Jakop Ahlbom Company

Lebensraum

Two men live together in a tiny room. They have ingenuously solved the problem of short of space. All the furniture has multiple functions: the bed doubles as a piano and the bookcase serves as a fridge. To compensate for the absence of a woman, the pair creates a mechanical cleaning lady. But it soon becomes clear that she has no intention of quietly going about her chores. She has free will. Tensions mount, and the room starts getting more and more crowd…

Lebensraum is inspired by slapstick and physical comedy works of Buster Keaton from the 1920s. Live music will be accompanied by the band Alamo Race Track. Director Jakop Ahlbom won the 2012 VSCD Mime Award at the Dutch Theatre Festival for Lebensraum.


 

Pure physical comedy, pure fuckin’ fun. －Dig Boston
 

Lebensraum challenges and inspires audience. －Boston Globe
 

Comical chaos, every detail directed to perfection. －Parool

Jakop Ahlbom, Director and Concept 

Jakop Ahlbom was born in Sweden and moved to the Netherlands to study Mime at the Amsterdam School of the Arts. His gift for choreography had been noticed – and so had his poeticism and his ability to get his cast to unleash their energy, bravado and physicality. After graduation, he worked with a variety of theatre makers as a performer, choreographer and director. In 2000 he started working on his own, idiosyncratic oeuvre, which includes Stella Maris (2000), Nur zur Erinnerung (2002), Lost (2004), Vielfalt (2006), De Architect (2008), Innenschau (2010), Lebensraum (2012), Het Leven een Gebruiksaanwijzing (2013), Bug (2014), Horror (2014), Swan Lake (2016) , Innenschau Revisited (2018) and Le Bal (2019).

 

Alamo Race Track, Music 

Alamo Race Track is from Amsterdam, and experienced their biggest break in 2006, when a lively dressing-room performance of their single, Black Cat John Brown, wound its away onto YouTube, attarcing over 200 thousand views. Sharing the same title as its hit single, Black Cat John Brown was released in October 2006 and quickly became a fixture on the Netherlands' alternative music charts. When Black Cat John Brown was picked for inclusion in the TV series Grey's Anatomy, American label Minty Fresh took notice and released the album stateside in July 2007. Since 2010 ART and Jakop Ahlbom are working together. Alamo Race Track was involved in Innenschau (2010), Lebensraum (2012), Swan Lake (2016), Innenschau Revisited (2018) and Le Bal (2019).

 

Director and Concept / Jakop Ahlbom

Performers / Reinier Schimmel, Jakop Ahlbom, Silke Hundertmark, Leonard Lucieer, Maarten Pieter Holwerda

Music / Alamo Race Track

Set Design / Douwe Hibma, Jakop Ahlbom

Dramaturge / Judith Wendel

Lighting Design / Yuri Schreuders

Technicians / Yuri Schreuders, Allard Vonk, Michel van der Weijden

Special Props Design / Rob Hillenbrink

Make-up / Anabel Urquijo Claveria