SKaGeN

Valentijn Dhaenens pays tribute to the art of speech-making in BigMouth, delivering rhetoric that spans 2,500 years from the rousing to the notorious to the downright terrifying.

Modulating his voice and expressions with chameleon-like versatility and indefatigable energy, Dhaenens morphs into a succession of leaders, recalling among others Pericles, Goebbels, Kennedy, King, Bin Laden and Bush.

Switching between multiple microphones, he ingeniously weaves together extracts from war declarations, sermons and farewells.

To research BigMouth, Dhaenens read a thousand different speeches. Highlighting the potency of words through history, they are here interspersed with evocative songs that form part of a looping, harmonic soundscape created live onstage.

BigMouth is performed in English, Latin, Dutch, French and German with English surtitles.