“I am in search of creations that lead you to an intuitive level of understanding and thus appeal to ‘physical understanding’. All elements, light, sound, set, performer and audience, are potential and equal players for me, each with their own story and function within the machine of the work. Therefore, my work cannot be defined as theatre per se; it starts from a visual inspiration or a question that can be molded into a form in which it can manifest itself best.”
I am Marinke Eijgenraam – performer, dancer and theatre maker.Graduated in 2009 from the Modern Theatre Dance program at the Academy for Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam. After graduating, I worked with various theatre makers and tasted different types of work such as youth performances, dance films and choreography.With the collective Tragic Trio that I started with Manon Avermaete and Paulien Truijen (now WOEST), we played at location and street theatre-related festivals in both the Netherlands and abroad. A desire that had not yet taken shape during my studies was given a chance to develop: making dance and movement applicable as part of a larger whole, preferably outdoors and in direct contact with the audience.
I truly found my place with Schweigman&, where everything came together in the production Wiek. This was followed by Zweep, Spiegel, Tussen en Benen, and I became increasingly curious about the world of ‘Mime’ and the well-known Mime Academy that goes with it. A place to experiment and develop my own signature as a maker and performer. I auditioned, was accepted, created the stilled performance Sterveling and the reportedly ‘impressive and engaged performance’ Ontheemd. After a two-year trajectory, I obtained my second Bachelor’s degree at the Academy for Theatre and Dance. I had made progress both as a maker and as a performer and was honored to play as an understudy in Jakop Ahlbom’s production Horror in the winter of 2017.
In addition, I was able to further develop my own work with the support of the Talent Development Program of Schweigman& from 2017 to 2020. A form of work in which a testing or pre-research process precedes the creation of a work. In Connotatie, I actively involved my audience as ‘experiencing eyes’ to develop the work and used their feedback for targeted design. In Ogenschouw, I put my audience at the center as the main character, in which the ‘experience of grounding’ was literally performed. My research trip to Senegal in 2020 was the highlight of this process, combining intercultural insights I gained in the country as a thematic undertone with an investigation into movement and its expressive power.