on smoke and airconditioning

In the press

"Ik wil dat het publiek niks meer hoeft, gewoon kijkt en dingen voelt" Gerben Vaillant in NRC over A sense of an ending 

"Het einde van de wereld als gedeconstrueerde rampenfilm" Theaterkrant 

"Het beste in de theaters van 2024." Het Parool 

"Een performance die fascineert tot en met de laatste scène.''  Theaterkrant 

"On almost every page, over de eindeloze inwisselbaarheid van mensen en dingen, tilt je op en voert je mee. Performancemaker Gerben Vaillant is er eentje om te onthouden." Het Parool 

About Gerben Vaillant 

Gerben Vaillant (1994) is an interdisciplinary performance-maker. During his studies on the AHK’s mime course he developed a fascination for making productions centred around the distance between people and reality: where people do not manage to become (part of) a whole. He works, sensitively yet radically, with different forms: text, dance, visuals, philosophy, trash – it can always go in any direction, but usually it’s atmospheric, and sometimes confusing. His ultimate aim is to contribute to creating a representation of reality in a way better suited to us.

Gerben regularly works with composer and sound designer Timon Persoon. Their intensive collaboration ensures that music and image elevate one another. Together, they build an almost cinematographic universe, which expands further with every production. They also link together the productions and pieces of music they create individually. 

He presented his initial research Things when they're gone at Frascati Producties during Beginnings in 2021, which he developed into the Frascati production The Other Everything in 2022. In early 2023, Gerben created A sense of an ending in collaboration with Frascati Producties. This was followed in 2024 by on almost every page, again in co-production with Frascati Producties.

About Fleur van den Berg

Fleur van den Berg (1981) is an artist, performing and creating in a realm where the physical and the philosophical meet. 

During her time of study (Mime department, AHK Amsterdam University of the Arts, 2011), she developed a practice in which her processes of creating were researches on an existence, out of place, meaningless, knowing that our ‘being in this world’ is only temporarily, fatal you might say. What makes us fight to stay alive.

Her work feels like lingering in a book or a painting or a peculiar architecture, where you have to be on guard for knife sharp edges, when you take a corner, or a paper-cut when you turn a page. An encounter with her audience is without question, though never a forced participation, rather a mutual commitment or engagement in which agreements are made. Agreements to surrender, to allow confusion, to be moved. In order to end up in places we didn’t know exist. In our minds, in our bodies, in this world.

Effortless changes between functions and responsibilities, is typical for her way of working; from performer to dramaturge, from writer to mover, from technician to scenographer, to adviser. She touches everything, in collaboration with the entire team. Training, teaching, research, learning, developing.