Sara Vertongen

Born in Italy from a Belgian father and British mother, Sara has been working in radio and theatre since the age of 14. She is now part of the artistic crew of Belgian award-winning music theatre company Het nieuwstedelijk (translates as New Urbanicity). 

Het nieuwstedelijk is the city company of Leuven, Hasselt and Genk (BE) and are known for their sharp political plays (Hebzucht, Angst, Hoop, Groupe Diane,..) as well as experimenting with new forms of staging (audiotours..) e.g. they performed at Edinburgh Fringe festival in 2016 with a performance combining the projection of a comic strip with live soundtrack called Last Call.

She has a fascination for collecting material from 'interviews’ and interventions in public spaces which resulted in her own location theatre cycle called Naast in which she sieved 3 cities for the debris of memories and stories left behind every day.

Sara has been part of Hart Boven Hard (Belgian civil protest movement) from it’s founding and also coaches young artists, teaching drama and Text and Audio at LUCA School of Arts in Leuven.

Sara is currently involved as director/collaborator in an international project called 'The art of organising hope': a transdisciplinary project merging the worlds of artists and activists (from Mozambique, Serbia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Greece, the UK and Belgium) in creating a new theatrical space for discussion, imagination and possible revolution. The project is looking for the most horizontal form of co-operation between the participants and audience and will be a lab where different forms of resistance will be tested. The project will première in Ostend in august 2018 (before touring to different European cities) so Sara will be able to bring her experience from this process to Reshape.