living apartment together

MAKERS

Yves Degryse / BERLIN & NTGent

PREMIERE

8 May 2025

SYNOPSIS

Living Apartment Together  is set at twilight in the city. A group of spectators in headphones watch the side wall of an apartment block in fascination. In six apartments, tableaux unfurl that highlight the poignant beauty of our everyday existence.

As if by magic, director Yves Degryse and BERLIN, house artist at NTGent, open up the outer wall of an apartment block like a tin of sardines. The headphones put you momentarily in the midst of things, with the sense that you are eavesdropping from afar as the life of the city whirls around you.

Living Apartment Together  has its world premiere in Ghent and is the successor of The Making of Berlin, selected as one of the very best performances of 2022 by numerous media and still touring Europe today. The brand new performance of BERLIN is inspired by Georges Perec’s fascinating novel Life A User’s Manual.

Degryse interviewed people with an unusual story in different cities as a basis for the script. He developed these stories into screenplays in partnership with Angelo Tijssens who has worked as a screenwriter on films including Girl and Close by Lukas Dhont.

Living Apartment Together  is about turning points, invisible synchronicity and the realisation that every beginning is nothing more than a sequel.

CREDITS

concept en direction: Yves Degryse / script: Yves Degryse, Angelo Tijssens / artistic advice: Beyond The Spoken/Barbara Raes / production: NTGent & BERLIN / music composition: Peter Van Laerhoven / sound design: Winne Clement / coproduction: to be confirmed

With the support of the Flemish Government.

PRESS QUOTES

(about previous productions of BERLIN)

✒ "The genius theatre film The making of Berlin  overwhelms from start to finish" 
--- De Standaard (BE) ***** /// Top ten best performances of 2022

✒ "Inimitably, this production brings together everything BERLIN excels at: a clever play on fact and fiction, documentary theatre and music."
--- De Morgen (BE) on 'The making of Berlin' /// Top ten best performances of 2022

✒ "The making of Berlin  is an overwhelming and moving ode to the power of stories, and how they can lift people above themselves and bring them together."
--- Etcetera (BE)

✒ "To theatre group BERLIN, meanwhile, we owe one of the most important productions of this year"
--- Volkskrant (NL) ***** about 'The making of Berlin'

✒ "True Copy uses theatre simply and above all grandiosely as a tool between imagination and credulity. What is true, what is false? Is cult art or counterfeit?"
--- Trouw (NL) ***** about 'True Copy'

✒ "Zvizdal  is a poignant, flawless film portrait of two old people and the things that pass."
--- De Standaard (BE) ****

✒ "BERLIN elevates non-communication to art"
--- Volkskrant (NL) about 'Tagfish'

BIOGRAPHY

Yves Degryse (°1977) is the artistic director of BERLIN, the company he founded in 2003 with Bart Baele and Caroline Rochlitz. Alongside Barbara Raes and Melih Gençboyacı, he was recently appointed artistic director of NTGent. Since 2022 he has been the sole artistic director of BERLIN, with The making of Berlin  as his first creation. At  the same time, he created space within the company to support young creators, two associate artists who each carry out a project within BERLIN.

From 2000 to 2009 Degryse was part of the theatre collective SKaGeN. He trained as an actor with Dora van der Groen and
performed with several companies (De Queeste, De Onderneming, De Maan, Comp. Marius). Besides his work in theatre, he can also regularly be seen on television and on the big screen (Chantal, Callboys, De Helaasheid der Dingen, Broken Circle Breakdown, etc).

ON BERLIN

‘Armed with cameras, interview techniques, editing tables and actors, BERLIN portrays reality like a painter used to do: with a bit more color, lively angles of incidence and a brush setting that betrays a critical undertone.’
--- Knack Focus (Belgian magazine)

BERLIN was founded in 2003 by artistic director Yves Degryse together with Bart Baele and Caroline Rochlitz. Alongside Barbara Raes and Melih Gençboyacı, Yves Degryse is now one of the three artistic directors of NTGent. BERLIN is joining in as house-maker.

The productions of BERLIN are positioned on the cusp of documentary and theatre. Each creation starts from reality and is never limited to just one discipline in the creative process. Content decides how a story is told: through images, live music, technology, text, as an installation...

In 2024, BERLIN celebrates its 20th anniversary. The foundations for the company were laid in 2003 but it was on 26 October 2004 that Jerusalem, BERLIN's first production, saw the light at arts centre Vooruit (Ghent, BE).