In an intensely immersive performance opera, born out of the urgency to learn how to navigate a world in collapse, the Rotterdam-based performance collective Club Gewalt asks: how can you readjust your senses under the constant static of information predicting the apocalypse? How do we give meaning to a future that doesn’t overflow with prosperity? Can we fall in love with being human all over again? And: is this the moment to find God? Cuz: never waste a good crisis.
Welcome
Dear human,
First of all, welcome.
You made it until here.
See this as a checkpoint.
A place where you can – for a brief moment – breath out and be. I won’t say you are in good hands, because that is entirely up to you. What I will say though, is that we are very happy you are here.
I wanted to address a little thing. The word collapse. It’s an important one in this work. What I would like to ask of you to keep in mind, is that when we speak of collapse we don’t envision destruction. Of course, of course, destruction is a part of collapse. But the big difference – for me – is that I see collapse as a natural process and destruction as a human one.
I know what you’re thinking, humans are nature too? And yes, we are.
But.
We, humans, have made a point of keeping systems alive that – in the natural cycle of the universe – would maybe have perished a long time ago. Think of capitalism, patriarchy, you know… those kinds of systems. But to keep them in place, we now see that humans whom benefit from those systems need to do everything in there power (from casual repression to genocide) to wear off anything that challenges their way of life. Make no mistake, it doesn’t matter who you are, or where you are from, when you challenge the status quo, even if you’re in whatever way part of it, you become a target.
In this work we invite collapse. So that we can put to rest all that does not benefit us humans. We want to invite collapse so that we can finally mourn all lives lost from imperialistic endeavors. All the love that has been sent back to the ether too soon. All the children who saw their future, their parents, their potential taken away.
We want to invite collapse in order to heal.
In order to sooth our hearts, our nervous systems.
To look upon the face of a stranger and see ourselves.
For we are them.
And lastly – thank you for bearing with me thus far – if in this work you find (a part of) yourself, then please know that you’re not alone. We’re right there with you.
Oh and…
Have fun!
Love,
Amir
Club Gewalt
Listening to the Holy Tune of Collapse
By Mara Snip
COLLAPSE
A collapse seems to happen in either two ways. One scenario is quick, quite unexpected, like thunder at clear skies or getting struck by a heart attack. The second scenario takes its time to rip apart, it shows little signs of distress and builds up tension until it finally lets go.
In the first case one lives in bliss and is free from fear until it suddenly hits them, but in the second scenario it takes more effort to ignore and suppress the signs. For example, one can notice that the water in the shower sink takes more and more time to run away, and every time you shower you stand deeper and deeper into your own little bath, until it doesn’t run at all anymore and your whole world is flooded. Or one can see the first cracks in the wall and notices day by day how it rips bigger and bigger. One might be afraid of the damage it’s doing, but still doesn’t need to act until society might actually crumble down.
Clearly, a collapse happening is depending on your geo-political location. And of course, one can argue that we have to get on with our lives and can’t be defeated by particular events, but it signals something interesting about us humans: one needs to suffer significantly on a personal level for wanting things to be different. In our neo-liberal, capitalistic and patriarchal society sooner or later everyone will experience some sort of collapse. Sometimes you ‘ll experience suppression or assault you never thought would happen to you, which makes you aware of power structures and resulting in your collapse. Or perhaps initially it’s not your own experience, but someone other’s (future) collapse that makes you collapse, because you care so much for them.
But what if a collapse doesn’t only result in destruction?
What if we approach it as an opportunity for humankind to heal?
THIS IS SANNA
Let me introduce you to Sanna from Club Gewalt. Sanna collapsed. Sanna has been witnessing the collapse of the world for a while, but only a few years in of having her own family did her burn-out make her see the significance of the events. Sanna always has been an anxious person, but now it involves her and her children. She started to read books, wanting to understand her stress cycle. She took a step back from work, dealing with the challenges of motherhood. She became aware of her privileges in this fossil fuelled, collapsing democracy. She couldn’t let go of the idea what she passed on to her children: a death sentence. Sanna needs meaning to make sense of all this collapse, to be able to fall back in love with being human.
NOISE, BECAUSE WORDS AREN’T ENOUGH
If we want to heal as humankind we need to return to the sensory. We need to invite curiosity back in towards ourselves and each other. We need to imagine a world that’s new to us all, which we all care for. We need to learn to listen again.
A language doesn’t only need to words, it needs noise. Noise to express our pain, our joy, traumas, desires and vision. Noise to invite silence for our thoughts. Noise to come to a visceral understanding of being alive. Noise that connects every one of us.
It might not always be comfortable to listen to, as life isn’t always comfortable, but noise announces an opportunity for us to come together again, to see one another for the humans we are and start building anew.
