Biography
Renée Goethijn completed the maker program at RITCS School of Arts Brussels. Her artistic work consists of an ongoing interplay between an individual journey and various collaborative projects.
Renée creates visual performances that engage with our society in a critical and absurd way, with scenography often forming the core of the work, including Reconstruction of the Day I Left (KcNona – 2014), MANNAHATTA (KWP – 2022), 4 Women Getting Sick (KWP – 2025), and co-directed No Use for Binoculars (KWP – 2015) and Totally (KWP & Monty – 2017).
In 2014, together with several other former RITCS members, she founded the Koekelbergse Alliantie van Knutselaars (Alliance of Craftsmen), a horizontal alliance of sixteen theater makers seeking alternative forms of encounter, organization, and presentation. In recent years she has created with K.A.K. Office de Tourisme/Agence de Voyage (2016), Life, Death and Television (2018), Snøw (2019), The Unheard (2020),…
Renée also regularly collaborates with other companies: in 2021 she created the performance Mise en place (hetPaleis, Bronks & Kopergietery – 2021) together with cie Barbarie and she has worked as (final) director for, among others. for Studio Shehrazade (Kloppend Hert & Arsenaal – 2018), What the God (For real vzw – 2021), Spring Awakening (Wolf Wolf – 2022), Spindle (Oona Libens & KWP – 2022), Jackie (Lien Wildemeersch & Theater Malpertuis – 2023), Creature (Maxime Waladi, Action Zoo Humain & Fabuleus – 2023), The Teenage Whisperer (Sanderijn Helsen & De Studio – 2023), Piéton (Kenneth Berth & Het nieuwstedelijk & De Spil – 2024), Residu (Menzo Kircz & Eleonore Van Godtsenhoven – 2024), Oh Deer (Gina Beuk & Bronks – 2024), Jeanne (Sanderijn Helsen & De Studio – 2025), Wavelength (Haider Al Timimi, Lucius Romeo-Fromm & Antigone – 2026). She also created, together with Katinka De Jonge, Soep Opera, a participatory performance about the failure of participatory and collective practices as part of Viernulvier’s ‘Openbare Werken’ (Openbare Werken) (2022).
Furthermore, she works as a coach at Jong Gewei and as a lecturer and head of the Drama/Acting department at RITCS School of Arts.
In residentie TOTALLY
10.02.2017 – 10.02.2017
In TOTALLY, Dries Gijsels and Renée Goethijn try to create a performance in which nothing can go wrong. A preventive solution is provided for every possible problem that could arise. The possibility of an empty hall, a forgotten piece of text that changes the whole meaning, fire, a flood, the death of an actor on stage, everything is covered. Together with performers David Chazam, Lotte Diependaele, Micha Goldberg and Femke Stallaert, Gijsels and Goethijn examine how far they can go in this.
They start from the question: if nothing can go wrong, can anything substantial still happen? Can we still deal with the fundamental uncertainty that comes with life? How imbued have we become with the belief that reality is completely controllable? Do we still dare to allow the unexpected? Do we still dare to get lost?
TOTALLY shows a reflection of a touristised world where chance and uncertainty are systematically shunned for the sake of comfort, convenience and efficiency. So expect a highly uncomfortable, extremely uncomfortable and utterly inefficient depiction of what can happen, when nothing more can happen.
In residentie 4 Women Getting Sick
07.04.2025 – 25.04.2025
When a doctor’s visit turns into an endless medical limbo, four figures end up in a space where the boundaries are blurred between operating table, body, and landscape. Echoes of past and future intertwine. The players seek a way out of a bizarre cycle of predation and exploitation.
4 Women Getting Sick presents a magical-realist universe that, through a visual and physical theatrical language, explores the link between body and land. We examine how both have been subjected to a long history of conquest, oppression, and exhaustion. Inspired by surrealism and sacred ecology, Renée searches for the liberating aspect hidden in the primal connection between the female body and the earth.
4 Women Getting Sick is a performance where scenography is used as both a storytelling medium and a co-actor. It is an enchanting and unsettling theatrical experience that provokes reflection, where absurdity, humor, and existential questions come together to invite us to rediscover the world and our role in it. An absurd ode to female territory.
4WGS will premiere in November 2025 at Kaaitheater/Gc De Kriekelaar. Additional planned venues include Viernulvier, Theater Antigone, Monty, De Grote Post, and CCHA Hasselt.
