Mart van Berckel

Mart van Berckel studied piano, music theatre and directing at ArtEZ University of the Arts (Arnhem) and the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (Zürich). In 2016, his graduation performance PLAY MAIDS won the audience award at festival Körber Studio Junge Regie in Hamburg. For the past years, he has directed at several theaters including De Nieuwe Oost, KASKO, Theater Sonnevanck, Noord Nederlands Toneel and Club Guy & Roni. At the Dutch National Opera, Mart worked as assistant director for Lotte de Beer and Robert Wilson.

Mart directs in a great variety of genres and disciplines, from visual theatre to opera, youth music theatre and dance performance. From 2021, he is associate artist at NITE: National Interdisciplinary Theatre Ensemble (Noord Nederlands Toneel/Club Guy & Roni). In 2023, he made his directing debut at the Dutch National Opera Amsterdam and in Germany at the Staatsoper Hamburg. His production of “Silvesternacht” was received with critical acclaim. About “Ändere die Welt“, the German magazine Opernwelt wrote: “The audience was crying. And felt – how rare! – really, and rightly so, shaken out of their inner and outer comfort zone.”

Mart’s work is visual, poetic and rich in fantasy. He digs right through the canon of visual arts, film, classical music and literature and uses these sources of inspiration to create unique and associative theatrical collages. Mart directs like a composer and a visual artist: with precision and great eye for detail and musicality, he puzzles together imagery, sound, text, light and movement. This makes his works into sensory theatre-trips, that go beyond rationality and hit straight in the gut.