How to be a good feminist in today’s society?

Sannah: “I started my research from my personal fascination with feminism. I’ve read a lot about it, listened to podcasts on it and have also regularly gone to a feminist reading group that is organised by ArtEZ Studium Generale. For my research, I conducted interviews with women of a different generation, women from the second wave. A very active generation in terms of feminism; but how do they view my generation? What could we learn from them?

Throughout this research, my own doubts played a major role. How much of an activist do I want to be? What do I support and what not? There are many different voices and opinions surrounding feminism. Which voices do I actually want to give a ‘voice’ in my performance?

My coach throughout this process was Marielle Woltring, also known as LAVALU. She encouraged me, mainly to write a lot. This resulted in songs that went a bit further in terms of activism. I wanted to work with electronic music so I collaborated with a Composition student, Lea Walter. She supplied me with music, I picked out pieces where in which I heard choruses or verses and sent it back. A fine interaction that kept us both on our toes. For the performance, I worked with students Marlous van Noordwijk and Tiffany Vicario from the first year of the Music Theatre course and Ronja Boxem, whom I knew from a Theatre in Education project. They were my ‘dancers’ and backing vocals. A great pleasure to work with them; the four of us can really produce more power.

It is not a traditional show or concert, but rather an installation/performance that the audience actually is part of. There is a different setup in terms of audience; people constantly stand around me, with the viewing direction changing regularly. It has become a fairly interdisciplinary performance. It uses song, film, design, dance and spoken text.

In the future I’ll see if I can develop this performance further. It’s of course a social issue and something that people are very concerned with at the moment, so who knows, I might play it in other places. It’s also a subject I’m far from finished with myself and hopefully can explore much further, both as a theatre maker and for myself personally.”

Staged at Theater aan de Rijn in Arnhem on 1 and 2 July. Check the agenda. 

Video by Collector.
https://studiocollector.com/