A five-hour happening where bodies lose shape. You wander, dissolve into the crowd and re-emerge somewhere unfamiliar. There are no fixed seats. Follow the heat or sink into a corner and watch everything unfold.
HOLOBIONT is a subversive playground: part collective ritual, part anarchic dance floor. A gathering of performers, clitty wigs, smeared makeup and glitter that will mysteriously reappear in unexpected places. Here, bodies, labels and expectations collapse. In the chaos, something new emerges: a temporary community where bodies, genders and identities are free.
An immersive landscape of queer performers claiming fluidity. Bodies transform in real time: tucked live in the open, breasts bound and reshaped, waists cinched tight, faces wiped off and rebuilt again. Performance, video, text, music, dance and drag melt into one continuous field of transformation. An invitation to meet the unknown in yourself and others. And dance together.
The show runs continuously and lasts 3.5 hours, is in English, and is for ages 16 and up. Choose one of the time slots. In each city, HOLOBIONT connects with local queer and trans communities through collaboration with the hosting theater. Workshops open space for meeting, knowledge sharing, and artistic exchange. Local performers also step onto the HOLOBIONT stage, making every performance a living, breathing remix shaped by the voices and bodies of the city.
May contain loud music, nudity, explicit language and spontaneous gender euphoria.
Concept / Artistic direction Jef Van Gestel, Suzan Boogaerdt, Bianca van der Schoot Performers Rita Bifulco, Suzan Boogaerdt, Sjaid Foncé, Ayrton Fraenk, Jef Van Gestel, Barnaby Savage, Mara Snip, Isadora Tomasi Local Guest Performers t.b.a. Scenography advisor Wikke en Marloes Video design Daan Hazendonk Light design Julian Maiwald Coproducers Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot, Stichting Jef Van Gestel, Holland Festival
Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot (Suzan Boogaerdt and Bianca van der Schoot) and Jef Van Gestel create work at the intersection of theater, performance, and visual art, where imagination, intuition, and associative experience converge in an exploration of human fluidity.
from a feminist and gender-conscious perspective, Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot investigates how virtual and dream worlds shape human experience. Their installations and performances rarely follow a linear story, instead inviting the audience to wander through layers of movement, image, and sound as a living, immersive artwork. Their work has been presented internationally, from Berlin to Tokyo, and from the Venice Biennale to the Holland Festival.
Jef Van gestel (he/him/they/them) creates work as a mental playground: physical, visual, playful, and sensitive, imbued with absurdist humor and poetry. In portraits, creatures, and landscapes, he explores vulnerability, conflicting emotions, and the human drive for freedom. His work has been awarded the Ton Lutz Prize, the VSCD Mime Prize, and was selected for the Flanders TheaterFestival.
