Consortium Partners: Schweigman&
The Schweigman& theatre company, under the artistic direction of Boukje Schweigman, has been creating physical and sensory experiences for twenty years that help audiences explore their inner world and, in turn, the world around them. The body in space is always the starting point.
By gently unsettling visitors within a safe space and inviting them to step outside their comfort zone, a deeper connection with their own inner world is created, from which they can then establish a grounded connection with the outside world and with others. This unique approach has resulted in an extensive body of work comprising (award-winning) performances and installations with a distinctive and recognisable signature.
Schweigman& is convinced that we must place greater trust in the power and wisdom of our bodies and our intuition. In connecting with ourselves and others, we create space for the imagination and the deeper layers beyond the delusions of everyday life. We encourage wonder and vulnerability, thereby touching upon the humanity that binds us together.
Through our performances, installations and workshops, we offer a total experience in which you, as a visitor, experience your body and senses in a different and intense way. We create an extraordinary time and space in which we gently unsettle the senses and entice you to let go of certainties. We play a game with perception and turn existing expectations upside down. Wonder is given free rein, after which you step back into the world with an open and sharpened gaze.
The experience is different for everyone, but as a journalist once wrote: “even the most hardened spectator is moved.”
The body as an instrument
From the eighteenth century onwards, reason has increasingly become the bearer of ‘true knowledge’ in the Western world. Knowledge derived from bodily sensations or emotions was cast into doubt by Descartes on the grounds that it was not objective: ‘I think, therefore I am’. In philosophy, this dominance of reason has led to a counter-movement: phenomenology. In the eyes of phenomenologists such as Edmond Husserl (1859–1938) and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961), it is not our intellect, but rather our sensory experience that is the primary source of understanding and knowledge about ourselves and the world in which we find ourselves. In doing so, these philosophers do not distance themselves from rationalism or science, but offer an indispensable addition to a complete understanding of the world in which we live. In this philosophical movement, and particularly in Merleau-Ponty’s The Phenomenology of Perception (1945), Boukje Schweigman discovered a theoretical recognition of the work she had been approaching for years.
In addition to producing performances, Schweigman& aims to be the leading centre of expertise and encounter for the phenomenological approach within the performing arts. To this end, alongside performances, the company organises research projects, workshops and lectures, and provides a platform for talented creators.
When creating a performance, we delve into a (physical) phenomenon: the earth, rotational movement, floating, colour, falling. We explore it and work with it through improvisation. We then step back and analyse what the material evokes in us, and what scenes might emerge. We repeat this process, gradually penetrating to the core, layer by layer, to discover the wisdom that presents itself. The spectator’s experience is the guiding principle. How does the visitor enter? How do we unsettle the visitor so that preconceived ideas can be let go? Where do we position our audience? How do we guide the audience back out? We set very clear parameters. A carefully considered composition of placement, image and sound, within which the viewer is given every opportunity to use their own imagination. So many viewers, so many stories. We don’t need to create miracles, just open the senses to the miracles that are already there. Artistic director Boukje Schweigman
Boukje Schweigman
Boukje Schweigman (1974) is the founder and artistic director of Schweigman&. She graduated in 2003 from the Mime programme at the Theatre School in Amsterdam (AHK), where she had already developed her own ‘signature’ style, which was further enhanced through her collaboration with Theun Mosk, with whom she created her graduation performance Benen.
In her final year, Boukje won the 2003 Ton Lutz Prize and the 2003 Top Naeff Prize, alongside a number of other international awards. She was immediately commissioned by the Prince Bernhard Culture Fund, and her graduation performance went on tour both at home and abroad with the ITS Festival. Boukje went to Barcelona to collaborate with Teatro de los Sentidos. Back in the Netherlands, she worked for a time as a creator at various production companies and in 2006 became artistic director of her own company, which in its early years operated under the auspices of the theatre agency Via Rudolphi. From 2012, she began to build her own organisation around her, which has since been based in Utrecht. Since 2009, her work has received structural support from the Performing Arts Fund. Boukje Schweigman’s work is performed both at home and abroad. Several productions have been nominated for the VSCD Mime Prize. She received this prize for Spiegel in 2012 and for For the time being in 2018.
Puck Mathot
Puck Mathot (1972) has been working at Schweigman& since 2018. She started as head of production, but since April 2023 she has been the artistic director and, together with Boukje, forms the management team. Before joining Schweigman&, she spent five years as a lecturer and project coordinator at the Academy of Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam, working on the Performing Arts Production, Design and Technology, and Scenography programmes. She was also a guest lecturer at the Faculty of Art & Economics at the HKU and coordinator of the MA Reinventing Daily Life at the Sandberg Institute. She enjoys applying her experience in arts education to the development of Schweigman&’s own artists, but she is also happy to act as a discussion partner for young artists outside the organisation.
Before Puck made the switch to education, she was, among other things, head of production at Het Lab Utrecht, production manager at Dogtroep, and worked as an executive secretary at the BKVB Fund in Amsterdam.