Imaginary Numbers is a production by Geert Belpaeme. Ugo helped automatising the ramp. All up-to-date info on www.geertbelpaeme.com

We count all the time:
when we go to the shop,
when we read the clock,
when we dance,
when we hold our breath to get rid of a hiccup.
But also when we make budgets, prepare spending cuts,
decide on the amount of asylum seekers we can take in
or when we calculate the scope of a war or a natural disaster.
Counting controls and governs our reality, but is that really justified?

In Imaginary Numbers two clowns balance each other on a life-size seesaw. They are searching for a way to make their world controllable. Initially, they seem to find that stability in numbers, but soon enough the clowns are swept away by the chaos, the illogical, the uncountable and the uncontrollable that always seems to find a way to slip into our (counting) systems.

Geert Belpaeme and Estefanía Álvarez Ramírez question the absurdity of ‘the number’ and the way in which our actions are obsessively founded on numbers, counting and binary thinking. Because how real are the numbers we count with? Can we invent a language in which we could count without numbers?

Imaginary Numbers is a subtle performance with a philosophical approach that flirts with the boundary between contemporary clowning and theatre. It is the second collaboration of Geert Belpaeme with Estefanía Álvarez Ramírez after Please (don’t) let me be (mis)understood.

Imaginary numbers has already been performed at TAZ (Oostende), De Nieuwe Vorst (Tilburg), Theater 1150 (Brussels), Theater op de Markt (Neerpelt), KAAP (Bruges), Viernulvier (Ghent) and Monty (Antwerp)