How many different voices can you be at once? And how do they sound?

The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa fragmented his existence and his poetry over several persons. Each person is a different poetic escape strategy.

In What Pessoa taught me, Marthe Koning searches for all these different identities. She does Pessoa’s poetry: sometimes growling, sometimes singing, sometimes whispering. She searches for the different versions of Pessoa but mostly encounters her own. Through Pessoa’s words, Marthe finds a boundlessness: when are you yourself and when are you a place, only, for feeling or thinking?

Marthe Koning

Marthe Koning (1996) studied Fine Art for two years at the ArtEZ art academy, after which she continued her education at Toneelacademie Maastricht. There she graduated from the Performance program in 2021. She makes musical, physical performances: with her voice she cuts rashly along a carefully constructed visual spectacle. Together with her sisters, Marthe forms the interdisciplinary performance collective King Sisters with whom they made Song of the Sisters (Best of Fringe Award 2018), Talking Songs (2020) and Rebuilding a Voice (2022).