If there was ever a time for new stories from new creators in new languages, it’s now.
With OPEN NITES 5 creators had the opportunity to create experimental work for the NITE HOTEL. Innovation, inclusiveness and an interdisciplinary approach are the norm and the future at NITE. That’s why we are offering several creators the opportunity to explore the NITE Hotel. What is live? What does interdisciplinary mean online? Which next-level formats are available beyond a recording or live stream? Where are the online boundaries and what opportunities can the digital world provide? What stories should be told on this innovative platform?
Watch and experience their online performances in March 24/7 on demand in the NITE Hotel
About the makers and their performances
Motel
by Robin de Puy
For NITE, Robin de Puy has created a world where spectators have the opportunity to watch the sometimes-surrealistic scenes taking place on and around a motel. Each room has its own story with its own protagonists. One person has a practical reason for staying in a hotel, while others are there to escape or for desire. Who are these people? And what can their life stories teach us?
De Puy herself grew up in a hotel. It was where she saw loners from all over the world trying to carve out an existence. But it was also where she became acquainted with the harsh side of reality, in a sometimes very confrontational way.
Photographer/director Robin de Puy (1986, the Netherlands) studied at the Fotoacademie Rotterdam and had many national and international exhibitions at the Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht, Museum Hilversum, Fotomuseum Den Haag, Stedelijk Museum Breda, Photoville, New York, among others. In addition to numerous other awards, de Puy was the winner of the National Portrait Award in both 2013 and 2019. In 2016 she was the national photographer of the Netherlands.
Celestial Space: a Meditation on Liberation Practices
by Stephanie Afrifa
It is important to feel at home somewhere. Yet, black women often feel like a guest in someone else’s narrative. Celestial space creates a space that is entirely theirs, where they can feel at home without having to think about it. It’s a safe space where they decide and create, and where others are just guests. This virtual free space features several areas to experience performances, dance, and music, but also spaces for reading, spirituality, and braiding.
Stephanie Afrifa is an editor at Vogue Netherlands and works as an organiser and moderator for talks on topics such as culture, art, social issues, and fashion. She has curated exhibitions, advised cultural institutions, and has been an active board member for various art institutions. Stephanie has also often been a guest as an art and culture connoisseur on the popular Dutch talk show De Wereld Draait Door (The World Keeps Turning). OPEN NITES is her debut as a creator.
Odyssey
by Mateusz Staniak
In these turbulent times of migration, pandemic, economic collapse, and wars, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find a safe place where to understand the reality around us. In the search for meaning and a sense of belonging, it’s easy to get lost in online search engines. It’s easier to feed your fears instead of confronting your guilt. What’s the difference between your own self-created online world and real life? When do algorithms go too far? Who is to blame when freedom of choice is polluted by sinister suggestions? Are you clicking wisely?
Staniak’s Odyssey is a video environment inspired by reality TV and our online obsession with voyeurism. The young director has used techniques inspired by social media and surveillance video to expose the dangers of online experience.
Mateusz Staniak is a young Polish director who lives and works in Amsterdam, where he studied directing at the Academy for Theatre and Dance and graduated with theatre pieces Kortinthe, 2057, and The Limits of the Self. Mateusz is an experimental director fascinated by the possibility of reinventing reality through stories and characters’ false identities.
Rail Rat
by Tim Linde, Luke Deane & Jan Hulst
At night he works alone on the rails of the high-speed line. So in the morning, everyone can blithely head off to work. But in the dark and the silence of the night, it’s difficult to get your own life on track. With a cup of coffee and plenty of experience, he is hopeful that the job will be over and done once again before the morning rush hours. Or perhaps not. What can you do when the train of society thunders towards you as you lay there “like a rat between the rails“? Rail Rat is a brutal monologue by Tim Linde, with live music by Luke Deane, directed by Jan Hulst. It’s a portrait of a man completely derailed, fumbling in the dark like a rat.
Actor Tim Linde graduated from the Amsterdam School of Drama and Performing Arts in 2012, to feature in productions by the Noord Nederlands Toneel, Toneelschuur Productions, and De Hollanders, among others.
Luke Deane is an English composer and director whose work focuses on self-expression and pain. His earlier work My Dream (2014), his VR opera work We Cannot Sleep (2017), and his short film She Flies By Night (2018), have earned him a reputation as one of the most ambitious and interdisciplinary creators in the Netherlands.
Jan Hulst
Dutch writer and director Jan Hulst graduated from the Theaterschool Amsterdam in 2014 and now works with Toneelgroep Oostpool, where he forms an unconventional writing and directing duo with Kasper Tarenskeen.
ALL THAT FOLLOWS. A Symphony
by Mart van Berckel & Angela Herenda
Rabbits, butlers, underwear, dance, blindness, ballrooms, dance, memories, dance, dance, dance – in a kaleidoscope of eight screens, different characters, thoughts and objects are brought to life. This symphony of screens explores the absurdity, melancholy and loneliness of the human condition. Within this tapestry of seemingly coincidental phrases, imagery and movement, one can wonder about the connection between all these different threads: whether they are connected at all, and whether or not together they are part of something bigger. All images on the screens were recorded in one take.
Angela Herenda has been an ensemble member at Club Guy & Roni since 2014. She dances in almost all major productions and regularly creates her own work as a choreographer for the Poetic Disasters Club, in recent years together with theater maker Hendrik Aerts and Mart van Berckel.
Theater maker Mart van Berckel uses a method that comparable to that of a visual artist or a composer. He creates ‘sensory theater trips’ with great precision: poetic compositions of image, light, movement, text, sound and music.
Mart and Angela previously made the performance Carry Jump Catch together with the Poetic Disasters Club. Many considered the performance to be the highlight of De Parade 2019: an adrenaline rush.
The NITE Hotel
Inspired by the need for a new togetherness the NITE ensemble responded to the stay-at-home orders that the current situation brings with the NITE Hotel. The hotel is a virtual theatre and a world to explore; an online environment where the arts can flourish and reach an even broader audience, again collaborating with artist from various disciplines.
“This innovative online environment for multidisciplinary performances is a clever initiative by Club Guy & Roni and the Noord Nederlands Toneel.” – De Volkskrant