JAN RITSEMA

The Dutch director Jan Ritsema makes theatre in which ideas and performance meet. He has staged plays by Shakespeare, Bernard-Marie Koltès, Elfriede Jelinek and Heiner Müller, and has adapted novels by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Rainer Maria Rilke and other writers. He was co-author of Weak Dance Strong Questions, TODAYulysses and Pipelines, a construction. In 1978 Ritsema founded the International Theatre Bookshop in Amsterdam, which has published more than 400 books since. In 2006 he set up the PerformingArtsForum in Saint-Erme (near Reims, France), a prominent artists residency, run by artists. In 2010 he first staged Ça after a novel of Henry James, and Oidipous, my foot. He has danced in Boris Charmatz‘ artists lab, part of Moments. A History of Performance in 10 Acts (ZKM Karlsruhe, 2012) as well as in Low Pieces by Xavier Le Roy