Graduating with one foot in the professional field

Alongside her Theatre in Education course at ArtEZ in Zwolle, Jasmine van der Putten is a freelance drama teacher at Internationaal Theater Amsterdam (ITA). "I'm already doing so much that I sometimes forget that I'm still in school. My fourth year has been an enjoyable and natural transition to the professional field.”

Jasmine is in the midst of a busy graduation period. This year, she has conducted research into community building around theatre performances, completed an internship at Well Made Productions and created her own performance with Mooi Weer & Zo, a Rotterdam theatre company that offered her a talent development pathway. During her internship at ITA, Jasmine was the assistant director of a junior production, also participating in the education around the performance. "After my internship, they took me on as a freelance teacher, which has been wonderful. This way, I already have one foot in the professional field before I graduate."

A Zwolle girl in Rotterdam

ArtEZ already feels somewhat remote, not only because of her work but also because of her new life outside Zwolle. “As part of the ‘Exile’ building block in the third year, I moved from my home city of Zwolle to Rotterdam. It was a literal exile, because as a theatremaker of colour, I thought it would be easier to connect here than it has been." This is a theme she also touches on in her final performance, JUNCTION. Just before the finals in Zwolle, she will be putting on a performance of her finals for a weekend in Rotterdam. “It is a performance with people of colour, for people of colour, in which the players perform four stories from the book Kinderen van zwarte bevrijders (Children of Black Liberators).”

As the daughter of a black American ex-soldier and a white Dutch mother, growing up in a predominantly white city like Zwolle, the stories in the book spoke to Jasmine. “I thought, 'wow, these people feel what I feel!' I found it strange that I wasn't already familiar with these stories. It helps to know that your feelings or experiences are shared with others. As such, I view my finals performance as ‘healing for black people, education for white people’. Together with the audience, I want to look for universal themes, but I also want to tell these unknown stories, which were not seen as important for a long time."

Toolkit for creators

The common thread in Jasmine's graduation work is her research into community building. “Theatre often suffers from having a limited audience. I conduct research into how to get the right people in the right places. I have developed a toolkit that theatres and companies can use for various performances, so they can appeal to a wider demographic. At the same time, I want to continue researching this question until I retire. As creators in a changing world, we need to keep asking ourselves this question."

In the future, Jasmine wants to work with young people. “I like working with them because they are the future. Theatre is a great medium, and you can see young people becoming more and more interested in it. Theatre has also made me more self-confident. During the course, you explore who you are as a creator, how you see yourself in society and what you need. At times, the programme could get pretty intense, but now I can see what all of it was for. It is a programme that really emphasises independence. As a result, everyone grows enormously over those four years, and you develop very broadly."

The way the course is taught really suits Jasmine. “I'm not the type of person who likes to spend a lot of time reading; I'm more someone who likes doing and creating. Thanks to the building blocks, you can design the course the way that best suits you. For example, I got the chance to spend three months at ArtEZ in Arnhem, which allowed me to get lessons from two theatremakers of colour. I told them what I felt was missing in Zwolle and they gave me their input. I needed this kind variation in my work.

I want to develop education, work with young people and work on theatre productions. Basically, everything I'm already doing and enjoying, such as spoken word and music. That's what I love about theatre. It brings together everything I am passionate about."