BANSHEE

A post-apocalyptic resurrection ritual.

BANSHEE In BANSHEE, Scottish performer and choreographer Courtney May Robertson examines a persistent cultural trope: the romanticization and eroticization of women’s corpses. Across painting, poetry, and film, the bodies of deceased women have repeatedly been portrayed as serene, alluring, and consumable. Meanwhile, the lived realities of grief and gendered violence remain obscured. Core themes trace back to an intimate encounter with mortality. As an adolescent, Robertson witnessed her mother’s death, an image evoking both horror and fascination which has reverberated throughout her artistic practice since. Unable to reconcile this personal experience with the sanitized depictions of corpses uncovered during her research, BANSHEE stages an alternative narrative: mourning is guttural, grotesque, and defiantly alive. Previously known for solo works, Robertson shares the stage for the first time with fellow performers and close friends Inci Gül Civelekoğlu and Olympia Kotopoulos. The trio and custom kinetic sculptures form an inseparable choreography. Human-scale ‘discomfort devices’, mutations of historical apparatus once used to discipline women’s bodies, cradle, elevate, and stimulate the performers. Within this haunted architecture, constructed by visual artist Jesus Canuto Iglesias, vulnerability is sustained rather than overcome. By deconstructing Celtic folk dance traditions, collective physical endurance becomes a purgative necromantic ritual; part lament, part exorcism. Together the performers challenge archaic stereotypes and dream up their own mythologies for the future. Bagpipe player Genevieve Murphy and noise musician Acidic Male band together to create a visceral sound score that blends the mournful cry of the pipes with abrasive digital textures. Within this sonic tension, a charged dialogue between persistence and rupture emerges. In a post-apocalyptic landscape, unruly bodies refuse placidity. They convulse, throats erupt in roars, phantasmagoric images flicker past. A sterilized world, LIGHT fractures, and a portal to new imaginaries tears open with disruptive force. BANSHEE is not a solitary eulogy but a collective resurrection: a storm, a wild howl, a living testament. ABOUT THE CREATOR Courtney May Robertson (Scotland, 1992) is a Rotterdam-based performer and interdisciplinary maker working across dance, performance, and visual media. Upon graduating in 2013, she began her career with Club Guy & Roni’s Poetic Disasters Club and has since collaborated with artists including Jan Martens, Connor Schumacher, Florentina Holzinger, Maxime Dreesen, and Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe. Alongside her work as a performer, Robertson has developed a distinctive choreographic practice emerging from Rotterdam’s underground performance scene. Her work is driven by emotional intensity, conceptual rigor, and a fascination with the grotesque and the uncanny, often approaching sociopolitical questions through deeply personal perspectives. Drawing on an array of disciplines including video, coding, puppetry, and visual design, she creates sensorial performances that blur the boundaries between reality and fiction, inviting audiences into visceral and disorienting worlds. Robertson’s work has received multiple accolades, including Festival Cement’s ‘De Troffel Prijs 2020’ and the ‘Young Amsterdam Art Prize 2021’. In 2022, her first solo work, the pleasure of stepping off a horse when it’s coming at full speed, was selected for Aerowaves Twenty22. Her most recent piece, HUNTER, was awarded the ‘VSCD Mime/Performance Prize 2024’ at the Nederlands Theater Festival and listed in NRC’s ‘10 Best Dance Performances of 2024’. In 2025, Courtney was named NRC’s ‘Rising Star in Dance’ and received the ‘De Krisztina Châtel Award’. Praktische informatie Foyer open: 19.00 uur | Aanvang voorstelling: 20.00 uur | Verwacht einde: n.t.b. | Content note: Use of stroboscope, High sound volumes, Nudity Heb je een reservering geplaatst met een Gelrepas, Podiumpas, VriendenLoterij VIP-kaart of We Are Public pas? Dan verzoeken we je om 20 minuten voor aanvang aanwezig te zijn om je ticket op te halen bij de kassa. Vergeet hierbij niet om je pas mee te nemen, deze hebben we nodig om je ticket te activeren. Speeldata Credits Concept, Direction & ChoreographyCourtney May Robertson Creative Associate & Second CastYoko Haveman Creation & PerformanceInci Gül Civelekoğlu, Olympia Kotopoulos, Courtney May Robertson DramaturgyLara van Lookeren Sound Genevieve Murphy, Puck Schot (Acidic Male) ScenographyJesus Canuto Iglesias LightPaulina Prokop Production & Tour ManagementAnna Møller Technical ProductionStefan Prokop Tour TechniciansStefan Prokop, Merijn Boers DistributionAmy Josh Produced byStudio Courtney May Robertson Co-produced byGrand Theater Groningen, Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam, BAU Amsterdam Supported byDe Grote Post, Oostende