Florian Myjer

Maker

Performer Florian Myjer is a unique voice in the performance landscape. In his work, imagination is king; non-conformity and the search for identity are central. In 2019, Florian Myjer continued his work with Frascati Producties in the form of the production Oorlog en Vrede.

Biography

Using rich language and strong imagery, performer Florian Myjer (the Netherlands, 1992) tests the value of intimacy and connection. Losing himself in impossible desires, fantasising about a glorious world-that-could-be, Myjer builds refined palaces of mirrors in which civilisation and beauty fight for dominance with harshness and the sludge of the human soul.

Florian Myjer graduated in the summer of 2017 from the performance course at Toneelacademie Maastricht with Bloomsbury, a production he created with Kim Karssen. Voracious and fumbling, they dived into the ideas of the Bloomsbury Group – a colourful collection of artists and thinkers in early 20th-century England. Not with the wish to create a historically accurate documentary production, but as a hyper-personal search for the shelf-life of soft ideals and mild anarchy.

Florian Myjer performed with Frascati Producties even before attending the Toneelacademie, in Piece (2011) directed by Nicole Beutler. During the same period, he was also part of Frascati’s youth panel. In October 2017, he created Oliver for Fraslab: a personal solo performance on fathers and sons and the desire to share in the fate of a world in which civilisation, beauty and tradition are still valued (Theater aan Zee/ De Grote Post Residentieprijs award). This was followed in January 2018 by Regina Rex, a personal monument to two royalty watchers who live out their love of all things royal to the full; but above all, a personal story about desire, ambition and outsiders. This production was nominated for the 2018 BNG Bank Theaterprijs award.

In 2019, Florian Myjer continued his work with Frascati Producties in the form of his latest production Oorlog en Vrede (War and Peace), which premiered in May 2019 and for which Myjer again worked with Kim Karssen. This was not an ordinary adaptation of a novel, but rather a personal, explosive, megalomaniac evening of theatre. Tolstoy’s characters, large as life and totally compelling. In the freezing cold Russian winter, family capital is frittered away, too many people die, too young and too horribly, hearts are broken time and again, and all this against the background of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. The contrasts to the Netherlands today could hardly be greater: we live, longing and afraid, in relative safety. Our narrow Dutch frame of reference is deeply ingrained. Tolstoy’s magnum opus forces us to confront the biggest of big questions: How should we live?