IS: The Horror Show

How should one analyze staged and theatrically planned murderous acts? What is the relationship between IS's bombastic horror-pathos and the fascist European propaganda of the 1930s? A late night show with conversations, a reading and music.

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Information

Date and time Saturday 21 January 2017 22:15 tot 22:55 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1

A late-night show about a daring subject: today's campaign of terror by the Islamic State within and outside the Arabic world. Iraqi-born writer Hassan Blasim - The Guardian called him "perhaps the best writer of Arabic fiction alive" - reads from his short story collection The Corpse Exhibition (2014) in which he pictures daily life in contemporary Iraq not only by vivid, lurid and violent scenes but by showing the surreal, humoristic and enchanting sides of his characters. The collection is published in its Dutch language version titled Lijkententoonstelling during Winternachten Festival 2017.

Journalist Hassnae Bouazza discusses the subject with Hassan Blasim, with highly esteemed political essayist Ian Buruma and with Dutch top writer Arnon Grunberg.

How should one analyze staged and theatrically planned murderous acts? What is the relationship between IS's bombastic horror-pathos and the fascist European propaganda of the 1930s?

Spoken Beat Night accompanies Hassan Blasim during the reading from The Corpse Exhibition

Line-up

Spoken Beat Night

Spoken word artist Jeannine Valeriano and her team of (guest) musicians and drawing artists - together Spoken Beat Night - create cross-over concerts in which jazz, spoken word, world music, readings, live animation and funky beats merge. The two artists do live sketches, which are personal and imagistic interpretations of the text. Spoken Beat Night plays with language; the team, plus top musicians from the comopolitan world of improvised music, pull the writers' words into the world of sound. With Jeannine Valerio (vocals), Maarten Ornstein (bass clarinet, saxophone and electronics), guitarist Paul Pallesen, illustrator and animator Floor de Goede, drawing artist Hans van de Meulengraaf, cellist Jörg Brinkmann and – in Saturday Night Unlimited - as a guest Nizar Rohana on oud.
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Hassnae Bouazza

(Morocco, 1973) is a journalist, columnist, translator, researcher and producer. She publishes in various media (including Dutch national daily newspaper NRC and women's magazine Linda); runs her own online magazine for culture lovers, Aicha Qandisha. She compiled a story collection about Arab women, Achter de sluier (Behind the Veil, 1999); 2013 saw the publication of her book Arabieren kijken (Looking at Arabs), about "ordinary" people in the Arab world. She made TV programs for various broadcasters, including the documentary series Seks en de Zonde (Sex and Sin). Together with Michelin-starred chef Soenil Bahadoer, she wrote the culinary books Spicy Chef (2020) and Streetfood (2022). She published two further books in 2022: Een koffer vol citroenen (A Suitcase Full of Lemons), a requiem for and portrait of her mother, and Arbeidsmigranten in Nederland (Migrant Labourers in the Netherlands).
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Hassan Blasim

(1973, Baghdad) was named "perhaps the greatest living writer of Arabic fiction" by The Guardian in 2010. Both his debut, The Madman of Freedom Square, as well the 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize winner The Iraqi Christ comprise stories of war, migration and refugee trauma. Due to his taboo-busting writing style he has also been called the James Joyce of Arabic literature. For a long time his work was only available digitally and was immediately banned upon publication in Jordan. In 2004, Blasim landed in Finland after years of drifting around as a refugee; he'd ended up in difficulties in Saddam Hussein's Iraq after shooting the film The Wounded Camera in the Kurdish north of the country. His work has been or is being translated into 20 languages. In March 2016 his first play premiered in a Helsinki theatre. The first Dutch translation of his work, the collection Lijkententoonstelling will appear during the festival.
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Arnon Grunberg

(Netherlands, 1971) is one of the most successful Dutch writers, both at home and abroad. The prolific novelist, columnist, essayist, poet and scriptwriter lives and works mainly in New York. His fiction tackles themes such as religion, parenthood, love and relationships. His essays, columns, debates and performances seek out the polemics on topical issues. His debut novel and international breakthrough, Blauwe maandagen (Blue Mondays, 1994), was followed by award-winning and internationally successful novels such as Phantom Pain (2000), The Asylum Seeker (2003), Tirza (2006), Onze oom (Our Uncle, 2007), Huid en haar (Tooth and Nail, 2010), Moedervlekken (Birthmarks, 2016) and Bezette gebieden (Occupied Territories, 2020). Between 2000 and 2008 he also published novels and essays under the pseudonym Marek van der Jagt. The prize jury called the author "a writer unequalled in ambition, productivity and intellectual power".
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Ian Buruma

(The Hague, NL, 1951) is a sinologist, japanologist, journalist and writer. Asian culture, democracy, religion, politics, Islamic fundamentalism, and the aftermath of World War II are returning subjects in his vast body of work. His essays have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, NRC and The New York Review of Books. Buruma grew up in The Hague, the child of a British mother and a Dutch father. His book Their Promised Land: My grandparents in times of love and war tells the story of his London-born, German-Jewish grandparents. He has been a professor of democracy, human rights and journalism in New York since 2003. He received the Erasmus Prize in 2008.
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