Caro Derkx
(Arnhem, 1995) is an actress and theatre maker. She nurtures a great love for visual arts, literature and philosophy, areas she uses to question the major themes of our time. Her solo graduation performance Me, Myself and Sir Roger Scruton at the Toneelacademie Maastricht was awarded the Henriëtte Hustinxprijs. From 2020, Caro develops her work at Frascati Productions. Her first play A Portrait of the Artist in Red, Yellow and Blue premiered in December 2020. This was followed in 2022 by Emma Watson - The Play with Nora el Koussour. During Winternachten festival 2023, she performed a monologue written by Anoek Nuyens and Rebekka de Wit, and texts by Marwin Vos in the programme De grondstof van het gedicht,
(WN 2023)Archive available for: Caro Derkx
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De grondstof van het gedicht (The raw material of poems)
With: Alara Adilow, Asha Karami, Caro Derkx, Dean Bowen, Irina Baldini, Johan van Dijke, Maarten van der Graaff, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, Martin Rombouts, Marwin Vos, Maxime Garcia Diaz, Mustafa Stitou, Willie Darktrousers
For the closing event of the 2023 Winternachten festival, poets and artists seeked out the raw material of poems. How do the violence of resource extraction, the destruction of lives and worlds, and the depletion of Earth become audible and palpable in language? What are poems made of: can they, too, plunder and harm?
De grondstof van het gedicht (The raw material of poems) was a Dutch-language event with familiar and new voices, unexpected performances, dance, music and images.
Anyone who opens a children's book about a farm does not see hyper-modern, destructive industry, but lovely scenes. This obfuscation of reality, according to British zoologist, author and activist George Monbiot, is due to persistent images about our dealings with animals and land, borrowed from poetry. "One of the greatest threats to life on Earth is poetry," he wrote provocatively.
Yet the plundering of Earth has indeed made its way into modern poetry. In the poem Sinaasappel, bitter je schil (Orange, bitter your peel) by Surinamese poet Michaël Slory, the minerals themselves bear witness to that history:
'Op Afobaka wil ik zijn
als de arbeiders staken,
de morgen zich boort
in de papaya,
het bauxiet woedend zingt
over zoveel misbruik,
zoveel leugens
zoveel misleiding.'("On Afobaka I want to be
when the workers strike,
the morning drills itself
into the papaya,
the bauxite sings furiously
about so much abuse,
so many lies
so much deception.")Bookstore De Vries van Stockum will be present in the lobby with a stand offering books by participating authors of this programme, among others — including signing opportunities!
De grondstof van het gedicht was curated by poet and writer Maarten van der Graaff.