There is no nothing.

I am between. I become we.

But sometimes when I become we, I am no longer sure who is saying what.

Our here was once your there and our now matches your then.

What words do we pass on and what do we cling to?

Who taught me to distinguish water and air, even if they are equally blue?

Let us not drown in a glass of water!

Because: learning is joy, revelation, the contrary of loneliness.

There is no nothing.

In relationship with me, you also are.

Oertaal: oefeningen explores wonder there where we manage to understand each other.

a research by Enrica Camporesi (concept, text, design) together with Line Mertens and Andreia Rodrigues (research, text, performance) and Bert Serneels (research and scenography), in conversation with Sanne Van Rijn (Toneelacademie Maastricht). A production by Enrica Camporesi and Platform 0090 (technical and productional assistance, artistic advice); a co-production by C-Takt (Pelt) and De Singel - in creative residency at hetpaleis and Rataplan.

Oertaal: oefeningen would have been impossible without the warm support of a number of houses and organizations supporting different phases of the research in the past two years. Thanks to De Singel, hetpaleis, Mestizo Arts Platform, Monty, Rataplan, STORMOPKOMST, de Vlaamse Overheid, wpZimmer and Zuidpool! 

→ As a versatile theater maker and researcher, Enrica Camporesi plays with what language means and how we do and transform things with our words. In Oertaal: oefeningen (2020 - 2022) she spreads an invented myth in the form of texts, improvisations and theatre workshops. For a deep diving into the artistic research: www.are.na/enrica-camporesi/context-oertaal-oefeningen 

Public moments/tryouts/research periods/residencies: here

Media: 

hetpaleis - Enrica Camporesi moved into the residency space at hetpaleis in May 2023. “Maybe my job as an artist is to create a space where answers arise.” Read the interview here (NL).

Red Star Line Museum - A conversation about language, mother tongue and main language, and the role that a museum can play as a language training place. Read the interview here (NL).

BIO

Line Mertens is writer and performer. She graduated from Toneelacademie Maastricht as a teacher – director and is now enrolled in the academy’s post-experience master program. In her practice, writing, playing and research are joyfully entangled. Recurrent themes include resistance to domesticity and connection to the heritage of women. Currently she is working on 5 speeches for performance and YouTube. Working Title: Afbraakwerk / Tiny Demolitions – A non-cynical approach to dealing with the legacy of mother. Besides her close collaboration with Enrica Camporesi she is part of the Donja Hota-collective, working on a new play by Enkidu Khaled

Andreia Rodrigues (°1983) born in Lisbon (PT), grew up in South East Asia - Macau and as a dancer, Maker and Yoga Teacher she lives at the moment in Belgium. She Started her Dance studies in Escola Superior de Danca (PT) and finished at `Fonty` s Dance Academie in Tilburg in 2006 in the Performance Department. Since then she has been working as a dancer with different companies in Europe such as Jan Martens (BE), Backsteinhaus Produktion (DE), Velo Theater (FR), Kopergietery (BE), Romeo Castellucci (IT), BrothersForman (CZ), among others. Her creative and professional path has been defined by her capacity of connecting by encountering people and giving what he or she needs either in an artistic or human way. 

Bert Serneels is an interdisciplinary maker and designer with a toolbox composed from artistic research and personal professional development. During his master “Interior Architecture” (Antwerp 1999) he explored the boundaries of his discipline by searching for stories between people, objects and spaces. This approach, which he calls narrative design, is his spark for scenography. From this fascination he started his career as technical designer here at OBV in 2002, where he translates scenographic concepts into final productions. He combines this job with interior projects, later with teaching the course Temporary Installations at KASK (Gent, 2012), as a production designer for film sets (Silent Campine 2017, Logger 2022) and again as a student in the Master in Theatre, a post-experience study programme for professionals at the Toneelacademie Maastricht (2018/21). In his research Bert focuses on volatility in public space, as in the soundwalk untraced lines and relative publication (essay after soundwalk, 2020) and in the website dwell-on.com (2021). As a scenographer he uses this artistic research and toolbox for designing narrative spaces and places.