#541 De Zesde Plaatsing
In 2022, the Trickster performance collective undertook a residency in WORM’s Sound Studio. This veritable playground, complete with synthesizers and other electronic sound equipment, offered the collective a new form of collaboration.
The radio play De Zesde Plaatsing (The Sixth Placement) is composed of separate audio pieces selected from a large number of improvised sound recordings made by the collective over a long period of time in the studio and other locations. De Zesde Plaatsing is an intuitively suggestive auditory journey in which incantatory moments alternate with threats of the end times, and utopian sounds are overwhelmed by dystopian darkness. Women’s voices alternate, merge into harmony, and drown each other out. Humanity is no longer certain of its central position on Earth. Language is subject to radical changes, and the contours of our physical boundaries are blurring. De Zesde Plaatsing is a piece created based on Trickster improvisation principles.
TRICKSTER (Rotterdam, 2008) is a collective of four artists trained in different disciplines, including theater, music, visual arts, and scenography. The collective currently consists of Nina Boas, Nathalie Smoor, ieke Trinks, and mariëlle verdijk. Since 2008, TRICKSTER has been creating brutal, unpredictable, and poetic performances based on improvisation, taking the audience along on a journey to discover the magical moment of creative synergy. Although each member has her own area of expertise, they always try to work across disciplines on stage and challenge each other to step out of their comfort zones.
The collective has developed its own unique way of playing from both theoretical frameworks and literature, as well as from intuition and what is not yet known. TRICKSTER works with construction and deconstruction. Like true tricksters, they play with cultural codes, rules, and conventions. Sonic and visual scenes are composed on the spot and then broken down again. The context of the stage or festival where they perform is the starting point and determines their strategy. Performances range from one-minute actions to nine-hour improvisations.
