Music / Composer: Vanessa Lann, 9×13 Orange Drummer Beat!, performed by: NeoFanfare 9×13
cover photo: © Sanne Peper
Marres, VIA ZUID, de Brakke Grond, Dansateliers and FASHIONCLASH proudly present performance festival Rooms.
Young makers and established talents offered performance, theater, visual arts, dance, fashion and music. A weekend during which fragile dresses brought colorful stained glass to life, where conductor’s bodies turned into living scores, manuscripts got dictated and a shoe merchant brought you along into absurdist power relations.
Line up:
buren
Merette van Hijfte & Pleuni Veen
Kinga Jaczewska
Mauricio Limon
David Maroto
Genevieve Murphy
Ika Schwander in collaboration with Fran Hayes
27 & 28 January 2024
01 – 06 PM
Location: Marres, Maastricht
Regular: € 40,00
Student: € 20,00
Day passes are not available anymore.
A ticket provides full access to all performances on either of the two days. The program of Rooms remains the same on both Saturday and Sunday, with the exception of David Maroto’s performance, which will take place on Saturday. With a valid day pass, you get to see the entire line up. For a break, you can visit the Marres Kitchen restaurant or relax in our public city garden.
Line up
buren presents the prelude of their work shoe/farm, which will premiere in February of 2024. Departing from their respective backgrounds, a farm in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen and a shoe store along the Belgian coast, Melissa Mabesoone and Oshin Albrecht merge the worlds ‘farm’ and ‘shoe’. They step into their ancestors’ shoes and play with the habits, customs, sayings and vocabulary connected to farm life and shoe sales. In doing so, they link their experiences to broader social issues surrounding production processes, working conditions and consumerism.
Mabesoone (Knokke, 1988) and Albrecht’s (Bruges, 1986) two-woman collective buren bring critical, absurdist sketches about community, domesticity, gender, (art) history and neoliberalism. Their work has been shown on many international stages, amongst which at Centrale Fies (Italy), Teatro Nacional D. Maria II (Portugal), Szene (Salzburg) and within the discursive program Feminist School. The collective published a graphic novel titled STW, your favorite station! and became resident artist at Kaaitheater in 2023.
concept by buren (Oshin Albrecht & Melissa Mabesoone)
created with: Oshin Albrecht, Melissa Mabesoone, Benjamin Cools, Benne Dousselaere, Vera Martins, Famke Dhont, Margaux Janssens
produced by: au bureau
co-productie: Kaaitheater, Kunstencentrum BUDA, workspacebrussels, C-takt, KAAP, de Brakke Grond, Theaterfestival Boulevard, Playground festival (STUK, Museum M), apap-FEMINIST FUTURES, a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, Marres
Pleuni Veen and Merette van Hijfte present the visual poem PAL, which gives shape to the moment when we exchange freedom for safety. In doing so, they respond to the various meanings of the adverb, which refers to the original, Dutch expression “pal staan,” and its figurative meaning “to be immobile” or “to stand firm.”
As a mathematics student, Veen (1994, NL) is intrigued by the balance between the certain yet indeterminate nature of the world, and between the understandable and the intangible. Contact, friction and wonder are central to her work.
Van Hijfte (1994, NL) is a playful performer and energetic maker, who is not afraid to act from her intuition and impulses, making her work explosive and gritty. Following her graduation at the Mime School, she has been active as an actress, a filmmaker and member of the Collective BAMBAMBAM.
Credits camera: Samuel van Keeken
Muziek: Rint Mennes
Kinga Jaczewska (Poland, 1991) is a dancer and choreographer whose work focusses on what is often rendered invisible or commonly escapes our attention. Accordingly, her Rooms performance Raw and Tender, which she has made in collaboration with Agnese Forlani and composer Raphael Malfliet, looks at the functionality and corporality of motherhood – at the contradictions which it consists of. It comes as a response to Jaczewska’s earlier poem mothers.
Jaczewska’s previous works encompassed performance, video, installation, text and photography, and have been presented in theater spaces including Kunstcentrum Nona (Mechelen) and Magdalenazaal (Brugge), as well as at the Kunsthal Antwerp. In 2021, she was awarded de PrixFintroPrijs in the category of theater and dance.
