“Theater is a verb before it is a noun, an act before it is a place.”
(Martha Graham)
evolution
curriculum vitae:
my life in the theater
After graduating as Master of Arts in both Sculpting (2003) and the Dramatic Arts (2007), I worked as a director in several professional theaters for a decade.
I explored several different forms – from text-based over visual performances to documentary theater – always searching for the theatrical language that best fit each project and topic. The recurring themes throughout my work as a theater maker are intergenerational trauma and aspects of community (its power and pitfalls).
In addition to my artistic work, I also studied other ways the theater could be applied and explored. That is why I also got a Bachelor degree as a drama teacher and why I studied drama therapy.
During the past decade my theater projects have been alternating between the dramatic arts and mental health care. Next to the artistic work, I’ve worked intensively in special youth care and with adults traumatized by sexual abuse. In all those different projects and in all those various environments, the basics are the same: my profession is storytelling through a combination of language, physical movement and visuals.
You can download a recent curriculum vitae here.
Another overview of my artistic life can be fund on the Theaterencyclopedie website. That text is in Dutch, here’s a summary in English:
Leen Braspenning (1980) is a Belgian theater maker who also works in the Netherlands. From 1999 to 2003, Leen studied sculpture at Sint-Lucas in Ghent. In 2007 she graduated from the Fontys School of the Arts as drama teacher and she won the Jacques De Leeuw JongToptalentprijs. In March 2008 she won the Dioraphte Stimulation Prize for young theater makers. In September 2009 she again won prizes: for her performance Disco Pigs she received the BNG Nieuwe Theatermakers Prijs 2009. With the prize money she made a new production at Production House Brabant: Embrasse toured extensively in Flanders and the Netherlands. In 2013 Leen Braspenning joined Het Zuidelijk Toneel as theater maker and as a member of the company’s artistic council.
Leen makes honest, direct and pure performances about ordinary people, which grab the audience directly. Starting from a sociological framework, she keeps looking for a part of society that is still foreign to her, at home and abroad. She visited Polish believers in Mourning, social housing in Ghent, Croatian ex-soldiers, Chinese elderly who served Mao, nightclubs, glass streets, prisons and factory halls.
