We have turned the earth so violently that we have reawakened the ferocity of the children. (A. Barrico, Senza sangue)

Festival Temps d'Images / La Ferme du Buisson, Paris 20 and 21 October 

All is quiet.
No sound but the wind.
They emerge from the void.
A muffled drumming before the screaming begins.
A woman falls.
Her dress blooms with red.
A man tries to flee.
Is hacked to pieces.
A small boy kicks at a body.
Howling.
For it to get up.
You keep quiet.
You don’t move.
A gun is pressed to your head.
A voice hisses: we don’t cry here.
And then all is quiet once more.
Is tonight the end?
Or will another morning dawn?

What if your life was swept away in one fell swoop? Is a killing machine still a child? In the theatrical video installation High Grass, Inne Goris is inspired by the questions from and dreams and images of child soldiers. Children playing alongside hanged men. What do their stories have to do with us?

Together with visual artist, Kurt d’Haeseleer, and composer, Dominique Pauwels, Goris delves into what such an extreme situation can do to people. What would you do with a knife at your throat? The myth of the innocent child is shattered. The line between perpetrator and victim, killer and child appears surprisingly thin. High Grass is a confrontation with your own darker side.

Watch the trailer  

In Long Grass, Inne Goris started out with the topic of child soldiers, but opened it up to include a questioning of the supposed ‘natural’ innocence of children. Hoog Gras is an intense and impressive theatre trip. De Morgen, 15.05.2012

The images, the children’s choral music and Verhelst’s script in particular succeed in offering an interpretation of the feelings a child soldier wrestles with: ‘Nice means weak. If you smile you’re lost. Sometimes even if you don’t smile.' Cobra, 13.05.2012