ɘᴎO oͶ
stories without masks
IT ALL BEGAN
WITH AN
UNLIKELY
PLAN✳
In January 2026, we started out in Schiedam with three groups: a choir, a set-building workshop and a film and theatre group.
We wanted to make a film together, with a choir performing the music live during the screening.
We handed out flyers, approached people in the streets and invited everyone to join in. No experience was required.
We weren't entirely sure ourselves what it would all look like in the end.
THE PROJECT
AT A GLANCE.
Over eight months, people of different ages and backgrounds worked together to create a film accompanied by a live choir.
PARTICIPANTS
From young to old. With different backgrounds, experiences and reasons for joining in.
CREATIVE GROUPS
Choir, set design, film and theatre, and later puppetry too.
CREATIVE SESSIONS
20 choir rehearsals, 20 set-building afternoons, 8 theatre evenings, puppetry and children's rehearsals, and 8 days of filming.
WHAT CAME
TO LIFE.
From all those rehearsals, workshop days and encounters, a collective work of art slowly began to take shape.
PAGES OF MUSIC
A five-part choral composition, performed live by a choir during the film screening.
MASKS
Along with costumes, sculptures, a seven-metre tunnel and a puppet almost four metres tall, operated by five puppeteers.
MINUTES OF FILM
Screened three times on 13 September 2026 at the Sodafabriek in Schiedam, with the choir performing live beside the screen.
THE CHOIR✳
For twenty Monday evenings, people came together to sing, guided by Sanne Monster and Wies Arts. Some had been singing all their lives; others had only just begun.
Somewhere among all those voices wandered the story
of someone who one day decided to become no one.
Not because being someone had been such a terrible
experience, but because perhaps there was another way.
Without constantly having to explain who you are,
what you believe or who you intend to become.
And perhaps, we suspected, that would leave
a little more room. For the world.
For one another. For all those other voices.
INSTRUMENTS
FROM THE CHOIR
As time went on, we discovered that some choir members had brought more than just their voices. A harp, a bagpipe, a flute and a saxophone.
None of these instruments had been part of the original composition. But now that they were here, it seemed rather strange not to let them be heard.
ABSTRACT
VOCAL PIECES
Sometimes we let go of the melody. There was whispering, speaking, shouting. Voices moved past one another, found each other for a moment, and disappeared again.
FROM CHOIR
TO SPOKEN WORD
Hanneke discovered that some words preferred to be spoken rather than sung. She began to recite a text, quietly, as though she were telling us something that had only just occurred to her. Afterwards, she continued singing alone, without the other voices around her. For a moment, there was only one voice. And yet it still belonged to the choir.
DECORGROEP!
Oorspronkelijk was het de bedoeling dat kinderen alleen onder begeleiding van een ouder zouden meedoen. Dat leek ons een redelijk uitgangspunt. De kinderen bleken daar anders over te denken en kwamen gewoon zelf. We konden ze moeilijk wegsturen. Dus richtten we een kinderhoek in, met eigen opdrachten in de geest van Geen Gezicht.
Dat kostte tijd. Tijd die we eigenlijk nodig hadden om decors te bouwen. Het was een van de redenen waarom we na de geplande tien middagen nog lang niet klaar waren. Maar terwijl het grote decor langzaam vorderde, ontstond in een hoek van het atelier een hele wereld die niemand had gepland.
Van gevonden materialen maakten de kinderen kleine kunstwerken, voorzien van boodschappen waarvan de logica niet altijd onmiddellijk duidelijk was, wat overigens ook voor een aanzienlijk deel van ons eigen werk gold.
De werkjes kregen een eigen tentoonstelling bij Bij Bosshardt...
Een zeven
meter lange
Tunnel
De zeven meter lange tunnel werd grotendeels gebouwd van hergebruikte materialen. Eerst in KADE40, voor de repetities en voorbereidingen. Voor de opnames bouwden we hem opnieuw op in de Sodafabriek. Na afloop kreeg het decor een derde leven bij Rauwkost Filmstudio, voor gebruik in een volgende productie.
De speciaal
voor de
kinderscène
ontworpen
wand
Met deurtjes en ligplateaus aan de achterzijde. Gerealiseerd door kunstenaar en houtverbeteraar Giel Bos.
