- the act of conveying or giving to another; as light through a transparant body -



Esperanto - the language to be understood by everyone.



The piece Esperanto, in preparation for Inter Azioni 2004, is part of a four-piece cooperating performance.
Quintessential is the question: how do we relate to the 'other'?
Working with writer Maya Rasker, Payens seeks to integrate her writing and his means as visual and performing artist to explore that very question.
Experiment, research and relationship amalgamates in the entire piece Esperanto, a cooperation with Steve Bradley and John Sturgeon.
Each working from his own field of expertise they seek to compose one piece of art:

On the stage there will be a plastic wall, suggesting an inside and an outside world.
The wall could be seen as a skin.
Skin - transmission - interaction - dialogue - connecting.
While the transparency suggests a relationship, the wall connects and divides the two people on stage. Skin through which we invite each-other in - keep each-other out.
We wish to relate, but are we able to?

Maya Rasker (1965) achieved national and international success with her first novel Unknown Destination (2000). The book was nominated for several prestigious literary awards,
both in the Netherlands and abroad. In the fall of 2003 her second novel Props was published and widely reviewed.
In between she wrote the theatre play Collateral Damage (2002) and gave several guest lectures at universities as well as a masterclass at the Academy of Fine Arts in Groningen.
Rasker lives in Amsterdam and is currently working on her third novel.
She has never been on stage before.