ExploreTheArch's summer production is a time to focus on our core theme of migration. In 2019 we honoured the post-war inter-Eurpoean migration in the story of one painter, Marcelle van Caillie, in her centenary year of birth.
Marcelle van Caillie's story is one of exquisite moments of achievement and love, haunted by loss. Her life sheds light on the surprises and assaults of war, the experience of divorce in the '50s and the challenges of forging a career as an avant-garde female artist.
The House of Marcelle is a performance of expressionist dreams inspired by her letters of '55. New composition, live music and puppetry forms on strings and pulleys express the shifting uncertainty of migration and the exquisite moments of hope.
Created by Gail Borrow with engineer @PoorlyBeetle and musicians Ali Alana, Juliet Grace, Vladimir Miller and Nick Weekes. With thanks to Archive Department at BOZAR, Brussels for research materials and to Akiko and Henry Sanford for the loan of the British archive on which this production is based.
