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Patrick Vandewalle, founder of Teater Exces at word:

Teater Exces is a travelling movement theatre company, founded in 1972 by author-choreographer Patrick Vandewalle. It is one of the few non-verbal theatre companies that can boast such a long uninterrupted period of activity, and with a record of several productions of international allure.
Teater Exces offers a wide choice of visual acts and creations, both for children and adults.
The company owes it wide renown to its specific playing style, in which long poses involve into repetitive moments, and mime and movement theatre blend into each other.

Because Teater Exces mainly uses the language of movement, there are no linguistic limitations, and performances can be staged anywhere in the world; as the company proves repeatedly in Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, Spain and Japan.

Teater Exces offers both visual, abstract and conceptually narrative productions and playful, visual(street)theatre, in which the unheedful spectator, for the general hilarity of the audience, suddenly finds him/herself participating in the spectacle.

Teater Exces is getting subsidies from the city of Ghent as well as the province of East Flanders, but not from the Ministry of the Flemish Community. After 38 years, the Flemish Community still refuses to recognize our theatre. Hence we are one of the few professional Belgian companies that manage to survive without subsidies.

It seems that in Belgium mime and movement theatre is still an unknown or even non-existing world. We have submitted countless claims for structural and project subsidies but to no avail. The numerous consultative boards are in contradiction as far as Teater Exces is concerned. Street theatre still is underestimated in Belgium and does not get the recognition it deserves.

Our language of movement involves a lot of street performances. As we don't get subsidized, we have to perform as cheaply as possible without making any concession concerning the artistic value of our work. We succeeded in doing so for 38 years. Though the Ministry of the Flemish Community thinks we are old hat, abroad we are praised for being unique and ground-breaking...

In Belgium it is the audience in particular that loves us, we just don't get political support. The general public thinks it is a disgrace that Teater Exces does not get subsidized.