Alain Platel / Serge Kakudji / Fabrizio Cassol

Arias by Georg Friedrich Händel and Christoph Willibald Gluck are performed on a stage littered with spent bullet casings – a design by Congolese sculptor Freddy Tsimba to symbolize the omnipresence of civil war. Serge Kakudji will bring the allegorical ebullience of this music and its clear-cut and yet chiselled, sometimes almost unearthly attitude to his homeland. For the stage presentation, the countertenor from Lubumbashi and the Belgian choreographer Alain Platel were inspired by the »sapeurs«, the dandies of Kinshasa. They style themselves as if they were rulers, not only of the Congo, but of the entire world – an equally Baroque and life-affirming attitude in a country that for decades has been disfigured by war and destruction. COUP FATAL is a tribute to Baroque music and the dark elegance of the Congo.