NTGent City Theatre

Sonder

Yves Degryse, BERLIN & ntgent

premiere 18.02.2027

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. The role of the deceased woman is played by Alva Ishii, NTGent’s resident digital artist.

Artificial intelligence in Sonder will be used to introduce superhuman activity in theatre; not as a tool to replace humans, but to do exactly what they can’t. In casu: recreate with exceptional precision the voice and physical appearance of a deceased mother. At the same time, Sonder very much questions the seemingly unavoidable introduction of AI in stage arts and everyday life.

NTGent introduced Alva Ishii to the general public in late 2024, when visitors were able to make a call to the digital resident artist. The very first version of Alva was based on NTGent’s digital archive and was imbued with a range of characteristics, including the city theatre’s five core values. It is this version that is being updated during the creative process of Sonder in collaboration with Ghent’s Wintercircus.

'Within the Goose Bumps Tech Lab of NTGent and Wintercircus, both parties have committed to a long-term collaboration,' says Yves Degryse. 'We set up a lab in which the introduction of new technology within the performing arts is researched, questioned and developed.'

‘In the run-up to Sonder, we are working on a number of technical adjustments, such as a more natural tone in Alva’s voice and improving her reaction speed. But we are also taking steps in the areas of sustainability and ethics. By running partly on local servers, the new version will consume less energy and, step by step, we will become less reliant on the major tech companies in the US and their monopolies.’

Tracking emotions

The Wintercircus in Ghent is a tech hub where dozens of companies specialising in new technologies such as AI have gathered – the ideal partners, therefore, to inspire director Yves Degryse, whilst also making his ideas possible. 'Among other things, we are considering tracking the widower’s emotions during the performance,' says Degryse. ‘If we can share that information live with Alva, she can react in real time to her co-star’s feelings.’

Another challenge is feeding Alva with memories of the deceased mother. Existing technology offers a great deal of help. ‘A simple prompt is enough for AI to trace the voice of a deceased person from a large number of videos.’ But there are also some real headaches. ‘The biggest problem might well be the accent of moeke. You can imagine that there aren’t any language models for that yet.’

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Dates

Thu 18.02.27 — 20u00

20u00

Sonder

Sonder

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Dates

Credits

On predecessors 'Living Apartment Together' (2025) and 'The Making of Berlin' (2023):

'Living Apartment Together' is an ingenious mix of film and theatre, in which artistic director Yves Degryse stunningly makes the everyday lives of residents of an old apartment building special

A great achievement (...) As moving as it is impressive, 'Living Apartment Together' witness to both the small and the very large world we inhabit together

During my night-time stroll, the city remains a theatre, and so 'Living Apartment Together' ultimately succeeds in its aim. I feel part of a whole, connected to all the little lives that make up the city

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Also available for programmation

Living Apartment Together

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