Remaining gentle through fierce resistance
A people-pleasing soft activist decides to confront the emotion he fears most: for the first time in his life, he wants to become angry.
Mees van Rijswijk is often described as “sweet,” “calm,” and “enthusiastic” — an “everybody’s friend,” “a nice guy, but actually genuinely nice.” Someone once even called him “harmless.” And that’s where things went wrong. Because of course, nobody takes you seriously like that. Since then, Mees has had one wish: he wants to become furious.
A soft activist decides to stop denying his own anger. He asks angry people for advice: partly to learn from them, partly to discover whether there’s something in their anger that connects them. Maybe world peace begins in a mosh pit, or in the meeting of a knuckle and a jaw. AAAARGH is a musical spoken word performance about a raw and uneasy search for anger. It is not a manual, not therapy, not a safe space. It’s not even a word. AAAARGH is a radical attempt to remain gentle precisely through fierce resistance.
About Mees
Mees van Rijswijk (1999) is a spoken word artist, theatre maker, and (former?) soft activist from Leeuwarden. He takes being human with a grain of salt and prefers to describe things exactly as they are, using as few syllables as possible. Mees has won several awards for his spoken word pieces, performs all across the Netherlands, and enjoys solving sudoku puzzles along the way.
Performance poet Mees van Rijswijk (26) would like to stand up against sexism, racism, transphobia and ‘the fact that everything always revolves around money’, but first he has to find a way to get angry. In Aaaargh, he sings and raps, accompanied byguitarist Sander Koning, as he reports on his attempts to tap into the wolf within. He does so with captivating charm, precisely by playfully dissecting his own gentleness. – De Volkskrant ★★★★
Credits
Concept, text, performance: Mees van Rijswijk
Music: Sander Koning
Direction: Sjaan Flikweert
Set design: Caya Emmelkamp
Costume design: ChaPauw
Production: Annemarie Venema
Artistic and business support: Eva van Netten, Marleen Nagtegaal and Mark Hospers
Marketing: Merel Hoekstra & Mathé TöbbenWith thanks to | Het Cultuurfonds & Municipality of Leeuwarden
