ROOMS FESTIVAL 2025: PERFORMANCE ART SHOWCASE AT MARRES MAASTRICHT
The latest edition of ROOMS Festival took place on January 25-26, 2025 at Marres, Maastricht, presenting a curated program of six contemporary performances spanning theater, dance, and installation art.
The festival lineup featured works by both emerging and established artists. Sofie Kramer presented "Monolith," a pole dance performance examining technology and intuition. For this performance Sofie collaborated with Francesco Di Maggio, Mari Mako and Batuhan Demir who designed the costumes. Ahmed El Gendy's "i feel you like the moon feels the earth" reconstructed experiences from his previous work "Zero Encounters," based on 24-hour silent encounters with strangers.
Amparo González Sola contributed "Distances," a work investigating empathy and shared experience, while Tabor Idema's "Backspace" explored personal trauma and healing.
Samah Hijawi's "The Moon in Your Mouth" addressed cultural erasure and its impact on ecosystems of some of the worlds’ oldest cultures. Samah asks: beyond human loss, what communities of plants and other beings are disappearing?
In the collaborative installation "AIR 1" by Jasmine Karimova & Johannes Offerhaus examined the finite nature of air through sound and space. This resulted in an impressive interactive work that investigates the literal finitude of air that is exchanged between the audience, performers, space and the organ.
Festival visitors also received exclusive access to a preview of "Vultures & Fireflies," an upcoming exhibition by Mexican artist Alejandro Galván. The exhibition, opening in spring 2025, will feature a painted chronicle of Mexico throughout Marres house, focusing on Nezahualcóyotl, one of Mexico Valley's largest working-class suburbs.
ROOMS was organized through collaboration between several cultural institutions: Marres, Via Zuid, de Brakke Grond, Dansateliers, FASHIONCLASH, and MU. The program remained consistent across both festival days, with day passes providing access to all performances.
ROOMS is an annual performance festival and network that provides opportunities for artists working at the intersection of visual arts and other disciplines to conduct research and create new work that might not find a conventional platform elsewhere. The festival introduces new forms and expressions to audiences familiar with traditional visual arts. The festival connects emerging and established artists to foster networking and knowledge transfer. It also unites smaller organizations in the south of the Netherlands with institutions in the Randstad and Belgium, helping to secure performance opportunities at summer festivals, museums, and other art institutions throughout the Netherlands.
Photography by Sanne Peper
Artists:
@_sofiekramer_
@johannesofferhaus @jasminesface
@amparo.gonzales.sola
@samah.hijawi
@xero33
@taboridema
Partners: @marres_maastricht @brakkegrond @mu_hybrid_art_house @viazuid @dansateliers @fashionclash_festival