Pedaleando Hacia El Cielo
As darkness falls, Pedaleando Hacia el Cielo, or Pedaleando for short, tells an enchanting love story. The story embraces togetherness during dark days and highlights angels balancing between heaven and earth. Pedaleando Hacia el Cielo, which means “cycling into heaven,” brings people together and bestows hope.
In this aerial performance, declarations of love are rewritten through movement, a breath, a word and a song. An immersive mix of cinematic images, light, song, dance and live music immerses the audience in an enchanting experience.
The city itself serves as the appropriate backdrop for this performance, ingeniously integrating film footage to create an array of poetic dreamscapes.
Garden of Angels
The aerial performance Garden of Angels focuses on lightness and cheerfulness. The performance is based on a wedding where the bride and groom celebrate their love, surrounded by musicians, animals and fairytale characters. Inspired by history, where a bridal bouquet contained strong herbs to drive away evil spirits, angels become the great gift for the bride and groom, moving the audience with their energy.
Theater Tol presents an exciting spectacle full of fire, warmth and sensuality, in which reality and fantasy merge into a poetic whole, with angels descending from heaven.
Bike Parade
Enchanting bicycle objects, elegant dancers and white apparitions ride through the streets and make the audience dream away. The dancers move in their fairy costumes to music by Theater Tol. When the bikes stop, an impressive dance act begins with breathtaking costumes and props Bike Parade is a fairy tale, a dream that fans out as the parade continues. This performance can be played in daylight, but is also wonderfully beautiful with lighting at dusk.
Mariage Fantastique
Mariage Fantastique says something about love. Musical grooms accompany the floating, luminous brides. It is a parade of poetic images and sounds; a brass band with horns and percussionists. Theater Tol’s original, poetic language comes back to life. The audience is awash in melodies influenced by different cultures and traditions.
Hotel Watercage
Hotel Watercage is a special outdoor performance by Theater Tol that symbolizes the battle between the head and the heart. Supported by live music, acrobatic dance phrases and sophisticated scenography, the characters take you into their story. The main characters of Hotel Watercage seem to have definitively lost each other. The absence of the other puts life in a different perspective. The lovers cling to their goodbyes. They have lost each other and have long failed to see the beauty in each other. They must learn to look at and discover each other anew. In this way they can revive each other and only then can they experience happiness together.
And they are not alone in their quest. At Hotel Watercage, more people are on the dole. Not only because they have not followed the designated route, but mostly because they have completely lost sight of themselves. As a result, they miss connecting with others. The environment views them from a great distance, condemns them, deprives them of freedom and then places each individual in total isolation. Despite the hopeless situation, the outcasts make frantic attempts to regain a grip on reality. They want to recapture their freedom and transform their utter loneliness into a catharsis from which a healing power emanates. The realization that even in captivity one is not alone also strengthens their conviction to turn the situation around. The soulmates eventually find each other and together they fight to regain the key to happiness. They do not give up and continue to fight to free themselves from the black birds in their heads until they finally rid themselves of their past once and for all.
Even the black demons go through a development in Hotel Watercage. They experience firsthand how it feels when you are rejected and left out of the group. The demons are confronted with the consequences of their own actions, which leads to a different understanding. As a result, they eventually give in, lay down their weapons and reconnect with the other residents of Hotel Watercage.
The story culminates in a powerful finale in which everyone rises to great heights and the water provides them with strength to continue growing. Afterwards, the audience feels happy and hopeful, imbued with the power of freedom and water.
Tarta
Tarta is an enchanting floating installation in the shape of a cake, on which film images are projected. We immerse you in a moment of peace and quiet. Take your time, sit back and be enchanted. Enjoy a sensory experience, where image and sound come together and bring you closer to nature. The performance translates poetic feelings into beautiful cinematic images, enchanting dance and beautiful music. It is a unique experience that transports you to a world full of wonder and beauty.
Tolworld
Wandering around in another world, a world of music, dance and film. A poetic universe. And in your own city. You can. Maybe in your city, too. In April 2022, Theater Tol’s most recent production premiered in Leeuwarden. Three nights in a row, audiences could enjoy Tolworld. For three evenings in the Frisian capital, Theater Tol had created its own universe. In consultation with the city council, Theater Tol had created a walking route along a canal, a park and a lake. For three hours, the audience could literally step through the magical world of this theater company.
Along the way, all sorts of things happened: angels floating above the water, installations waiting for you behind a corner, a singer descending on you from heaven, cyclists cycling through the air and dancers appearing above your head and taking you with them in their movements.
In all, more than a hundred thousand people visited Tolworld. And the audience was enthusiastic. Thus, a journalist from Rondom Leeuwarden wrote an article entitled “Theater Tol, a whirlwind success.”
Tolworld is a full-length walk in which the performances are presented continuously. The audience has three hours to see different highlights from existing performances of Theater Tol such as Life of Tree, Bike Parade, Hotel Watercage, Pedaleando Hacia el Cielo and Garden of Angels. As a spectator, you determine your own order and your own pace.
Want to see a particular spectacular scene again? You can. Do you want to return to your starting point for a moment because you want to experience the scene shown there once again? You can. Do you need a little more time to process what was shown? No problem.
Theater Tol creates this performance especially for your city or for your festival. An evening of Tolworld is getting away from reality for a while. You enter a poetic world full of longing, nostalgia, fantasy, connection and hope. Afterwards, as an audience, you return home with confidence and a smile.
Tolworld’s theme is highly topical: people who want to be together, but have difficulty reaching each other. During Tolworld, angels move between heaven and earth, cyclists pedal through the air and dancers soar to great heights. Light, film images, song, dance and costumes are used. Theater Tol’s performances are always free to the public and take place in the evenings at a special location. What makes Tolworld special is that it is an inclusive performance. In total, Tolworld is carried by more than a hundred people. Only fifty of them are employees of Theater Tol, while all the others come from the city or region where Tolworld will be shown. Thus, for this performance, the theater makers are partnering with volunteers and artists from the respective city. They will be actively involved in the project and will also be in the spotlight during the performance. Thus, they get a unique opportunity to work together with professional artists. The local collaborators provide support logistically, technically and artistically. Think of dancers from a local dance studio who will become an essential part of the performance, or volunteers who will be dressed and coached by Theater Tol and then take up an important role within the whole. Of course, the technical part (tap, light and sound) will also be largely provided locally.
Finally, we would like to inform you that it was remarkable that the attendance numbers increased during the three evenings: the first evening there were 25,000 spectators, the second evening 35,000 and the last evening 55,000. Many visitors even came to watch several nights; others were so enthusiastic that they returned the next night with family and friends. So after the three days ended, the Leeuwarder Courant wrote: “More than a hundred thousand people embraced Theater Tol.”