Every year, through a structural collaboration with What You See Festival, we invite an international artist to challenge the Dutch theatre scene with a fresh perspective. This year, that artist is South African artist Goldendean, whom you might already know from the massive inflatable artwork 'Stay Soft' in our stairwell. 

Goldendean's residency consists of three events you can attend: 

First, Plan B, A Gathering of Strangers (Or) This is Not Working (Bookclub) on Friday, November 13th. A book club where we discuss the book of the same title as a starting point for a conversation about self-reflection, bringing people together, radical sharing, and queer disobedience. After that, on Thursday, November 19th during the What You See Festival, you can join STAY SOFT in Hard Times, a performance provocation featuring Teddy Slootman and Hooi-Ying Zhang. Finally, on Saturday, November 21st, there is the Workshop Repair, where we will work together to explore where we can find healing in these difficult times. 

Goldendean, a self-proclaimed 'soft radical', focuses their artistic practice on creating 'soft places for hard questions',centering the queer and trans fat body. That serves as the foundation for these three events at Theater Utrecht this month.In their artist statement, they share: 

“A decade after starting their research for their book Plan B: A Gathering of Strangers (or) This is not Working, Goldendean begins a residency in Utrecht to reflect on what the soft radical, hypervisible, queer body brings to, and in movement, for social change-making. Goldendean invites local artists, living and working in Utrecht into conversation with their practice to find common ground in the making of a new work: Stay Soft in Hard Times. And invites you to prepare a “soft place for hard questions” where a praxis, communal care and socially engaged education and dialogue can be enacted in solidarity with all oppressed bodies and identities, through workshops and active installations.”