5 Questions to Club Gewalt
NO: You work as a collective. How did Club Gewalt come together, and how does that shape your work?
Club Gewalt: We met at the conservatory in Rotterdam, in the music theatre department. While we were originally trained to be performers, we all had a strong urge to create our own material. Working collectively felt very natural to us – it was a kind of shared energy that kept growing during our studies.
At the same time, we graduated during a period of major funding cuts in the Netherlands, so the outlook for individual careers was quite bleak. Forming a collective gave us autonomy: we could define our own aesthetic, make our own decisions, and build visibility together. Being many voices instead of one made a real difference.
Over the years, our way of working has changed. What started as something very intuitive – driven by “vibe”, which is still very important to us – became more structured. We had to reflect on how we collaborate, whose voices are heard, and how to make the process transparent and sustainable. That shift was necessary to keep the work both healthy and exciting.
NO: Your new performance NOISE deals with collapse. How did this idea emerge?
Club Gewalt: The starting point was a personal experience with collapse – something that’s scary and unsettling, but at the same time inevitable. Systems, structures, even personal identities eventually break down.
The question became: how can we relate to collapse differently? Not just through fear, but as something that might also open space for transformation. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t resist certain collapses – like the collapse of democracy – but if our only goal is preservation, we end up stuck in fear.
So NOISE became a way to explore collapse as a condition of life, and to imagine what might come after.
NO: The piece seems to connect very personal experiences with global crises. How do these levels interact?
Club Gewalt: The project started from a very personal perspective – questions around motherhood, fear of death, and even the search for God. These experiences are deeply individual, but we were interested in translating them into something more universal. We’re all reminded daily that we’re living in what many describe as a state of “polycrisis”: climate catastrophe, political instability, rising fascism, genocide, overwhelming information flows.
These large-scale crises create constant stress, but we often don’t process that stress itself. One important idea for us – partly inspired by Emily Nagoski’s work – is that you need to “complete the stress cycle.” That means actually feeling emotions like fear, grief, or anger instead of suppressing them.
In the performance, we try to create a space where audiences can experience and process these emotions collectively.
NO: Formally, NOISE plays with the structure of a seminar. Why this choice?
Club Gewalt: We’re very interested in using familiar and therefore relatable formats with clear conventions – like a seminar – and then disrupting them. A seminar is highly structured, informative, and not usually considered artistic, which makes it an interesting contrast to music theatre.
In NOISE, you see a seminar that gradually collapses. One character is split into five parallel versions, all trying to deliver the same presentation. What starts as something recognizable becomes increasingly absurd, musical, and immersive.
We combine this with sound, voice, and synthesizers, moving between speech, music, and noise. The idea is to stretch the form until it breaks – and to see what emerges from that.
NO: What role does “noise” play in the piece—musically and conceptually?
Club Gewalt: Noise is less a strict genre for us and more an approach. It’s about working with sounds that are not traditionally considered “beautiful” and allowing discomfort to exist.
Historically, noise music has been about breaking musical conventions and creating cathartic experiences through intensity and even unpleasantness. That resonates strongly with our themes. We’re not interested in music that is only beautiful – music can also process, confront, and transform.
In NOISE, this translates into a performance that moves from structure to overload, from a need for clarity to a dive into chaos. It becomes an immersive sound experience where audiences can feel the tension, the stress, and hopefully also a kind of release.
Team
WITH Gerty van de Perre, Loulou Hameleers, Robbert Klein, Sanna Elon Vrij, Suzanne Kipping
COMPOSITION/TEXT/PERFORMANCE Gerty Van de Perre, Loulou Hameleers, Robbert Klein, Sanna Elon Vrij, Suzanne Kipping ARTISTIC DIRECTION Sanna Elon Vrij MUSIC DIRECTION Robbert Klein DRAMATURGY Mara Snip, Amir Vahidi FINAL DIRECTION Lisa Lucassen COSTUME DESIGN Mayan Tuulia Frank COSTUME ASSISTANT Carlotta Schumann CELLULAR OBJECTS Hagen Keller SCENORAPHY Wes Broersen SOUND DESIGN Joost Muller TECHNICAL PRODUCTION Pablo Strörmann TECHNIQUE Neuköllner Oper, Noor Thijssen, Sipke Woudstra EXECUTIVE PRODUCTION Andrea van Bussel PRODUCTION ASSISTENT Zus Downes ASSISTANT DIRECTOR / PRODUCTION ASSITANT Leonore Del Mestre BUSINESS LEAD Rick Mouwen ARTDIRECTION CAMPAIGN MaartjeMerel PHOTOGRAPHY CAMPAIGN Pim Top COMMUNICATION Marlies van der Neut, Pauline Ouwerkerk HAIR & MAKE-UP Anne-Claire Meyer EVENING MANAGEMENT Regina Triebel, Sophie Reavley TECHNICHAL PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT Kim Titzmann SOUND Ronald Davila
Bios
Gerty Van de Perre | Composition, Text, Performance
Gerty Van de Perre is a theater maker, actress and singer, whose work mostly focuses on interdisciplinary performance and physical performance. She graduated from the Music Theater department at Codarts conservatory of music in 2013.
