Hidden Stories

 Boom Arts and Hand2Mouth present- Hidden Stories: an outdoor immersive experience, by French company Begat Theatre

After over 200 performances in Europe, two of Portland’s most risk taking companies Boom Arts and Hand2Mouth teamed up to co-present the West Coast premiere of Hidden Stories by France’s Begat Theater from October 10-13th. This performance kicked off both company’s 2019-2020 seasons of performances in true collaborative style.

Hidden Stories [Histoires Cachées] was an outdoor immersive performance where the city was transformed into a sound stage, the audience’s eye was the lens of a camera, and the spectator themself was the editor, choosing which images to synchronize to the sound track being played in their ears. They were free to follow the story from up close or from far away, to look at each detail, each gesture, each blink of an eye, or to let themselves be carried away by their own imagination and abandon themselves to the urban decor.

Featuring two Portland natives, Karin Holmstrom and Dion Doulis, and an original soundtrack by Peter Holmstrom of the Dandy Warhols; the audience, supplied with headphones, was temporarily endowed with the power to hear the thoughts of certain passers-by and to follow them into the unknown. A single rule of thumb: follow an ordinary object (an orange, a newspaper, a box of matches, or a pen) as it makes its way through the streets of the city.

The question at the heart of the piece: “How can I live in a city of thousands, or even millions, and yet still feel so alone?”