A Color Source Desire 3, a Viper 2.6 Fog Generator, an RP Black screen.
Rope, cables, laptops, fabrics, opera foil, a thunder plate, various masking materials… With my regular collaborator, set designer Theun Mosk, and lighting designer Wout Panis, I lifted these materials into the small hall of our home theater, De Nieuwe Vorst, in mid-January. Research week. Creating stage designs. Vertical Blue. Premiere: September 11, 2026.
Control-hungry creatures
A few weeks earlier, I was in Dahab, a small town in southern Egypt, to learn to freedive. Freediving is a form of diving in which one dives to great depths and surfaces again using one single breath. Divers experience a ‘free fall’ from 30 meters underwater; the pressure pushes them deeper into the ocean. “It’s like being swallowed by the ocean, becoming part of it,” says freediver Alessia Zecchini. In an accelerating, pressure-filled world, where the human reflex to control (our time, our environment, Greenland, our thoughts, the wolf, or any ecological ‘Other’ in general) seems more prominent and, above all, more desperate than ever, I sought salvation in this deep-diving phenomenon. What does it do to us as rational and control-hungry beings when we are swallowed by something larger?
Freediving exerts extreme pressure on the body: The lungs shrink to the size of a fist, the heart rate drops to 10 beats per minute. Underwater, it becomes increasingly dark. Nevertheless, many freedivers report experiencing optimal concentration and intense happiness during their dive. It is vital for these divers to remain relaxed at great depths, both physically and mentally. Letting the ocean do its work. Here I find a substantive parallel with the current state of the world around us: Freediving shows that we can surrender under pressure, remain receptive, and let ourselves be carried along by the forces of the ocean, greater than ourselves. And that by consciously relaxing, we can remain autonomous. It enables us to achieve incredible feats, it’s something that can apparently make us feel intensely happy, and it questions the importance (and efficiency) of our need for control. I see it as an alternative way of “responding” to an overwhelming world.
Let the body take the lead.
I didn’t get far in Egypt, underwater. There was way too much tension in my body, my diaphragm wouldn’t soften, my lungs couldn’t contract, and I kept fighting against the same limits. My body held on too tightly, was hard. Was I afraid? Afraid of letting go, of losing myself? (What exactly? Control, safety, the familiar? Aren’t I brave? A blind spot was highlighted, very confronting. But that’s for another essay.) I spent hours in the water, repeatedly filling my lungs with air, swimming downward. I couldn’t get any deeper than 21 meters, but the lesson was learned: surrender isn’t just a mental state of being. The body must follow. Or better yet: Taking the lead.
So, addressing the body, an endless blue horizon, being swallowed up… letting yourself be carried away, surrender. Even when you don’t know where you’re going, when it will end, or when you can breathe again. I translated my experiences with the blue into initial sketches for stage scenes and sensory experiences for an audience. In this first week, Theun and Wout explored how we can take our audience into the depths, and what breaks open within us as a result. Highlighting the blind spots. What emerges within us when we dive into the unknown? How can we lead audiences beyond the human reflex to control and “want to understand”? What comes to us at the bottom of the ocean? What do we see when there’s barely any light left? What lives in our inner world, that then begins to speak?
What if we have to say goodbye?
We searched for the immaterial infinite, light as a subject itself. Not as something that shines forth, but that is. It yielded exciting images. The research was fun, the stage designs aesthetic. But ultimately, fun wasn’t what I was looking for. Being overwhelmed, being carried away, freediving, is like an experience of the sublime: both delightful and terrifying. It happens to you, it does something to you, there is no other way than through. The material ending. What if a parting happens to us? What if we have to let go of what we love most, without having any control over it? “The water will run through your hands either way, whether you make a tight fist or softly open your fingers.” Theun lost his father last year. I lost my love. After a few days, the world we created turned not blue, but black. The material ended, in the eye, in the body of the audience.
It’s like being swallowed by the performance, becoming part of it.
We ended the week with only a first draft, but it was unavoidable. It was delightful, and terrifying. To be continued.