It begins with the memoires of French intersex Alexina Barbin.

After the successful theater campaign X Y WE about intersex, Marleen Hendrickx is starting preliminary research for a new performance. The starting point of the preliminary research is the memoirs of French intersex Alexina Barbin.

Where Alexina already has little control over herself during her life – she is legally declared a man after a forbidden relationship with a female colleague, which causes her to lose her position as a teacher at a girls’ boarding school and is forced to leave for Paris – she may have even less so posthumously. Along with her body, her memoirs, titled “Herculine Barbin,” are found in 1868. Because the memoirs have long been the only known story of an intersex person’s experience, they have since been discussed and used by numerous scientists, medics, philosophers and artists.

In this performance, Marleen steps into Alexina’s shoes and returns control of the story to its rightful owner. As Alexina once intended the memoir to be: as her story. In this way, Marleen simultaneously contributes to the still necessary process of demedicalizing intersex persons anno 2024. It’s our body, it’s our story. The preliminary research takes place with writer Jorg van den Kieboom and director Hanna Timmers and is made possible by VIA ZUID, Bureau Pees, COC Noordoost Brabant, Stichting Amarte Fonds, Podium Bloos, Verkadefabriek and Jonge Harten.

Marleen is a theater maker, performer, dancer, speaker and intersex activist. In 2020, she graduated from the Theatre Teacher program at the Amsterdam School of the Arts. As part of her graduation she created the solo X Y I and the group performance X Y WE, about her and her actors’ intersex experience. With these she performed more than a hundred times in theaters, at festivals, as well as in hospitals and schools. She won the AHK Eindwerk audience award and performed with X Y WE in ITA during the Lieve Stad festival.

Fall Failing

“Fall Failing” is an immersive, week-long workshop for emerging performing arts professionals. This year, it brought together the two Junior Companies—Club Guy & Roni’s Poetic Disasters Club and the NITE Riders—along with students from the NAIP program at the Prince Claus Conservatory.

Over five days, they collaborated on performative interventions inspired by the Jonge Harten Festival’s theme, “Playing Around.” Audiences can experience these unique performances on November 15th and 16th, showcased between the scheduled shows of Marleen Hendrickx, MAAS Theater and Sarah Janneh’s BRABO LEONE.