The Truthful

The Truthful: She Who Speaks The Truth. That is the meaning of the name Siddiki. It is the name of preachers, already for centuries. It dates back to Abu Bakr Siddiq, the first caliph and successor to Prophet Muhammad. Departing from meetings with her uncle, Dr. Nasir Siddiki - a former muslim, saved by Jesus and grown into a charismatic evangelical preacher - Lieselot Siddiki creates The Truthful. The Truthful is Siddiki’s fever dream. It is a vision that came to her as she undertook her journey through the promised land. As in her previous performance Up Your Ass (a co-creation with Nona Demey Gallagher), it speaks of a fascination with the dark side of American society. The land of plenty, obsessed with conspiracy theories, rodeos, cartoons, puritanical beliefs and the dazzling promise of success. The Truthful is autobiographical speculation and sheds light on shadows that were better left in the dark. It is fiction mixed with docu, autobiography mixed with bibles, truth mixed with lies. The Truthful is a total spectacle. The Truthful is about faith and the act of believing. The Truthful is merging into something greater, is transcending the mundane. The Truthful is about megalomania, about madness, about contemplation, about redemption. The Truthful is a circus of prophets in which charismatic demigods, preachers and drifters roam, evoked by Bavo Buys, Inci Gül Civelekoğlu, Joeri Happel and Elisabeth Klinck. Composer Elisabeth Klinck’s sound and music create an immersive experience and offer an additional perspective on reality. With vibrations, we enter another reality. Or as Dr. Nasir Siddiki proclaims: vibrations are God, God singing. The big bang was a song. God sang the universe into existence.• Lieselot Siddiki (1994, she/her) has built a versatile practice combining various artistic disciplines. After studying fashion and autonomous design, she started the master’s programme in drama at KASK Ghent, which she may one day finish. Siddiki’s work is visceral rather than cerebral: immersive, gargantuan worlds where the gut speaks before the head. She prefers to create living collages, built from hundreds of references that dance around a particular (political) theme. These worlds are imbued with an ecstatic, mischievous energy, shaped by her hedonistic upbringing in the anarchist squatter scene. With Nona Demey Gallagher, she created the hit performance Up Your Ass in 2023, based on Valerie Solanas’ notorious 1965 comedy. The production was selected for Radical Jung 2024 (Munich) and Het Theaterfestival 2024, where they won the Acteursgilde Award for best ensemble. In 2024, Siddiki won the Fintro Audience Prize in support of young artists.