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Jury quote:
“ravensbrück reveals itself to be particularly great in its visuality and quirkiness. It communicates to everyone, regardless of age, language and background. So poetic and unpolished, balancing on the border of animated film and visual art, theater should be like this more often”

Aline Vervoort, the grandmother of Stefanie Claes, is arrested together with her parents in her house in Winksele (Belgium) during the Second World War. She spent a year in the German women’s concentration camp Ravensbrück. She survives those dark months full of cold, hunger and abuse, but her life is forever marked by the horrific events of war. Nothing is ever the same. 

As a child, Stefanie sometimes dreams that soldiers invade her street and she has to flee. But it is only at the age of 16 that she fully realizes the drama that has taken place in her family. She starts to have conversations about it with her grandmother and mother. Gradually it becomes clear that the feelings related to the war are a part of the family’s life. The war is everywhere. 

With her previous piece Mia Fair (Schäxpir, Linz, 2021), theatre maker Stefanie Claes developed her artistic language: small, traditional, personal and visual. This way of telling continues to theatricalize the story of Aline Vervoort, and the echo trauma can have through generations. As a source of inspiration for ravensbrück, Stefanie bases herself – in addition to documentaries, historical reference books and interviews with trauma experts – on conversations with her (grand)mother and fragments of personal letters. 

ravensbrück is a wordless and visual performance for adults and (their) children from the age of 10, for a limited, intimate audience. More than about the literal meaning of a war trauma, ravensbrück is about how certain events have a lifelong effect in and on your life. Three generations of women are central, because everyone is someone’s child.