PHI
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Tue 27 May ’2519:00Try-outFrascati, AmsterdamFrascati 4
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Wed 28 May ’2519:00PremièreFrascati, AmsterdamFrascati 4
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Thu 29 May ’2519:00Frascati, AmsterdamFrascati 4
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Fri 30 May ’2519:00Frascati, AmsterdamFrascati 4
Created between seminar and stage, PHI is a performance born from an unusual experiment: a rehearsal room visited by philosophy. Our journey began with the study of philosophical texts that investigate the meaning of truth and our attitudes towards it. Russell, Derrida, Badiou, Foucault, Williams, their ideas led our conversations. These encounters were then transformed through improvisation, physical theatre, and spatial exploration into a live reflection on our experience of truth today.
Rather than a lecture or a story, PHI offers a mosaic of moments anchored in a space created by Menno Meijners. The design of the space comes from the concept of giving different dimensions on “holy” structures. It is an abstract interpretation of truth and its development. By making bold decisions the space cannot be ignored, to the point that it blocks sightlines or stands in the way. It is an environment that envelops you, where abstract questions become visual experiences.
From tension to tenderness, abstraction to embodiment, PHI explores how our beliefs around truth shape how we relate to each other, to society, and to ourselves. The result is a theatrical essay: poetic, physical, sometimes fractured, always alive.
PHI is not here to deliver answers, but to share a space of questioning. In a cultural climate marked by the doubt that we could ever obtain any truth, can we then, be truthful.
This is a graduation performance of Caroline Geiser (Regie opleiding) and Menno Meijners (Scenografie opleiding) from the ATD (Academie voor Theater en Dans) in Amsterdam.
Credits
directer Caroline Geiser scenography Menno Meijners performance and cocreation Sairah Erens, Carina de Vroome, Türkü Köksel, Ghinwa Abou Zein and Coleman Kelly dramaturgy Nona Wallerbosch music and sound design Luka Schuurman production Daniëlle Heunks production intern Lars Smit lighting design and technical support Kiki Heslenfeld and Marcel Slagter mentor directing Thomas Lammers mentor scenography Baukje Trenning with special thanks to Martijn Boven, Morgane Ziegler, Berthe Spoelstra, Bart Visser, Judith van de Pas, Kasper Scholte, Daan Westerdorp, Gemma van Kruijsbergen, Annebeth Vlietstra, Lois Maat, Sjoerd Sporken, Henk de Haas.
About the makers
Caroline Geiser (1996) is a Swiss-Colombian theatre director set to graduate this year from the corresponding program at the AHK. During her studies, she has been searching for a bridge between the analytical and the intuitive, the metaphysical and the embodied in an attempt to understand her own fragmentation. She uses auto-theory to metabolize, analytical philosophy to dissect and theatre to bind us to the world we navigate.
Caroline’s artistic practice is grounded in research and philosophical inquiry, yet it is brought to life through highly intuitive and collaborative rehearsal processes.
It explores the absurdity of human existence, not through conventional narrative or character development, but by confronting the audience directly with layered, sensorial experiences. Rather than asking the audience to (always) empathize with characters, her work creates a charged space between stage and spectator, where language—spoken, visual, musical, or physical—is both examined and dismantled.
Menno Meijners (1992) graduates from the scenography department of the Academy of Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam. As a spatial designer Menno dares to confront you. With yourself or with the social customs around us. His work creates spaces that cannot be missed. But will never push it on to you. There is often a subtle play with absurdity and irony. And designs are mostly conceptual, abstract and aesthetic. In his studies he made work exploring video, installation art and room filling scenography. In the last two years he made designs only with borrowed or waste material.
Before, Menno studied in fields as architecture, art, but also in public administration. Creating new combinations is something he sees as his role as a designer. Fascinated by change he aspires to become a changemaker, ready for complex questions. All to be possibly translated in aesthetic, bold spatial designs that seduces an audience to think differently.
