Because I’m Happy (clap along)

Followed by a conversation about 'toxic positivity'.

With: Confronting Depression & Stream of Unconsciousness (EN)
A theatre programme in English about the light and dark side of happiness and 'positive thinking' with the performances Confronting Depression by Gina-Alina Pațilea, Stream of Unconsciousness by Cristian Boscheri. The evening continues with a conversation with an expert about toxic positivity and ends with dancing and clapping!

Blue Monday
Theatre De Generator makes room for mental health at the beginning of each calendar year, in the vicinity of Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year. De Generator uses this momentum to make room for dark thoughts, long-term depression and mental health in general. In recent years with programmes about depression and trauma and this year about happiness and positivity.

Mental health & positivity
In our society, there is a taboo on feeling and sharing negative feelings. Maintaining a positive attitude, no matter how difficult the circumstances, ensures that negative feelings are stigmatised even more. This tendency is also called toxic positivity, a forced form of optimism. However, it is life-saving to admit and share with those around you that things are not going well sometimes, to talk about how life is sometimes hard or that you are struggling with heavy feelings.

Stream of Unconsciousness
Cristian Boscheri's hilarious dance comedy performance challenges your perception of reality. Have you ever had a brief but profound moment of absolute clarity? After experiencing it himself a few years ago, Cristian Boscheri became so obsessed with recapturing that elusive experience of happiness that he even became a scientist to develop a way to control human perception. Dance movements, quirky humor and mathematics are used to harvest insights from his audience. Cristian Boscheri, alias Cri, is an Italian dancer and comedian. In 2023, he won the international dance competition Open Your Mind.

Confronting Depression: presentation of an artistic research
In the research performance Confronting Depression, Romanian-Dutch theatre maker Gina-Alina reflects on her personal experiences from a period of depression, in relation to the promise of happiness. In her work, Gina often focuses on the body as a place of excavation and its relation to labour, identity and displacement. Gina is working on a full-length performance with this theme under Production House De Generator and tonight she shows a work-in-progress in which she uses the input of the audience for her next steps in the process.