MAT
Zinzi • TENT
If you don't have to land, anyone can fly.

MAT is a Dutch-Flemish performance by TENT and Common Ground featuring stunning acrobatics, about the beauty in failure and the freedom in allowing it. 

In a stage set of mats, seven acrobats share the art of falling. They challenge themselves and each other to take risks and to achieve the top and they fall, fall again, better, and better. But when you sink deep, how do you get back up? 

Everyone knows the heroic circus where people work together to achieve the highest goal. This circus performance also shows the downside. With the mat as the main opponent a story is told about performance pressure and fear of failure, about taking the leap and persisting. Because although success is one thing, one can learn equally much from falling and getting up again. And if anyone knows this principle, then it’s certainly an acrobat.

The performance is for anyone who sometimes experiences pressure to succeed, young people and adults who know and have learned from the pain and shame of failure, older people who want or need to give life a new direction, for anyone who wants to get better at something and is looking for the courage to be allowed to fail, even if a safety net is not a given.

After the success of the location performance PIT, MAT's directors Zinzi Oegema and Hanneke Meijers are working together again. Zinzi toured internationally both with her collective Common Ground and with her acrobatics partner Evertjan Mercier. The artistic allrounder Hanneke is a graphic designer and one of the three directors of TENT, house for contemporary circus in Amsterdam. The musical composition is by My Blue Van together with basbeenackersmusic and the lighting is designed by Wouter Moscou.

CREDITS DIRECTION Zinzi Oegema PERFORMERS Jean-Mario Milanese • Kira Rabenstein • Yahel Retter • Josse Roger • Nikki Rummer • Jemma Sneddon • Freya Stokka CO-DIRECTION • DESIGN • CONCEPT Hanneke Meijers CHOREOGRAPHY Piet van Dycke OUTSIDE EYE Kasper Vandenberghe MUSIC My Blue Van/basbeenackersmusic LIGHT Wouter Moscou SLEEVES DECOR Saskia de Zee • Tina Mastellone PRODUCTION CREATION & TOUR TECHNIQUE Arnold Schut PRODUCTION TOUR Majlen Hoogeveen • Hanneke Meijers MARKETING Ruth Verraes • Marieke van Oosten CAMPAIGN IMAGE Matusiak • photo Gerrit Schreurs SALES Thassos (BE) • Ellen Blom ID (NL) PRODUCER TENT (NL) • Common Ground (BE) COPRODUCER PERPLX (BE) • Circuswerkplaats Dommelhof (BE) • Cirklabo (BE) MADE POSSIBLE BY Performing Arts Fund NL • The government of Flanders (BE) • Het Cultuurfonds (NL) • Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (NL) • Fonds 21 (NL) • Keep an Eye Foundation (NL) • Young Art Support Amsterdam (NL) PARTNERS Jacksons Lane (VK) • Split Second (VK) • ATOLL Festival (DE) 

7+ • LNP • PRESS RELEASE (IN DUTCH)

OUR MAKERS
ZINZI OEGEMA • HANNNEKE MEIJERS

OUR MAKERS COURSES
TWO YEARS • GUEST MAKER