On the 5th of November 2015, a dam containing toxic mining waste collapsed in the mountains of the Brazilian mining region Minas Gerais. A devastating flood of mud destroyed several villages before flowing into the four hundred miles long river Rio Doce. In a region where more than three out of four people work in the mining industry, the disaster resembled a complete tabula rasa.

Silke Huysmans grew up in Minas Gerais, a few miles away from the place where the disaster occurred. Twenty years later, she returned to Brazil for the first time with Hannes Dereere in order to talk to people affected by the incident and get a grip on its immense consequences. Back in Europe, they broadened their view on the event through interviews with amongst others economist Paul De Grauwe and neurologist Luc Crevits. Each of them tells the story of the disaster from their own context, with their own nuances and points of interest. The documentary theatre performance

‘Mining Stories’ is not a detective story or a reconstruction of the disaster, but an intriguing journey through a diverse collection of personal stories crossing topics such as memory, politics, religion, and storytelling.

The work of Silke Huysmans and Hannes Dereere (Brussels, Belgium) departs from concrete situations, events or places that reveal a broader subject. What characterizes them is the way they research their projects by means of scientific investigation, interviews and field research. The documentary performance Mining Stories will tour throughout Europe the upcoming season. The piece was selected for the Circuit X award (Best Performances by Emerging Artist) in Belgium.

“Silke Huysmans and Hannes Dereere extracted a polyphonic score out of their many conversations with victims and experts. In an intelligent and complex manner, personal stories are woven together with political analyses and insights from psychology and economy. The result is a multiperspective tale in which they trace the impact of big political decisions on small livelihoods. This is storytelling for the current times.”- Charlotte De Somviele (Jury Het Theaterfestival)