Kyoko Scholiers

In 2012 Kyoko was invited in Paris (FBL Paris/Polyfoon) to write JEANNE, based on the trials of Jeanne d’ Arc. She researched and wrote during her six week residency, for which she received a grant of FBL Paris.

In 2015, Kyoko created Bastard, a comical-existential research into her alleged descent from Napoleon Bonaparte. The multimedial theatre performance was very well received by the press, selected by BesteBuren and Moving Arts and toured intensively in Flanders and the Netherlands.

For Misconnected, Kyoko created an installation with fragments of phone conversations with people who are in one way or another disconnected from society. This installation of intriguing telephone boxes moving slowly over a 24m railway track premiered in MAS during the Zomer van Antwerpen in July 2017 and toured through public spaces in Belgium and the Netherlands ever since (a.o.TAZ, Museum Dr. Guislain, kc Nona, Festival vd Gelijkheid, Theater op de Markt, KAAP, C-mine, Schouwburg Kortrijk, Boulevard Festival, MoMeNT, Brakke Grond, Artefact 2020, Het Theaterfestival 2020 and Krasj 21).

In September 2021 Kyoko’s new project Boy premiered at Opera Ballet Flanders: Boy is a music theatre piece based on two years of field research in the world of youth care. Inspired by the interviews Kyoko did with juvenal court judges, consultants and educators, foster parents, child psychiatrists, children who were taken away from their parents and parents who had to give away their children and based on what she saw and heard during her voluntary work in a foster care institution, Kyoko wrote a fictional case about a ten year old boy. What kind of impact does it have on a person to grow up without the bedrock of the family as safe haven? What are the limits of loyalty towards the parents? And can you escape your own origins? Scholiers portrays an urgently relevant reality in an original music theatre performance with a surefooted cast: next to the young leading actor Sofie Decleir, Tiny Bertels, Joris Van den Brande, Greg Timmermans and Laurence Roothooft perform the surrounding characters.

Joris Blanckaert wrote an exceptional composition that is performed live by the Opera Ballet Flanders’ Children's Chorus and HERMESensemble. The project got overwhelmed with 4-star reviews in the Belgian newspapers and standing ovations in 24 sold out performances in Flanders and the Netherlands. BOY will tour again in February ’22, in May ‘22 it will play on the Rotterdam Opera Festival and in July at Theater Aan Zee in Ostend.