a great deal of wry humour.