De plantage van onze voorouders

Orkater / Geert Lageveen

In the commemorative year 2023, 150 years after the 'end' of slavery, Manoushka Zeegelaar Breeveld and Malou Gorter put themselves in the shoes of Maartje Duin and Peggy Bouva – and their family members – to get a grip on their shared colonial history and everything that came out of it.

Run time 95 minutes
Genre Music theatre
Language Dutch

De plantage van onze voorouders

"He who does not know his roots cannot grow."

Peggy has been searching for the names and stories of her ancestors for a long time. Centuries of colonialism and slavery have erased them. Whether she will ever find the names is uncertain. Maartje holds a comprehensive family tree containing names, surnames, and portraits. The involvement of her ancestors in a plantation has never been a subject of discussion within her family until this point.

Their meeting is the beginning of a journey in which they mirror, confront and question each other. Together they go back to a shared past, to the plantation Tout Lui Faut in Suriname, the place that connects their ancestors. As they progress, it becomes clearer how the historical disparities among the women resonate into the present.
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The actresses Manoushka and Malou embody all characters and perspectives, yet ultimately, they cannot help but reveal themselves and speak out to each other. The live music, ranging from exuberant to introspective, brings the past to life, articulating tales that have yet to find words and echoing in moments of silence.

Manoushka Zeegelaar Breeveld on De plantage van onze voorouders

"Although awareness about Dutch colonial history has been growing in recent years, the conversation about what it triggers personally has only just begun. With this performance, we want to share and question perspectives in order to connect and ultimately heal."

REVIEWS

de Volkskrant

"A personal-historical document and a sharp portrait of the zeitgeist."

Trouw

"The successful podcast series De plantage van onze voorouders is now also a successful theatre show."

Het Parool

"The additional layer that both actresses add by blending their own experiences with the research is remarkable."

Credits

concept Manoushka Zeegelaar Breeveld
direction Geert Lageveen
text Bodil de la Parra
with Malou Gorter and Manoushka Zeegelaar Breeveld
music Shauntell Baumgard and Yariv Vroom
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scenography Mathieu Wijdeven
costumes Annique Nahumury (Terror Kittens)
lightning design Stefan Dijkman
based on the Prospektor/VPRO podcast De Plantage van onze voorouders
photography stage Bart Grietens
photography campaign Anne Claire de Breij