Dominique makes energy loss tangible at Oerol

Energy loss is a personal theme for Dominique. She has a visual impairment, though it is not something she likes to put in the spotlight: 'It often gives people an immediate impression of who you are,' she explains. 'And that impression is never quite accurate, because I’m so much more than that.'

Still, she decided to respond to an open call from Oerol and the Bartiméus Fund for makers with and without disabilities. Not to create a performance about her impairment, but to make visible something that often remains unseen: energy loss.

'For many people with a disability or chronic condition, it’s a major part of everyday life,' says Dominique. 'There’s less energy available than you would like, because managing your condition already takes up so much of it. But because that’s often left unspoken and can seem almost self-evident, it rarely gets attention.'

Pitching in the professional field

The selection process began with a concept proposal and questions about inclusive working practices. Dominique was then invited to present a pitch.

'That was a little intimidating,' she recalls. 'I was sitting in a room somewhere in Amsterdam, facing a panel of six people. I’d never done anything like that before.'

The next day, while teaching at her internship placement, she received the call: her proposal had been selected. Together with another maker, she was awarded a residency on Terschelling: first to conduct research, and later to present a work-in-progress during Oerol Festival.

For Dominique, it feels like a significant step. 'As an intern, I’m already finding my place in the professional field, but this is a project that actually exists within that field. Everything is new.'

Sand, language and slowness

In Leeglopen, Dominique explores how energy loss can be made visible through sand, language and extreme slowness. Not as an explanation, but as an experience. What happens when an audience does not simply hear about fatigue, but actually feels that slowness themselves?

During the first residency, from 30 March to 3 April, Dominique and her team visited several locations across Terschelling.

'They felt like surprise eggs,' she says. 'You explore what a place contains and what can only happen there.'

Their original performance site eventually had to be abandoned. A colony of sand martins had decided it was an attractive location too. The team moved elsewhere.

'You never imagine that’s something you’ll have to deal with,' Dominique laughs. 'But that’s site-specific theatre: you work with what’s there.'

Inclusive practice starts in the creative process

For Leeglopen, Dominique is collaborating with performer Tess Hofland, who is also a student at ArtEZ. Throughout the process, she tries not only to discuss inclusive working methods, but to actively practise them. That means listening to people’s limits, making space for different energy levels and sometimes stopping when enough is enough.

'If someone expected to work until two o’clock but had run out of energy by noon, then that was it,' Dominique explains. 'Those kinds of agreements are important.'

The process has also changed the way she views herself as a maker.

'I sometimes call myself a lazy director because I tend to stay in one place and observe from there. But actually, that’s simply how I maintain an overview. I’m learning to have more compassion for that.'

For Dominique, inclusive theatre is not only about who is represented on stage. It is also about how people collaborate, communicate and negotiate expectations.

'The professional field remains difficult to access for many people with disabilities,' she says. 'Many don’t stay for long, or they’re not accepted into training programmes in the first place. That’s a shame, because those perspectives are exactly what we need.'

Between student and professional

The collaboration with Oerol is also a learning process. The festival wants to create more space for inclusive theatre but is still exploring what that means in practice. As a result, Dominique sometimes finds herself in a dual position: she is a third-year student, yet she is also treated as a professional.

'Sometimes I have to say: I think this needs to be done differently, otherwise it simply won’t be feasible for me,' she says. 'At the same time, I want to meet expectations. But are those expectations actually realistic? That’s something I’m still learning.'

She receives guidance from her programme, which helps her distinguish between what is her responsibility and what belongs to the system around her. 'Sometimes I ask: am I being unreasonable, or is something genuinely off here? That perspective really helps.'

A larger conversation

With Leeglopen, Dominique hopes to do more than share her own experience. She wants to open a conversation about energy, boundaries and the things we cannot immediately see.

'Someone might still be perfectly capable of showing a train ticket,' she says, 'and yet arrive home with a pounding headache.'

'There are so many things you can’t see in someone’s behaviour. Most people are fortunate not to know what it feels like for something to weigh heavily on your body. But that also makes it harder to imagine what someone else is experiencing.' For Dominique, this is precisely where theatre reveals its strength: it can make something felt without having to explain.

'The ability to see and experience something for yourself, that’s one of the magical things about my profession.'

At Oerol Festival, Dominique will share the first public version of Leeglopen. Not as a finished answer, but as a work in progress: a performance about disappearing energy, while sand and sea continue to move.

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Oerol Professionals | Inclusive theatre

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