Atman!

Libretto by Bart Moeyaert (D)

M-accordion(preferably button-accordion with converter bass); pre-recorded soundscape

Atman is a normal boy, about nine years of age. He lives in a city that he knows well – or so he believes. But one day something inexplicable happens: although he has the key to his home in his pocket, he suddenly no longer knows where that home is. The streets seem unfamiliar; the people he encounters are in a rush or don’t understand him. What begins as a misunderstanding, turns into an odyssey through a city that is no longer familiar to him – and into a search for something that is not so easy to put into words.

On his journey, Atman meets a wide variety of people. There is a woman with a pram who does not understand him, a boy with headphones who has no time for conversation, an old man who only remembers the wind, and a girl with a balloon who asks him a strange question: whether you can be at home even when you are somewhere else. Repeatedly, Atman tries to strike up a conversation with the adults – but often they don’t speak the same language as him, and even more often they don’t really listen. With every encounter, the world around him becomes more mysterious. Doors that cannot be opened. Streets that seem to go round in circles. Memories that appear and disappear like dreams. The further Atman walks, the less the aim is to find the right path – and the more it is about what “home” actually means. Is it a place? A memory? Someone who is waiting? Or a feeling that lives deep within oneself?

In the end, Atman realises that it’s not just about an address, but about connection – to oneself, to the people one loves, and to the world in which one lives.

Poetic