Through a new partnership with deAuteurs, a Belgian authors’ rights management organisation that represents authors of performing arts, audio-visual, literary, and visual works, we are pleased to announce two-week residencies supporting artists developing new work in performance.

Tibau Beirnaert and Laurens Aneca are theatre makers who met while studying drama at KASK in Ghent. Their collaboration centres on queerness, exploring how bodies, identities and desires can move beyond established norms. Tibau works as a creator and performer, while Laurens directs.

Tibau’s practice brings together theatre, drag, pole dance and visual experimentation. Through their drag persona, Vivi Sauterelle, and a fascination with fantasy and science fiction, they create otherworldly characters that combine absurdity, sensuality and vulnerability. Costume, wigs and handmade objects are integral to their artistic language.

Laurens is a director who also works as a performer, coach and dramaturg. Alongside his collaborations with Tibau, his directing credits include Under the Influence, with Colette Goossens and Stan Martens, and TA MAL OU, with Louise Bergez.

Together, they created F A G G O T S (2023) and ZERO FEET AWAY (2024), exploring queer futures, intimacy, alienation and the influence of dating apps on human connection.

Their forthcoming production, CHRONIC, investigates masculinity through medieval chivalry, male bonding rituals and queer transformation. Across their shared practice, they use imaginative worlds and physical performance to question dominant narratives and open up possibilities for tenderness, connection and alternative ways of being together.