20/05/2026
There’s little use in telling Hortense’s story without considering what’s currently happening in the world. We should never forget the courage shown by resistance fighters, but most of all we should learn from it. We too can speak out against regimes perpetrating crimes against humanity all over the world.
But let’s start with the situation in Belgium. Our government chooses to spend billions of dollars on army equipment and weapons. Money that isn’t spent on health care, public transit, or schools. Even us, normally our theatre group receives subsidies to participate in festivals like Sapperlot. This year we were refused for budgetary reasons. There’s no money to fix societal problems, only for war.
Luckily, we came across Hortense’s story. A story that we must continue to tell. A story that motivated friends and family members to support us financially so we could tell it to you.
But this is not the only thing Hortense’s story taught us. The genocide in Gaza is still ongoing. Everywhere in the world people die in wars fought over oil, power, and some people’s fragile masculinity. The day we played our performance in Italy on Sapperlot, the 8th of May, the day Belgium was freed from the N***s, was a fitting day to speak up, all together, against fascism. We wanted to commemorate and celebrate the victory against fascism with 130 young people from 9 different countries, to show that we want a united and peaceful Europe.
