Milou Stalpers

Name: Milou Stalpers

Birthdate: 06-09-2002

Who are you as a teacher and creator?

I am an interdisciplinary artist educator who prefers to convey an atmosphere or feeling rather than a narrative that runs from beginning to end. I use theatre, dance, and visual arts as tools to touch on something you can't always articulate, but can certainly feel.

Experience is central to my work as a creator and teacher. I see art as a way to explore, feel, and respond to the world around us. As a teacher, I want to create a space where children and young people can be themselves, experiment, and discover their own forms of expression, connecting with themselves and each other in this process. The process, not the end result, is central.

I believe in learning through doing, feeling, and reflecting. My lessons are open, investigative, and visual. I work from the conviction that art is not an afterthought, but a necessity; for self-development, for connection, and for understanding a complex world.

What inspires or fascinates you?

The world fascinates me. How we interact with each other, how we give meaning to what we see and experience, and above all, the concept of "truth." Who actually determines what truth is? And what happens when multiple truths coexist?

I'm also a passionate visual artist. My fascination with painting is central to this - the way emotion and feeling can be captured in a single image, and how artists use colour, texture, and technique to tell stories without words. I incorporate this visual language into my own work. Painting teaches me that you can say something great with very little, something that doesn't necessarily need to be explained, but is certainly felt.

Dance also plays a significant role in this. In dance, few words are spoken, but all the more is shared with the body. For me, movement as a means of expression is as powerful as image and language. That's why I enjoy combining dance, theatre, and visual art to create experiences that are not only understood but also resonate physically and emotionally.

What are your ambitions and desires for the future?

If we're really talking about a wish, then I dream of having my own café, a place where art and people come together. It wouldn't just be a restaurant, but a home for the arts, with various spaces where artists can work, experiment, and present. A place where interdisciplinary encounters arise, and where the boundary between creator and audience blurs.

What I want most of all is to bring art closer to people, and bring people closer to people as well by using art as a means to truly connect, to open up worlds, and to create new perspectives. I believe that art can be a space where people can meet themselves and each other; sometimes in silence, sometimes in wonder, sometimes in conversation.

My café wouldn't be an endpoint in this, but a continuous invitation for creators to create, for passersby to linger, for local residents to participate. A place that lives, breathes, and moves, just like the people who come there.

Gender in Motion: "The Transformative Power of Gender Shifts in Existing Theatre Pieces"

Tell us something about your profile/research.

How does a story change when a character changes gender? And what does that reveal about our ideas about men, women, and power?

My research focuses on gender swaps in theatre. By reinterpreting classical texts with a different gender distribution, ingrained patterns are exposed and new perspectives are opened up. What happens when a female Hamlet is on stage? Or a male Medea?

Internships

• Year 4: Education intern at Maas Theatre and Dance and production at Jongeklei
• Year 3: Education at the Children's Books and Literature Museum