Gedeelde grond (‘Shared ground’) 21: listen to a new conversation with Lieselot Siddiki

Summary

Although Lieselot Siddiki started out as an actress, she is now best known for her own work: visual, immersive and often absurdist performances with a dark undertone. This turn of events was not entirely predictable. “I actually started out by acting in a film. That turned out not to be what I wanted, and then, on a whim, I enrolled on the fashion course at KASK. For a while, that was fantastic, but I was too wild. I had a brilliant teacher, Marina Yee, who gently steered me towards autonomous design, a sort of multimedia course where you can also do performance. Towards the end of that course, I started working more and more with other theatre students, and my work became very theatrical. Then I started the Master’s in Drama, which I still haven’t finished. So actually, I’m sitting here with a lot of education and not a single degree.”

The result is a hybrid, artistic octopus. As a creator and performer, she has produced two shows to date: UP YOUR ASS and The Truthful. Both clearly reflect the influences from these different disciplines. “Work is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary. I think that’s a fantastic development. A play is the convergence of everything—sound, music, imagery, design. Some plays are almost visual art, something you might see in a museum. I really enjoy observing what’s happening around us.”

You get the sense that many venues are placing greater emphasis on interdisciplinary work. But the funding system still draws a very clear distinction between the two, which I find difficult. Recently, for a venue where I was going to perform The Truthful, I had to specify whether it was a performance or a play. Well, both, I suppose? I do understand that this gives the audience a framework, but I find it a bit outdated.

Sound plays a key role in Siddiki’s work. She will soon be staging her third production at LOD muziektheater: SCHWEINEREI. “It’s a production that begins on the eve of the French Revolution in Versailles. But it’s not a historical document at all; it’s a production about decadence. It will be a sort of sickening bacchanal.” For this, she is relying on, among others, actress Lucie Plasschaert – “my fictional Marie-Antoinette” – and Lucas van der Vegt as Mozart, a classically trained pianist and actor. “We’re really going to work with that music. But I also love noise, so the music will also break down; it’s actually really about decay.”

In the run-up to the Landscape Sketch of the Arts, many creators (from various disciplines and generations) spoke about the pressure they feel to keep creating and exhibiting. Otherwise, they say, they don’t ‘exist’. Some described it as being stuck on a treadmill they can’t get off. That feeling resonates with Siddiki too. “I’m currently in a very privileged position. I’m getting some brilliant opportunities and that’s really nice. At the same time, it also feels so random at times, because I know so many brilliant artists who are really struggling. Is too much being produced compared to the number of performance opportunities available? I really think so. Sometimes wonderful productions are created that only run for four performances. That’s not sustainable and such a shame. But how you’d go about solving that is another question. There are people who can think about that better than I can. But I feel it very keenly, yes. I also find it really sad for the work sometimes.”

“It actually starts right at the beginning: you want to create a production. But you have to drink so many cups of coffee just to get a proposal off the ground. You have to master the language of proposals. Sometimes I just wish you could pitch it verbally, but of course other people find that awful. And you have to put in enough money yourself. So during the preparation, you have to ask loads of programmers for co-production: ‘would you like to put in €2,000?’ A bit like a vacuum cleaner salesman, and that really takes a lot of energy and time. Every performance is truly blood, sweat and tears. And it’s not that I think it should just happen automatically. And it’s also cool that you’ve thought it through properly and all that. But there’s still something not quite right about it.”

As a creator, I’m still in a privileged position; I’m allowed to create quite a lot. But I’m also unemployed for half the year.

When we ask Lieselot about her hopes for the future of the arts, she mentions the ‘in-crowd-like nature of theatre’. “I’d love to see it become something truly popular again, without that necessarily meaning you have to start making popular theatre. It’s a truly living art form, which in the age of AI can be a unifying and connecting force. I have a wild hope that perhaps there might be a bit more enthusiasm for it again. I don’t mean to suggest that people are creating work that’s too elitist. But there remains a barrier to stepping into the theatre.”

The young artist always enjoys it when people who aren’t necessarily theatre connoisseurs or fellow artists come to her performances. “At the same time, receiving recognition from your colleagues is one of the best things.”

Download the full transcription (in Dutch)