Public sharing Bau AIR with Courtney May Robertson

In the final presentation of her residency, Courtney May Robertson will share the outcome of her research. Please notice that the sharing is at a different address than normally! The showing will take place at the Van Diemenstraat 408-410, in the theatre space of Werkgebouw Het Veem in Amsterdam.

Courtney May Robertson (Scotland, 1992) is a Rotterdam-based performer and interdisciplinary maker. Since 2013, she has collaborated with artists including Jan Martens, Florentina Holzinger, Maxime Dreesen, and soon Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe. Her own choreographic voice emerged in Rotterdam’s DIY performance scene, and has since evolved into a small but distinctive body of solo works - HUNTER (VSCD Mime/Performance Prize 2024), the pleasure of stepping off a horse when it’s moving at full speed (Aerowaves Twenty22), and THE WOMAN DESTROYED (De Troffel Prize 2020).Defined by raw physicality, conceptual precision, and emotional intensity, Courtney explores sociopolitical themes through personal, uncanny, and often grotesque lenses. Navigating the spaces between dance, performance art, coding, puppetry, and visual design, she builds haunting and immersive encounters that oscillate between control and collapse, rigor and rebellion, chaos and structure.

Research

BANSHEE (working title) marks the research phase of Courtney May Robertson’s first group performance, premiering in March 2027. Drawing on romanticized and eroticized depictions of corpses in art, BANSHEE explores grief, gendered violence, and cultural portrayals of womxn’s bodies as passive and consumable. Prompted by the loss of her mother over a decade ago, Courtney rejects the sanitized narratives of death encountered in her research, turning instead to her Celtic ancestry and the undercurrents of transgenerational trauma as sites of reckoning and reclamation. During this residency, she will develop a contemporary movement language informed by the deconstruction of folk dance traditions she practiced in childhood. In addition, working in collaboration with sound artists Genevieve Murphy and Acidic Male, Courtney will research a hybrid soundscape where the ancient lament of Scottish bagpipes collides with the raw energy of Noise music.

BANSHEE Research team

Concept & Direction: Courtney May Robertson

Sound: Puck Schot / Acidic Male, Genevieve Murphy

Performance: Courtney May Robertson, Olympia Kotopoulos, İnci Gül Civelekoğlu, Yoko Haveman

Scenography: Jesus Canuto Iglesias

Dramaturgy: Lara van Lookeren

Co-produced by: Grand Theater Groningen

Supported by: De Grote Post Oostende, Bau Amsterdam

Financially supported by: Gemeente Rotterdam, Bau Amsterdam