In this program, we invite makers and professionals to consider the role of time in creative practice and discover ways to support individual growth and varied tempos. Networking can often feel awkward, so we’ve created playful, pressure-free spaces to foster genuine connection. Through anonymous speed-dating sessions, cocktail-making to enjoy the moment, and a clay workshop exploring our relationship with time, we cultivate different rhythms of interaction. The day will close with a Q&A to reflect on our experiences and time's impact on artistic practice.
Clay workshop by Isabel van Hauwe
Isabel van Hauwe's workshop takes its starting point from a quote about time by quantum physicist Karen Barad.
“Time is not universally given, it is articulated and re-synchronized through material practices. In other words, like position momentum, time itself only makes sense in the context of particular phenomena.”
Inspired by Karen Barad and driven by the belief that the perception of time is shaped culturally and politically, Isabel leads this clay workshop where participants collectively create a physical experience of time, exploring the malleability of time and space.
Recap: meet the guests of the anonymous speed-dating sessions
Sheree Lenting | Maker, programmer
Sheree Lenting is a Rotterdam-based choreographer and interdisciplinary artist of Surinamese heritage, blending movement, film, and storytelling to create work that uplifts, empowers, and inspires transformation. Drawing from her experiences as a Black woman, Sheree’s art reflects the cultural narratives and challenges of our times. In May 2024, she won the BNG Bank Dance Award for I Am My Ancestors' Wildest Dream, an interdisciplinary work merging dance, film, music, and spoken word.
Now serving as Dance & Community Programmer at Theater Rotterdam, Sheree continues to champion art that celebrates identity, resilience, and collective transformation.
Cherish Menzo | Maker, artistic leader
Cherish Menzo is a choreographer, dancer and one of GRIP’s artistic leaders, who lives in Brussels and Amsterdam. She has appeared in the work of Lisbeth Gruwez, Jan Martens, Nicole Beutler, as well as collaborations with the likes of Akram Khan, Ula Sickle, Olivier Dubois and Eszter Salamon. Her powerful movement language also comes into its own in her own work, which tours internationally.
Cherish searches for forms of movement and being, where beauty and the grotesque are placed on an equal footing. She consciously looks for an alienating effect to lead both the viewer and herself away from the familiar. Away from the familiar that we sometimes too easily equate with 'the (only) truth'.
Mario Barrantes Espinoza | Maker, Performer
Mario Barrantes Espinoza is a Costa Rican-Nicaraguan artist based in Brussels. He has collaborated in works by François Chaignaud, Théo Mercier, Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe, Michiel Vandevelde and Eszter Salamon.
Mario currently develops projects as an independent artist. Their work articulates performance, the (re)writing of texts, and the use of voice, with materials sourced from pop culture and mainstream media. Since 2023, Mario is involved in the curation of two projects combining nightlife with performance, the Culo shaking night…, a night inspired by family celebrations in Latin America and Apolemia, a hybrid event blending electronic music, performance, and installation in Brussels’ underground scene.
Janine Dijkmijer | Director, Chief of programming
Janine Dijkmeijer has been general director and chief programmer of Parkstad Limburg Theaters since the beginning of 2023. Previously, she was creative director of the New Zealand Dance Company (NZ), general director of the Nederlands Dans Theater and the business manager of the National Ballet and Nicole Beutler Projects. She danced with Krisztina de Châtel, Conny Jansen, Paul Selwyn Norton, Leine and Roebana, Chunky Move and various other choreographers.
Between 2000 and 2005, Janine taught at various dance academies, and she rebranded herself as a website builder and designer, which led to the co-founding of the Cinedans festival in 2003. In 2014, she received the Jiří Kylián ring for, among other things, her entrepreneurship in the art of dance.
Soraya Ruijg | Cultural Anthropologist, Grant coordinator
Soraya Ruijg is a cultural anthropologist and has conducted research about the identity formation and infrastructure of the 'Urban Scene' in relation to the mainstream cultural sector in The Hague. Her goal is to connect the fund world and the Urban Scene through knowledge sharing. As a subsidy coordinator at the Performing Arts Fund, she is responsible, among other things, for the implementation of the Urban Projects Program, Music Hubs (Netherlands & Caribbean part of the Kingdom), Upstream Music and the Nieuwe Makersregeling.
