SERDI Lara Staal & NTGent

I hate the number six
There were six of us at home,
my parents died the sixth month of the year
when I was six...

***

SERDI  tells the story of Serdi. All about how someone who has nothing makes his voice his home. As an orphan, moving from institution to institution and from school to juvenile detention, Serdi made himself a promise. He taught himself beatboxing. He trained until he could do it. The acoustics of solitary confinement proved perfect for refining his technique.

SERDI  shows how a person's voice can become a weapon. How a rootless life, threatening to slip away, suddenly regained its footing by disciplining the voice. How the power of sound and composition finally made it possible to communicate with others.

***

I had nothing,
no toys, 
no pocket money,
no Flippos,
no Pokémon cards,
no Cameboy, just nothing.
But my mouth, they couldn't steal it.

***

The performance SERDI  is not only a journey through a series of institutions, diverse forms of social injustice and violence, but also a place to end the endless search for love and affirmation.

Theatre as a place to engage with demons of the past and ghosts of the present. A voice as a weapon that gets rid of the need to please once and for all.