Boris de Klerk

Boris de Klerk (Amsterdam, 1998) is a performance and sound artist. Since completing his training at the Maastricht Theatre Academy in 2022, he divides his time primarily between working on his own music and performances, and as a sound designer for others' performances and productions.

By approaching the theatrical space as a composer, his work attempts to rearrange the senses and investigates what happens when you create theater in which sound takes the lead, and the mise-en-scène, the set design, the lighting, and the choreography are the result of choices made based on the auditory.

A recurring theme in his work is space for Deep Listening, a concept developed by American composer Pauline Oliveros. Central to Deep Listening is listening as a tool for meditation, and this meditative listening as a starting point for creation. Boris aims to approach theater as a space to listen to. Both as a sound designer for others and in his own work, he tries to emphasize the sound that is already present in the theater or performance space and use it as a foundation for what he creates.

For this, the theatrical ritual is a very fertile environment. It is based on a sensory focus on the work, a silence from an audience, being carried away by what a creator intends. As a result, theater is increasingly becoming a medium that distinguishes itself in this 'captivity' and offers space for longer, drawn-out, and sensorially minimal arcs, in a time when everything seems to need to be faster, louder, and more striking. Theater as a space for slowness, attention, and sensuality.