Performer, mimer & theatre maker

Performer, mimer & theatre maker

The concepts performer and maker are very close together for me. I would call myself a “makende speler” (performer with a big vision on making) (a concept within the mime with which I can connect well). I like to create and play in the literal sense of the word, I like to come up with inventive ideas and logics.
“I’m a visual thinker, I want to see it happen.
Even better, I’m a physical thinker, I want to do and experience it.”
I’m broadly trained. Before I started the Mime education in 2017, the focus was mainly on “traditional acting”, text and music theatre. At an early age I got in touch with various theatre classes, performing in operas and productions.
During Mime education my interest and expertise grew in the physical aspect of acting, I started to delve into my body with its possibilities and limits. I have been given the opportunity to research and develop my vision regarding theatre(making). I participated many different movement classes such as posture, Corporeal Mime (mime technique), acrobatics, Kung Fu, Chi Kung, yoga, partnering, Laban and other forms of dance. With a constant of acting, text, mime and theory lessons.
Nowadays I often play and make on the border of text and physical theatre. The projects that attract me have a cheeky and bold character, I like to explore a peculiar and (for me) unknown territory.

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?

A common misunderstanding is the confusion between mime and pantomime. Two concepts that do not mean the same at all. Where pantomime often has an expressive (almost illustrative) and clownish character, mime does not particularly have this.
The Dutch mime as we know it today germinated long ago at Étienne Decroux’s, who developed the movement theory Mime Corporel. A technique that is still taught on the Mime school. His Dutch students took his technique to Amsterdam to further develop it there in 1960. A mime movement emerged in the Netherlands, which radically broke with the idiom of pantomime. Dutch mime players and makers went in search of interdisciplinarity in innovative ways. Taking the body and movement as their starting point, they looked for cross-fertilizations with music, visual art, poetry and architecture. Frits Vogels founded the first version of the Mime school in 1962. Since then, the Dutch Mime made important contributions to innovations within the theater landscape.
To go even more specifically on the question “what is mime?” I would like to refer to this translated quote from Marijn de Langen, theory teacher on the Mime school and theatre scientist;
” The question “What is mime?” Is comparable to the question “What is the colour of a chameleon?” A clear answer is not possible. Mime is sometimes red, sometimes yellow, sometimes traditional, sometimes innovative, sometimes wordless, sometimes linguistic, sometimes public-friendly, sometimes elitist, sometimes humorous, sometimes sad, sometimes endlessly fascinating and sometimes there is nothing to it. None of these properties are inherent to the mime. Its versatility is its power. “
I would like to refer to her thesis “Mime denken” (Mime thinking).