Agnese Forlani (1997) is an Italian dancer and textile maker who is currently completing her Master’s degree in dance. In her artistic practice, she experiments with costume, scenography and materiality in dialogue with the dancing body.
Photo: Diego Franssens
In 2022, Mauricio Limón de León launched Les petits pois sont verts… Les petits poissons rouges; a collection of stained-glass haute couture dresses in collaboration with Adriana Gonzalez Hulshof. In Rooms, the collection is presented in the performance Flowing Sands Slogans. Here, the dresses are shown in a collaboration with Mahoalli Nassourou, Justine Olguín, Laia Vancells Pi and Manu Sol Mateo, performing a choreography of fluid geometries to music composed by Alejandro Contreras Pascual and Limón de León. Inspired by Samuel Beckett’s short television play Quad (1981), Flowing Sand Slogans takes Beckett’s sequence of movements as its primary structure. A meeting between four characters culminates in a disjointed catwalk performance of mechanized movements.
Previous shows by Limón de León (Mexico City, 1979) presented include A gigantic broom to uncover compelling narratives (Rotterdam, 2020), El primero que ria (Paris, 2023) and his current exhibition Memoria ciega at Museo Cabañas (Guadalajara), curated by Victor Palacios. He is represented by Ellen de Bruijne Projects (Amsterdam), Pequod.CO (Mexico) and Wild- Palms (Düsseldorf).
Adriana Gonzalez Hulshof is Director of Museum Kranenburgh, a museum of modern and contemporary art in Bergen. She was founder and director of Amsterdam Art|Weekend, worked for the Dutch National Opera & Ballet, and has developed art programs for the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the Prince Claus Fund, ArtHub Asia and others.
Vancells Pi (Blanes, 1993) completed her formal dance training at Codarts Rotterdam, before joining the Tanz Luzerner Theater company, Habemus Corpus and the companies of Roberto G. Alonso and Mari Rovira Crea. She currently works freelance, performing with the Dutch National Opera & Ballet and at festivals across Europe.
Transdisciplinary artist Sol Mateo Rivas Álvarez (Mexico City, 1989) takes his own sexuality as a starting point for his artistic explorations of gender stereotypes, beauty and morality. His works have been shown internationally, most recently at Temporada Alta International Theater Festival (Peru) and at the Centre National du Costume et de la Scène (France).
Nassourou (Mexico City, 1983) works at the intersection of performance, theater, film and still photography. She directed and presented the monologue Medea Redux in 2013 and is a part of the international collective Entre Minas. As a performer, she has collaborated with Barbara Foulkes (Arg- Mex), Pablo Helguera (Mex-USA), and Maj Britsen (Germany) among others.
Lepke Olguin Oaxaca (Mexico City, 1999) attended Paul Valery University in Montpellier, studying Anthropology from 2019 to 2021. Interested in dance, performance, music and spectacle, she currently works freelance, performing in collaboration with cabaret collective Las Suculentas, Manu Sol Mateo, and Limón de León for his show Les petits pois sont verts… Les petits poissons rouges.
David Maroto’s performance is titled after his most recent novella Not All of Me Will Die. This novella exists as an original manuscript in which the author reflects on memory, writing and the desire for posterity. In the performance, Maroto publishes the novella by dictating its contents to a group of participants who each write their own copy by hand. In this way, Maroto distributes his ‘oral novella’ in handwritten unique copies.
Maroto (Spain, 1976) is a visual artist who obtained a PhD from the Edinburgh College of Art for his research The Artist’s Novel: The Novel as a Medium in the Visual Arts. This is the first in-depth study into the artist’s novel as a phenomenon and follows from Maroto and Joanna Zielińska’s project The Book Lovers; a collection and bibliography of artists’ novels that they started in 2011. Maroto’s autonomous work has been shown at Kanal Centre Pompidou (Brussels), EFA Project Space (New York), and Vigil Gonzales Gallery (Buenos Aires) amongst others.
This performance will only take place on Saturday January 27, 2024.
An initiative of Technology Driven Art, a research group within the art schools Zuyd in collaboration with Out of Sight VZW and Marres.
technologydrivenart.org
out-of-sight.be
Genevieve Murphy’s Rooms performance Somewhere Someone Is Conducting Right Now views the body as a score. Four conductors, each in a room of their own, depend on fading music and memory as they orchestrate a self-chosen piece in partial silence. This not only draws attention to the individuality of each conductor, but also to music genre and environment. The spaces in between the rooms where different works merge become sonic spaces of their own. When all conduct together and all is heard in synchronicity, the house of Marres will sing.