Drie keer
Geen Gezicht
Voor de film werd Geen Gezicht niet één keer, maar drie keer gebouwd. Er kwam een versie van vier meter hoog, een pop op menselijke schaal en een derde versie die speciaal zo werd gemaakt dat we met de camera door zijn hoofd konden filmen. Iedere pop had een andere functie, maar samen vormden ze één personage.
Van ontwerp
naar pop
Geen Gezicht werd ontworpen door Wies Arts, Guus de Hoop en Maria Ionescu. De bouw gebeurde samen met deelnemers van de decorgroep en Wies Arts. Voor de specialistische afwerking werden Ko de Kok (haar, schilderwerk en afwerking) en Thea van Gils (kostuum) betrokken.
Vier meter hoog
De grootste Geen Gezicht werd ongeveer vier meter hoog en kon door vijf mensen tegelijk worden bespeeld.
De popgroep
De grote pop speelde een centrale rol in Geen Gezicht, maar lange tijd was nog niet duidelijk wie haar uiteindelijk tot leven zou brengen. Dat veranderde toen we Veronika Zablotska ontmoetten, een Oekraïense poppenspeler, opgeleid als puppeteer in Kyiv.
Vijf mensen, één lichaam
Veronika leerde de deelnemers hoe je met vijf mensen samen één groot lichaam bestuurt. De vier meter hoge pop werd door vijf mensen tegelijk bespeeld. Samen bestuurden zij het hoofd, de armen en het lichaam.
Veel tijd om te oefenen was er niet: na één gezamenlijke workshop stond de groep een week later al op het Grotekerkplein voor de eerste filmopnames.
Terug naar TENT
Het oorspronkelijke karakter Geen Gezicht ontstond tijdens een workshop voor een mavo-klas bij TENT Rotterdam. Voor de eerste workshop met de grote pop keerden we terug naar diezelfde plek. TENT stelde hiervoor een ruimte beschikbaar.
Drie poppenspelers
De pop op mensformaat werd door drie verschillende mensen bespeeld. Daarvoor waren geen repetities nodig; aanwijzingen konden tijdens de opnames direct worden gegeven. Alleen voor de kinderscène oefenden we vooraf, zodat de kinderen aan Geen Gezicht konden wennen.
Kinderen in de film
Naast de kinderhoek bij decor spelen kinderen op verschillende momenten een rol in de film. Voor één van de scènes werkten we met een groep van zeven kinderen. Daarnaast werden enkele kinderen afzonderlijk betrokken bij andere opnames.
Oefenen in de Sodafabriek
Een week voor de opnames kwamen de kinderen (tussen de 5 en 12 jaar) naar de Sodafabriek voor een repetitie onder leiding van Maria Ionescu. Ze oefenden met het naar buiten kruipen door de maskerdeurtjes in de wand en met het spelen van verschillende emoties.
Voor de repetitie schreven we korte verhalen die aan de kinderen werden voorgelezen. In ieder verhaal gebeurde iets anders en kregen ze aanwijzingen over wat hun personage voelde en hoe ze daarop konden reageren.
Een week later
Een week later werd de scène met de wand opgenomen. De kinderen kropen opnieuw door de maskerdeurtjes, nu voor de camera. In de film verschijnt achter ieder deurtje een kind met een eigen reactie, beweging en gezicht.
Repetitie kinderscène
Emilie en Mia
in de tunnel
Emilie en Mia renden door de zeven meter lange tunnel. De camera bewoog met hen mee door het decor.
Boris wordt
toegedekt
Voor een andere scène stond Boris (12) voor de camera terwijl zijn hoofd met scheerschuim werd toegedekt. Laag voor laag verdween zijn gezicht onder het schuim.
No One — An English adaptation of Geen Gezicht
01 As I wandered through the world, I wore many faces. Though some of them brought me to tears, I loved them all, each in a different way.
02 I came to know them better over time, my funny faces, my grin, my great big mouth. Yet not a single one of them felt quite like my true face. It was as though behind my smile something waited, calling ever louder from within.