Gerty is one of the founders and makers of music and performance collective Club Gewalt. Together they create music-based performances for theater, music venues and festivals.
Besides from working with the collective, she collaborates with directors and choreographers like Ryan Djojokarso and Timo Tembuyser and gives workshops. Gerty is committed to developing her practice by doing trainings and masterclasses with artists like Boukje Schweigman and Florentina Holzinger and Rosetta Beats, a platform for f/x music producers.
Since 2022 Gerty has been involved in a research project at the oncology department of Amsterdam UMC as an artistic coordinator. The aim of this project is to investigate the potential role of performance and music in dealing with cancer.
Gerty is also a yoga teacher and a fanatic hobbyist. She practices kung fu, likes to cook and creates ceramics.
Loulou Hameleers | Composition, Text, Performance
Loulou is a singer, actress, theatre maker and director who feels both the need and the joy to combine all these disciplines. She is a virtuoso and versatile singer, moving from classical to pop to musical theatre to grunt vocals, always challenging herself to explore new territories. On stage she feels boundless and free, both as a singer and as an actress. She loves being directed, but always values having her own artistic voice in the process.
She is part of the music and performance collective Club Gewalt. Together they create, compose, produce and perform their own work, in which music is always the beginning, the middle and the end.
She has performed at leading venues and festivals in the Netherlands and internationally, including BAM (New York), Festival d’Avignon, Venice Biennale, Volksbühne Berlin and Neuköllner Oper.
Loulou is also the frontwoman of the radical feminist punkband Herr Hamsterfleisch. Their concerts are celebrations of women, filled with humour, absurdism and emotion.
Alongside her own artistic practice, Loulou finds great joy and fulfillment in mentoring young makers. She is a resident dramaturg at De Werkplaats Walhalla in Rotterdam, a stage and production house dedicated to talent development.
She believes strongly in the connecting power of singing and, driven by this passion, she is also the conductor of the amateur choir Het Club Gewalt Koor.
Robbert Klein | Composition, Text, Performance
Robbert Klein is a performer, musician, composer, sound designer and theatermaker. He studied music theater at the conservatory in Rotterdam (Codarts). After graduating he co-founded music and performance collective Club Gewalt. Over a period of 15 years he produced countless innovative performances with them, among others CLUB CLUB GEWALT 5.0 PUNK, YURI and 10 Year Anniversary. His work was presented in Dutch theaters and prestigious Dutch festivals, like O. Festival and Lowlands. Internationally it was presented at for instance Neuköllner Oper and the Venice Biennale.
Outside Club Gewalt, Robbert performed in Life and Times II by Nature Theatre of Oklahoma and The Humans by Alexandre Singh. As a composer and sound designer he worked for many other artists and projects, like award winning actrice Romana Vrede, renowned music theater company Orkater, De Grote Kunstshow, Minoux and Staging Cancer. Robbert also has a an alt-pop band Burght.
Besides his own artistic practice, Robbert had worked as a coach and teacher at theater company DOX, Acteerschool Rotterdam, MBO theaterschool Rotterdam and Codarts.
Sanna Vrij | Composition, Text, Performance
Sanna is a director, writer, singer, performer and coach of music theater, and a member of music and performance collective Club Gewalt. The projects she is part of often cover themes like political justice, intersectional feminism, economical solidarity, pop culture and aim to add to the discourse of experimental interdisciplinary arts. Her work has been presented at prestigious festivals in the Netherlands like O. Festival, Lowlands, Down the Rabbithole, but also internationally at Neuköllner Oper Berlin, BAM New York and the Venice Biennale. Her artistic research is keen on interesting and new collaborations between artists, organizations and disciplines, and in each project, she looks how she can contribute to a healthy, solidary and inclusive industry. Besides her own artistic practice, Sanna is very active in working with new talent, helping them define their practice and coaching them in facilitating it. Sanna is also frequently asked by industry magazines and panels to share her perspective on music theater and talent development.
Suzanne Kipping | Composition, Text, Performance
Suzanne is a theatre maker, performer, singer and composer. Since 2013, she’s been a member of Club Gewalt, a music based performance collective from Rotterdam. Together they have made and performed different shows for theatre, music festivals and everything in between.
