Mara Linde Tieleman

Name: Mara Linde Tieleman

Birthdate: 23-02-2001

Website: https://www.acteursbelangen.nl/acteur/maralinde-tieleman/

Internships: Het Zomeroffer – De Warme Winkel

Graduation performance: "NUL NUT" – Theatremaker: Mara Linde Tieleman; Written by: Mimi Wiggers and Mara Linde Tieleman; Director: Anna Schoen; Dancers: Ece Gamze Çokluk, Marlot Miesen, Jahliyah Kolf and Evy van Elzelingen.

Who are you as a creator/artist?

As a kid, I was often described as a "loose cannon." I pictured an iguana with a collar. Perhaps I understood "reptile on a leash."

It wasn't until drama school that I truly felt at home. It turned out I wasn't a loose cannon, but a headstrong comedian who is built to act and create. My graduation performance was described as lightheartedly profound, and that touches exactly who I am. In a lighthearted and playful way, I want to show what I find fascinating deep down.

I am an associative creator and performer. I analyse a play by connecting it with images from films, situations I've experienced, visual art—anything that moves or resonates with me.

What did you learn in your training that enabled you to create this work?

I learned to look and be looked at. My worldview expanded. I found the words to share my opinions and the forms to ascribe them to a theatre setting. I've met people whom I'll hold dear for the rest of my life. I now know how to channel my creativity into concrete plans.

Could you give a few details about your graduation performance?

In NUL NUT, I explore destructive human tendencies and paralysis through playful monologues that desperately, yet lovingly, attempt to connect and embrace life.

For example, the character talks about the crack in her ceiling that's about to collapse, she meets a diver for golf balls, she explodes in a museum when someone asks her to step aside for a photo, and she masturbates with an electric toothbrush in the student house where she's left alone.

When the golf ball diver asks what she wants to be when she grows up, she replies: "If I could dream, I'd love to be a K-pop idol." Halfway through the performance, four dancers enter and dance a K-pop choreography with her. For a brief moment, she lives in her dream.

The audience is part of her quest. She dares to step onto the stage because she knows she's not alone. In the museum, she addresses the audience directly and describes what she sees. We get to see the world through her eyes for a moment.

I wrote the monologues together with Mimi Wiggers (Creative Writing). For the first time in ArtEZ's history, our programmes graduated together. I think it's important to involve people from different backgrounds in my creative process. That's why I chose dancers who were less familiar with theatre. I believe that the audience experiences a certain openness through these choices.

What are your ambitions and future plans?

My plan is to follow my joy, curiosity, and eagerness to learn, and to live from that. My greatest ambition is to get to know myself and the world through acting. I want to meet people, stories, times, and places and understand them through my acting. If I could dream, the rest of my life would be at drama school. However, concretely, I do want to star in a Julia Ducournau film one day.

Where do you draw your inspiration from?

Artists such as James Turrell, Jacques Tati, Rachel Whiteread, Iris van Herpen, Audre Lorde, Marc Chagall, Helen Frankenthaler, Keane (the band), Ottessa Moshfegh, Katie Melua, and Julia Ducournau are very important to me.

I am also inspired by human behaviours, such as standing ovations, phone use, consent, and consumption.

Finally, I am very interested in women's anger and how it is portrayed in film and theatre.

Why are you valuable to the field?

I believe I'm valuable to the field because I create work that touches, moves, and brings people together.

Moreover, I feel that my generation of actors is contributing to a transformation toward a more inclusive and diverse environment in the field. When I see or experience injustice, I have to do something about it. I speak out - sometimes immediately, sometimes afterwards - but I can't ignore it. I believe such voices are important in making the field a safer, fairer, and inspiring place for everyone.

Favourite quotes

"If I fail to recognise [other women] as additional faces of myself, I contribute not only to each of their oppressions but also to my own… I am not free until any other woman is free, even if her chains are very different from mine." - Audre Lorde

"There is no one who is, or will be, solely criticised or solely praised." - The Dhammapada