Lies Pauwels

LIES PAUWELS (°1968, Ghent) is both director and actress. She could be seen in the legendary pieces by Alain Platel and Arne Sierens and has worked with countless performers and groups including Tg STAN, Het Toneelhuis, Dood Paard, Eric De Volder, Dimitri Verhulst and Josse De Pauw. She has created many performances at home and abroad, such as at the Manchester International Festival, Schauspielhaus Bochum and the Burgtheater in Vienna. At hetpaleis in Antwerp, she created The Hamilton Complex, which was a breakthrough success both in Flanders and internationally. Lies is one of the LOD’s artists in residence. Do the Calimero was her first production for LOD muziektheater. 

Her work is characterised by a true-to-life quality unique in theatre. The performances often start from a fascination for unique people or situations, but time and time again, Pauwels succeeds in using these ostensibly extravagant starting points as catalysts for a much more universal story. Because in the end, we are all people wrestling with the same problems, suffering from the same limitations and who ultimately can only do their best to make something of life, despite everything. 

In January 2024, Lies Pauwels will premiere her second major production at LOD, Love Doll playing with the big boys in a different kind of space. In Love Doll, she explores the utopia of connection in a splintered world. How paradoxical is the gap between man and woman, human and animal, nature and technology, body and mind, individual and collective? Pauwels explores these and other questions in the company of dancer Nicolas Vladyslav, drag artist Sam De Mol alias Veronika Deneuve, two young singers, four musicians from B'ROCK Orchestra and saxophonist Bertel Schollaert. Together, the players get lost in a visual wonderland by designer Johanna Trudzinski. Composer Frederik Neyrinck creates a hybrid score in which the historical and the contemporary merge.