Next to that Suzanne was the lead singer and (co-)writer for the synth pop band ‘Sheila and the Kit’. She played in different theatre performances, tv-shows and movies in The Netherlands.
For the show NOISE she composed the music, together with Robbert.
Mayan Tuulia Frank | Costume Design
Mayan Tuulia Frank (no pronouns) is a artist specializing in stage, costume, and set design. Their interdisciplinary practice bridges theater, installation, and visual storytelling, marked by bold colors, striking textures, and surreal, often grotesque objects. Mayan’s work explores the tension between material, space, and narrative, weaving pop culture, queer aesthetics, and personal memory into vivid, exaggerated scenarios. Mayan’s approach is both conceptual and hands-on, with a focus on collaborative processes and transformative visual worlds.
Recent projects include stage designs for Volksbühne Berlin, Staatstheater Cottbus, and Theater Altenburg Gera. They have maintained a continuous creative partnership with director and dragtress Meo Wulf since Sally – Mein Leben im Drag, which was later invited to Radikal Jung. Long-standing collaborations also exist with Andrea Pinkowski, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Charlotte Garraway. Upcoming premieres include Der Sturm by Shakespeare (costume and stage design, directed by Pinkowski) on 16 July at Burgtheatersommer Roßlau, and Planet der Hasen (with Katharina Grosch) on 10 September at Hans Otto Theater Potsdam.
Committed to fair labor practices, Mayan is a member of the GDBA and actively networks with fellow designers, because solidarity and equality should never be just empty words.
Amir Vahidi | DramaturgY
My name is Amir Vahidi.
I’m one of two artistic directors of Club Gewalt. Just like my friends – and of course colleagues – I studied musictheater at the conservatory of Rotterdam and graduated in 2013.
Since then I’ve been working within and outside of Club Gewalt as an actor, performer, composer and a songwriter.
I find a lot of pleasure in developing concepts that connect art with the world that we live in now. In intertwining the personal with the universal and in that finding connection with other humans. To tell stories that live outside of the immediate Western narrative, but still resonate. And I feel it as my duty to speak out for people who can’t or don’t want to.
Also, I believe that humor is a great way of dealing/coping with the reality of the world sometimes.
I hope that people will find our work inspiring, challenging and comforting.
Mara Snip | Dramaturgy
Mara (she/they, 1991) is theatre performer, actress and writer in The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. In 2013 she graduated at the Codarts conservatory in Rotterdam with a bachelor of music in music theatre and is since 2020 based in Berlin.
Her work is described as drama-electronic, documental music theatre. She writes from her personal trans-experience and shares this through creating musical landscapes in which she uses her voice, loopstation and synthesizer. In contrary to hostile public spaces towards trans people, the theatre allows Mara to invite the audience to exist on her terms and queer vision. Her hope is for the audience to live that queer future back in daily life.
Mara considers her transition the ultimate form of self-expression and lets it be her compass for a connected, creative and authentic life. Every day is a renewed, deepened relationship with her developing body and invites fresh and compassionate ways of existing. Transitioning brought her an extraordinary force of autonomy and drives her to reclaim space for the visibility and rights of queerness within our suppressed, dysfunctional society.
In the past years she created two solo-performances, collaborates with Boogaerdt & Van der Schoot, starred in Gloriette by Leila Hekmat at HAU, and co-directed and performed 1000 AIRPLANES ON THE ROOF from Philip Glass at the Neuköllner Oper.
Rick Mouwen | Business Lead
Rick Mouwen is the business director of music and performance Club Gewalt. He co-founded the collective together with the makers in 2013. After completing his studies in Art and Economics at the Utrecht University of the Arts, he worked as a freelancer for various companies and festivals in the Netherlands, including: collective Touki Delphine, O festival, Het Zuidelijk Toneel, Khadija El Kharraz Alami, and festival Motel Mozaique. He is a guest lecturer at the Amsterdam University of the Arts, where he teaches budgeting for the Production and Stage Management study programme. Additionally, he is a member of the Performing Arts Advisory Committee at the Municipality of Rotterdam and a supervisor at Festival Cement, a festival for emerging theatre makers in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Andrea van Bussel | ProduCtion
Andrea Vos-van Bussel is a freelance production manager based in the Netherlands. From a young age, she was captivated by the magic of theatre, and by the age of 17 she was already producing for small theatre groups. In 2013, she completed her degree in Arts & Management, after which she gained experience across a wide range of (international) productions, including theatre, (sports) events, conferences, and festivals.
Since 2019, Andrea has been involved with Club Gewalt. As production manager, she oversees all projects and performances, ensuring that everything is well-prepared, efficiently scheduled, and clearly communicated.
