Performer, mimer & theatre maker

Performer, mimer & theatre maker

The terms performer and maker are deeply intertwined for me. I call myself a playful maker—a concept rooted in mime, which feels suiting. Creating and playing are at the core of what I do: I like to come up with inventive ideas and logics.

“I think in images—I want to see it.
But more than that, I think through my body. I need to do it. Feel it. Try it on.”

My training has always been diverse, blending physicality with text. Before diving into the Mime school in 2017, I focused on traditional acting—text and music-based theatre. Theatre has been my world since a young age, although I wasn’t raised in an artistic family. From a young age I was shaped by opera, theatre productions, and various classes.
In Mime school, my focus shifted. I deepened my relationship with my body, exploring its capacity to express, to resist, and to communicate without words. Over time, I honed my vision of theatre—exploring movement, posture, Mime Corporel (mime technique), acrobatics, Kung Fu, Chi Kung, yoga, partnering, Laban, and other dance forms. This diverse training exists alongside classes of acting, text, mime, and theory, forming the foundation of my practice.
Today, I often play and make on the border of text and physical theatre. I’m drawn to projects that challenge convention—projects that explore new territory and ask questions, rather than provide answers. I seek to create work that pushes both my own limits and those of the audience, work that invites participation, reflection, and transformation.
Together with writer-dramaturg Tine Tabak, I form Bunqer. As a makers’ duo, we delve into the intersection of language and mime, clashing the poetic, intellectual nature of words with the intuitive, physical quality of movement. We believe that these seemingly distant elements can spark an engaging dialogue when brought together on stage, communicating with our audience in layered and resonant ways. In Bunqer, we aim to create work that physically resonates while challenging hasty convictions and opinions.

I’ve heard people say that …

…I’m a precise performer with a great sensitivity to space and timing.
…I’m an imaginative impulsive mover with a large body.
…cheeky, assertive, absurd and grounded are qualities that define me.
…in the work process I am someone with a surprising proposals, someone who likes to think along and play and makes with dedication.
…I’m a performer with a lot of expression and a rich inner world.

What is mime?

Let’s immediately clear up the common misunderstanding between mime and pantomime—two concepts that are definitely not the same. While pantomime often carries a demonstrative (almost illustrative) and clownish character, mime doesn’t necessarily have to.
The Dutch mime as we know it today took root long ago with Étienne Decroux, who developed the movement philosophy known as Mime Corporel. This technique is still taught at the Dutch Mime School today. His Dutch students brought his technique to Amsterdam in the 1960s, where they continued to develop it. This marked the birth of a mime movement in the Netherlands that radically broke with the idiom of pantomime. Dutch mime artists and creators began to explore interdisciplinarity in innovative ways. Starting from the body and movement, they sought cross-pollinations with music, visual arts, poetry, and architecture.
In 1962, Frits Vogels founded the first version of the Mime School. Since then, Dutch mime has made significant contributions to innovation within the theatrical landscape. Dutch mime is a form of theatre that challenges the audience’s perception and places the sensory, physical experience at its core: the body and movement in relation to scenography, time, and space. Mime artists—both performers and creators—are inventors by nature, often beginning from a zero point, an empty space where nothing is fixed and no laws yet exist.
To dive a little deeper into the question “What is mime?”, I’d like to refer to a translated quote by Dr. Marijn de Langen, theory teacher at the Mime School and theatre scholar:
“The question ‘What is mime?’ is comparable to the question ‘What color is a chameleon?’ A clear answer is not possible. Mime is sometimes red, sometimes yellow, sometimes traditional, sometimes innovative, sometimes wordless, sometimes linguistic, sometimes accessible, sometimes elitist, sometimes humorous, sometimes melancholic, sometimes infinitely fascinating, and sometimes nothing at all. None of these qualities are inherent to mime. Its versatility is its strength.”
For further reading, I highly recommend her book Dutch mime and her dissertation Mime denken.