Myra Schouten & Yasmine Deroui
FATHERLAND/En Route
“WE ARE THE NEOCOLONISERS, we can definitely be. We are nothing special – this we already knew – but colonialism created diaspora which created our breed. We are so part of the equation and so part of the problem. We should probably never be fully legitimate. We should never fully belong. We should never feel too comfortable.” – a passage from a letter Yasmine sent to Myra
The foundation of the project is our travels to Morocco. Through these letters we try to uncover what our relationship is to Morocco, what our positioning is in Morocco. Building a manual on how-to-belong. In our process to exercise belonging we first glorify the country, but more and more it reveals to us that we hold privilege as diaspora kids, that in order to belong one must criticise its leaders, one must carry the burden of the stigma. We are tiptoeing on the border of reclamation and appropriation.
In the performance we try to give nuance to the story of self-discovery, of coming-of-age through heritage. Layering the personal experience with the history of migration, with the research on culture, with the current political events. Instinctively transforming the theater into an in-between-space for diaspora kids. Following the success, but mostly the failures. Finding solace in not belonging, in moving between cultures.
Yasmine Deroui is a theatre maker and dramaturg based in Brussels. She obtained a Master in Theatre at the Toneelacademie of Maastricht. Myra Schouten is a performer and theatre maker based in Rotterdam. She graduated as a performer from Institute for Performing Arts Maastricht. Yasmine and Myra’s first projects (Medea(s) (2024) and What Will Be My Last Lullaby? (2024)) revolved around motherhood and their relationship with the uterus, emphasizing sensoriality of the body through objects and images on stage. They met while co-facilitating a workshop, discovering a deep artistic synergy. Once again Yasmine and Myra were to embark on a similar thematic route, but this time they knew each other.
Their collaboration grew as they explored belonging in relation to Moroccan heritage and their mixed-race identities. Their practice moves between theatre, performance and video art, bringing together the personal and the political. Using journal-style writing and reworkings of existing texts, they translate lived experiences into political experiments and sensory forms, creating performances that invite audiences to feel what they observe. They layer their gathered materials, making it a reflection on the personal, the theoretical and the political.
Mitzi Beesemer, sound and installation artist based in Rotterdam, later joined the project, bringing her expertise in sound materiality and expanding the research into how sound can uncover affective layers of memory, and create sensory landscapes that echo and transform the performers’ journeys. Her work involves experimenting with the estranging effects of sound and the disorientation of the senses. Characterized by a dream-like quality and an emphasis on texture, her sound creations frequently zoom in on something small, both in objects and in humans, creating a sense of intimacy.