Ivo van Hove
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Ivo van Hove is a Belgian theatre director known for his psychologically intense and minimalist productions. His collaboration with David Bowie on Lazarus brought together two artists fascinated by identity, alienation and emotional exposure.
Although operating in different artistic disciplines, both Bowie and Van Hove rejected narrative comfort in favour of abstraction, vulnerability and emotional truth.
- Born: 1958, Belgium
- Role: Theatre director
- Known for: Experimental theatre
- Bowie connection: Lazarus (stage collaboration)
Van Hove’s theatrical language
Ivo van Hove built his international reputation through productions that strip away theatrical illusion, placing emotional truth at the centre of the stage.
His work frequently explores isolation, psychological pressure and identity, themes that strongly align with Bowie’s late-career concerns.
David Bowie’s attraction to theatre
Bowie had long been drawn to theatre as a space for abstraction and transformation. Van Hove’s uncompromising directorial style offered a framework in which Bowie’s music could exist beyond conventional storytelling.
Their collaboration avoided nostalgia, instead confronting mortality and memory through fractured imagery and sound.
Lazarus (2015)
Lazarus functions as a continuation of Thomas Jerome Newton, Bowie’s character from The Man Who Fell to Earth. The work unfolds as an interior monologue rather than a linear narrative.
Songs from across Bowie’s career are recontextualised alongside new material, creating a dialogue between past and present.