• About
    A project about the precarious economy of hope.

    Not here, not now. Hope is all about then and there. Today, the people deciding which futures are possible are the CEOs and technocrats running the governments – the experts of the neoliberal status quo. “It has become easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” Today, we are experiencing a crisis of imagination. So what if hopelessness is not the lack of hope, but a lack of space to imagine alternatives?

    There Will Be Light proposes possible futures that turn our expectations upside down. For this project, Studio Julian Hetzel takes the equivalent of a basic income of their own cultural funding and gives it to one person. In other words: someone will receive €15.000. Something for nothing.

    What would you do with €15.000? This money is an invitation to escape the world of needs and enter the world of desires. Everybody has a chance, everybody can apply.*

    There Will Be Light promotes a radical gesture to question the way we live and how we relate to labour. Today’s societies are defined by work: work to produce value, to have a sense of purpose, and to provide status. What would we be if we were not workers? For one week, every day for 6 hours the audience is invited to explore an artificial beach, to follow the interview process to find the chosen one and apply. Alternative expert committees select the chosen one. We cast for life.

    There Will Be Light is a project about life as art and art as work. The real performance begins after the applause, at the very moment when the show is over and the audience returns home. For one year, seven days per week, 24h per day, the “chosen one” starts performing an improvisation called life.

    So stop working and become an artist!

    Director Julian Hetzel
    Performers     Christine van Stralen, Louis van der Waal, Niek Vanoosterweyck, Agat Sharma
    Dramaturge     Miguel Angel Melgares
    Artistic advisor     Sodja Lotker
    Assistant dramaturge     Madison Jolliffe
    Sound design     Johannes Helberger
    Head of production     Saskia Reynolds
    Production     Mariska van Zanten, Marieke van den Bosch
    Technical coordinators     Siemen van der Werf, Cas Dekker
    Technicians     Sybren Danz, Vincent Beune, Cesco van der Zwaag, Krzysztof Burdzy
    Panel recruiter and coach WEST     Yvonne Wierenga
    Communications & PR Michelle Franke
    Interns     Billy Ka, Maren Seidel

    Special thanks to the panel of experts and the local performers.

    Co-production WEST Den Haag, SPRING Performing Arts Festival, Grand Theatre Groningen
    With the support of     Fonds Podiumkunsten, City of Utrecht, Fonds 21, VriendenLoterij Fonds, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds