Sonder

How long can a grieving partner carry on imagined conversations? Can artificial intelligence reunite a widower and his beloved wife, physically, here and now? What does technology do with our most intimate experiences?

The visual artist Kaat Pype lost her mother unexpectedly. Her bond with her father and their shared grief led to a photography project. She photographed him in the houses of single women of his generation – interiors where someone else’s absence is felt – as if he had lived there for twenty years. Director Yves Degryse filmed these encounters and created a ‘making of’ documentary. Kaat, her father and Yves stand on stage with the musician Berlinde Deman. On stage, the father talks to his late wife. He does the same every evening. Differently every time.

In Sonder, the divide between life and death is temporarily elided by artificial intelligence. Whereas Orpheus goes down into the underworld to retrieve his beloved Eurydice in the Greek myth, Sonder uses technology to evoke the voice, presence and even the physical appearance of a woman who has died. In this way, the play proposes a contemporary variant of an ancient motif: the attempt to keep the dead close.

The technology in Sonder is not a miracle cure but an opening. An opening that allows love to breathe for a moment longer before silence catches up with it again.

Sonder is an innovative coproduction with Wintercircus Gent.

Premiere on 18 February 2027 at NTGent.