Kristel van issum - photo Renate Beense
Kristel van issum - photo Renate Beense

Circles of Women Holding Hands

By Kristel van Issum

Kristel van Issum puts in her project Circles of Women Holding Hands women and their stories in the spotlight. During Theatre Festival Boulevard 2019, she invited three times 10 women to form a circle with her and engage in conversation. They will discuss the zeitgeist, hypes, trends, survival and female solidarity. T.r.a.s.h.'s films offer an initial trigger for conversation. How vulnerable do we dare to be with strangers? How do we find recognition with each other? A search for the power of sharing, connecting and feminine energy. Meeting, being together and engaging in conversation in equality.

The words, phrases, chance interactions and body language Kristel picks up during the conversations will eventually be developed into a script. The final result will premiere at Theatre Festival Boulevard 2020 as a dynamic movement installation directed in detail with ten actresses and an audio composition.

Kristel: "Mimicry, physical reactions in listening, speaking, I zoom in on that. You are listening to another person and at the same time you have huge thoughts as a human being. You express these sometimes, sometimes not. Sometimes we speak without words, which is about gestures, body posture. How can you magnify those gestures, facial expressions. What do they tell?"

With Circles of Women Holding Hands Kristel underlines a trend in the arts. Not a work of art she is brooding on on her own, but an attempt at ego-less shareability in which, connected to others, she searches for kinship and contradictions.

Credits

Premiere

2019