Murphy (Scotland, 1988) graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Glasgow, the Birmingham Conservatoire for music and The Royal Conservatoire of The Hague. In her work, she combines performance and visual art with contemporary classical music, to deal with subjects of psychology and disability. Her compositions have been performed in concert halls and art galleries, amongst which het Concertgebouw, het Muziekgebouw, W139, Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), La Fenice (Venice), Old Fruitmarket (Glasgow) and Theatre Spektakel (Zurich). Murphy was awarded an Honorary Membership of The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in 2019.
Ed Liebrecht graduated with distinction from the Royal Academy of Music, where he was awarded the Fred Southall Prize for his final performance. He is committed to bringing ideological variety in his work that merges diverse influences. His upcoming projects include a jazz orchestra collaboration with Oxford University Orchestra, a return to the Haydn Chamber Orchestra for the Walton Violin Concerto.
Composer and conductor Ezequiel Menalled (Buoneos Aires, 1980) received his Bachelor and Master degrees in conducting from the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague. He works with various genres, with or without the use of electronics and other technological media, and ranging from solos to large ensembles. In 2003 he founded the Dutch Ensemble Modelo62, and has since served as its artistic director.
Libia Hernandez’ (Cuba, 1965) rejects the idea that classical music is predominantly for a small elite, and looks to cultivate new listeners and an ever-widening group of people to experience classical music as current, necessary and irreplaceable – an enduring force that bridges cultures and continents. In 2024 Hernandez will conduct a new opera written by Monique Krüs, Piratenkoningin at the Nederlandse Reisopera.
Basque conductor and violinist Mirari Etxeberria Guerrero (Andoain, 1998) is the founder, artistic director and principal conductor of Pamplona’s Youth Orchestra. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Violin and a Master’s degree in Musical Investigation, and is currently finishing her formal training at the Amsterdam Conservatory. As assistant conductor, she has previously worked with Juanjo Mena, Martin Sieghart and Ryan Bancroft.
Composer: Vanessa Lann
Piece: 9×13 Orange Drummer Beat!
Performed by: NeoFanfare 9×13
Composer: Tan Dun
Piece: Circle with Four Trios, Conductor and Audience (1992)
Performed by: Nieuwe Ensemble
Composer: Beethoven
Piece: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 – “Choral”: 2. Molto vivace
Performed by: Royal Concertgebouw Orkest
Composer: Luciano Berio
Piece: Sinfonia for 8 Voices and Orchestra: III. in Ruhig Fließender Bewegung
Performed by: Electric Phoenix and Royal Concertgebouw Orkest
Ika Schwander and Fran Hayes present Someone, I tell you, in another time will remember us. With references to the nymph Daphne and the poet Sappho, the work explores the transformation from human to tree and from life to death. It creates an environment where sensory stimuli are rare and the audience has room to breathe. In this space, questions surface that are normally lost. What might drive someone to trade human existence for something else?
Schwander (Luxembourg, 1999) graduated from the Toneelacademie Maastricht in 2023 with her work è vero, è vero, è vero; a co-production with VIA ZUID and Festival Cement. She makes visual performances and prefers to work in border areas where different mediums meet. Her work explores themes including trauma, care, religion, ecology and death.
Hayes (Dorchester, 1999) is a multimedia artist based in London whose practice explores the relationships that form in the spaces between the digital and the physical, Hayes’ practice mixes science-fiction influences with references to current issues such as ecological breakdown and the consequences of capitalism and to everyday occurrences. The works range from 3D modelling and animating to ceramics and writing.
Festival overview
Photo: © Sanne Peper
Photo: © Sanne Peper
Photo: © Sanne Peper
Press
For press requests, visual materials and interviews, please contact Julie Cordewener: julie.cordewener@marres.org.
Partners/thanks to
Partners Rooms:
Marres, House for Contemporary Culture
Dansateliers
De Brakke Grond
FASHIONCLASH
VIA ZUID
Courtesy of Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds
Marres receives structural support from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Province of Limburg and the Municipality of Maastricht.
