“It feels as if the Piket award ceremony is only a week ago,” Isla Clarke (winner Piket Art prize 2022 (Dance)) “The past few months have been so demanding and intense.” She will be taking next season off for the final stages of her transition and looks forward to what she calls her ‘next chapter.’
Last year, Marieke Peeters won the Piket Art Prize in the Painting category. The jury was impressed with her immersive installations and the way in which she enters a still uncharted territory between visual art and theatre. “People react to my work in a very extreme way,” Marieke says. “I find that fascinating.”
Despite the fact that many of the Covid-19 measures are still in force, Boston Gallacher, 2020 winner in the Dance category, has been working hard these past few months. “I’m lucky to be in one of those jobs which are able to go on as normal.”
Jordan Herregraven, last year’s winner in the Painting category, confesses he was a little nervous before the jury members’ visit. “The nomination came as a surprise,” he says. “It was really exciting. The support and exposure that went with the nomination was inspiring and very valuable.” Winning was a surprise as well. “I had a good feeling but hadn’t really prepared a speech, and being on stage, having to say something is pretty nerve wracking, so I kept it short and sweet. But, yes, it was a great moment.”
Until 1 June theatremakers, actors, artists and dancers are forced to sit at home. As part of the official measures aimed at keeping the spread of the coronavirus under control, exhibitions are off and performances have been cancelled. What do these measures mean for Piket Art Prizes’ young artists? Part 7: Naomi van der Linden.
To Sara de Greef, winner in the Dance category in 2019, the nomination came as an immense surprise. “Of course, I knew the Piket Art Prizes from the sidelines,” she explains, “but at that moment I was in London working with Studio Wayne McGregor, and I felt I had left the Netherlands behind me.” Sara was not really on firm ground at that time. She had just completed a very intensive, but also extremely instructive year as an NDT intern, and now had to get used to a different climate at Wayne McGregor’s. “And, well, London is fantastic, of course, but I hardly knew anyone there,” Sara says. “So I was really happy to see people had faith in me.”
Jos Nargy, who carried off last year’s Piket Art Prize in the Dramatic Arts category, looks upon the past winter months with gratification. “Being nominated was wonderful”, he says. “Truly an honour, a token of recognition.’ But winning was terrific, of course. ‘People love winners.” The prize was a genuine ‘picket post’ (‘piketpaaltje’ in Dutch) in Jos’ career and came exactly at the right moment.
