What is Europe? Is it a continent or a culture, a bygone dream or a thriving reality – or all of the above?

In a year when a deeply divided Britain looks set to leave the EU, Re:Creating Europe explores the continent through the words that have shaped, traced and defined its history. Created by De Balie and ITA, it’s directed by Ivo van Hove and performed by ITA with the likes of Juliet Stevenson, Christopher Eccleston, Adjoa Andoh, Lemn Sissay and Michael Morpurgo, who wrote and read a new piece exclusively for the show. Engaging and engrossing, Re:Creating Europe weaves a multi-layered tapestry of words from artists, thinkers and politicians – Shakespeare to Goethe, Churchill to Obama – to evoke the notion of Europe, forcing us to consider what it is, what it was and what it could become.

Produced by Manchester International Festival, De Balie and Internationaal Theater Amsterdam. Supported by the Forum on European Culture.