ErTAZeens | 20 JAAR TAZ

Oostende, Oh la la! Toetonne!

Première

2018
Film - Laureaat
Loods NMBS

Lester Arias kreeg voor House de TAZ-Sabam Jongtheaterschrijfprijs 2017. Tijdens Chambres d’O 2018 bracht hij de voorstelling in een huiskamer, hij verloor zijn hart aan Oostende en maakte de afgelopen maanden de documentaire Toetonne en het lied ‘Oostende’, dat hij live zal brengen.

I’m ARIAH LESTER, a performance artist and choreographer from Venezuela. Even though I started doing modern dance, during the last couple of years my work started to take more the direction of music-theatre, songwriting, singing and electronic music production.

When I begun to make beats and write my songs, I was very shy, so the way I started putting my music out there was inviting my friends for little concerts in my living room. I am curious about this clash: of the intimacy of a house set-up with the eccentricity of my music, my costumes and the performance situations I have in my head (which are more for a big stage).

Inspired by this, I decided to come to Oostende - a little city in West-Flanders, Belgium - and sing my music in unusual spaces, living rooms, cafes, and meet some of the local people in their own environment.

So, that’s what I did! It was filmed, recorded and all of it took the shape of a documentary where you will see and listen to wonderful stories and voices of some of the citizens of Oostende.

I also made a song called ‘Oostende’ and the documentary became a videoclip for the song. The song, the documentary and the videoclip are my gift for you.

Thanks for being here,

Ariah.

Met dank aan: TAZ, De Grote Post.