| Maker | Courtney May Robertson |
| Duration | 60 min |
| Part of |
The Women We Fear
Season 26-27 |
Sensory performance as a collective primal scream
In BANSHEE, the haunting dance performance by Courtney May Robertson, the persistent romanticization and eroticization of dead female bodies in art is exposed and dismantled. Set in a post-apocalyptic landscape of moving visual art, a sterile world cracks open. Within it, untamed bodies awaken, refusing to be silent or resigned. BANSHEE draws you into a collective primal scream of grief as something raw, grotesque, and alive. From a creator who doesn’t hold back.
Dancing with a visual artwork between lamentation and exorcism
As a teenager, Courtney experienced the death of her mother. It was a devastating moment, but also one that collided with the stylized, serene depictions of dead women in art and film. What was missing was the raw reality of grief and gender-based violence.
In BANSHEE, she performs a shifting dance together with friends Inci Gül Civelekoğlu and Olympia Kotopoulos, alongside the moving sculptural work of visual artist Jesus Canuto Iglesias. These sculptures reference instruments once used to discipline women, but in BANSHEE they uplift, support, and encourage. Celtic folk dance traditions are dismantled, throats burst open, and a ritual emerges that summons otherworldly forces while celebrating vulnerability.
Intense soundscapes and Courtney’s first group work
Bagpiper Genevieve Murphy and noise musician Acidic Male join forces to create an intense soundscape that drives the performance between endurance and rupture. Courtney, internationally known for her solo work, now opens a portal into a new mythological future together with other performers for the first time. Come watch this award-winning choreographer and performer make theater history at Korzo.
Courtney May Robertson (Scotland, 1992) is a Rotterdam-based performer and interdisciplinary maker working across dance, performance, and visual media. After graduating in 2013, she began her career with Club Guy & Roni’s Poetic Disasters Club and has since collaborated with artists such as Jan Martens, Connor Schumacher, Florentina Holzinger, Maxime Dreesen, and Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe.
Alongside her work as a performer, she has developed a distinctive choreographic practice rooted in Rotterdam’s underground performance scene. Her work is marked by emotional intensity, conceptual precision, and a fascination with the grotesque and the uncanny. She often approaches socio-political themes through a deeply personal lens. Using video, coding, puppetry, and visual design, she creates sensory performances where the boundary between reality and fiction dissolves, pulling audiences into physical and destabilizing worlds.
She has won several awards for her work, including Festival Cement’s De Troffel Prize (2020) and the Young Amsterdam Art Prize (2021). Her most recent work, HUNTER, received the VSCD Mime/Performance Prize (2024) at the Dutch Theater Festival and was included by NRC in its list of the “10 best dance performances of 2024.” In 2025, she was presented with the Krisztina Châtel Award.
Concept, Direction & Choreography: Courtney May Robertson
Creative Associate & Second Cast: Yoko Haveman
Creation & Performance: Inci Gül Civelekoğlu, Olympia Kotopoulos, Courtney May Robertson
Dramaturgy: Lara van Lookeren
Sound: Genevieve Murphy, Puck Schot (Acidic Male)
Scenography: Jesus Canuto Iglesias
Light: Paulina Prokop
Production & Tour Management: Anna Møller Technical
Production: Stefan Prokop
Tour Technicians : Stefan Prokop, Merijn Boers
Distribution: Amy Josh
Produced by: Studio Courtney May Robertson
Co-produced by: Grand Theater Groningen, Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam, BAU Amsterdam
Supported by: De Grote Post, Oostende
Financially
supported by: Cultuurfonds, Fondspodiumkunsten, Gemeente Rotterdam, NORMA Fonds
With thanks to: Judith Blankenberg, Christian Mayer
With The Women We Fear, we spend two weeks exploring how powerful and wise women throughout history can be seen for what they truly are: essential.
Performance dates
Apr 2027
Apr 2027
Apr 2027
May 2027
May 2027
Korzo Zaal