03 And so, to find what lay behind them, I began to take off my masks, one by one. The faces I had worn for so many years slowly fell away. And with each mask that fell away, I grew more certain that my true face would soon appear.
04 But when the final mask fell from me, the mirror showed a sight beyond belief. Where once I'd seen my own reflection, an endless void unfolded before me. And slowly I began to understand: beneath the faces I had worn, there was no one.
CHORUS 1
NO ONE
I am no one
Behind all my faces
There is no one
05 You might imagine that I was overcome, but now that all my masks had fallen away, the feelings I had worn upon those faces no longer seemed entirely mine. From a distance, I watched the fear upon the face I'd left behind. And strangely, I was not afraid.
Carefully, I gathered up the faces scattered at my feet and carried them into my home, as though I was arranging an exhibition of my life.
So often I had been overwhelmed by my feelings that I had never heard what they were trying to say. But now, with some distance between us, I could hear for the first time the voices that had lived within me all along.
And suddenly, everything began to speak:
all that I had felt but never understood, all that I had understood but never felt, what fear had kept concealed, what sorrow had known all along, and what longing had searched for without ever finding.
For days I sat and listened.
One by one, they told me what I had never learned to hear.
A straight face began to bend. A long face grew a little shorter with each word it spoke.
And when the last had finished speaking, we all grew quiet and still.
CHORUS 2
NO ONE
I am no one
Behind all my faces
There is no one
06 At last the time had come to show myself to the world. I knew that what I had become would unsettle those I met. But in the eyes of those who saw me, I found a fear I hadn't expected, as though my emptiness reminded them of something precious they had long forgotten.
Without a face, there was nothing to prevent others from looking straight into my soul.
And perhaps that was what people found so difficult to bear. For in looking into mine, they were reminded of their own, of something precious they might have lost sight of along the way.
I knew something of this fear. I too had been afraid of what I might find if I looked within.
Perhaps we have become so accustomed to looking at what people show to the world that we sometimes forget to look at what lies beneath.
And perhaps, in our pursuit of a dazzling life, we occasionally lose sight of the very soul that was meant to live it.
07 A crowd began to gather round me. Their voices rose into a single, urgent cry. I had no face. I was no one. And this, apparently, was a terrible thing to be. A scream rang out. Someone commanded my arrest. I did not resist. As far as I could tell, I had done nothing wrong. I was simply no one. Apparently, this was enough.
CHORUS 3
NO ONE
I am no one
Hear them shouting:
It may not be!
That man is no one!
08 When I was brought before the judge, the courtroom filled to its very last seat.
They wished to establish whether a person could truly be no one. And if so, whether such a person could still be considered a person at all.
For if someone could walk the streets without being anyone, what was to become of all those who had spent their lives becoming somebody?
And could a city keep its dignity if it allowed a nobody to wander freely through its streets?
09 I stood before them, and my voice was steady.
You accuse me of being no one. You cannot bear that I should stand before you with nothing left to hide what lies within.
You call my nakedness offensive, my emptiness an insult to your eyes.
For I have cast aside the very things by which your world decides who is someone, and who is no one.
But none of the faces I had worn had ever truly been my own.
They were impressions left by others, masks shaped by expectations that were never mine.
Perhaps it had seemed less lonely to be someone in another's eyes than to be no one in my own.
And so I had grown accustomed to seeing myself from the outside.
Which, when you think about it, is not so strange.
Our eyes are turned towards the world. We learn to know it by looking at what lies before us. And somewhere along the way, we began to suspect that we ourselves must also be out there somewhere.
In what others see of us. In what we show. In everything that glitters in another person's eyes.
And so we build the outward shape of our existence, sometimes forgetting that every façade conceals as much as it reveals.
The more visible we become, the easier it may be to remain unseen.
Until we find ourselves standing before one another, each hidden behind the person we have learned to appear to be.
10 But then I saw: I am not what others see.
I am always on this side of looking.
Here, where I see. Where I experience. Where I feel.
Feel!
I think I spent a very long time trying to become someone.
Someone who could do things. Someone who knew things. Someone who had made something of herself.
And for a while, I thought I was getting somewhere.
I collected things. I learned things. I accomplished things. Some of them were even quite impressive.
But gradually, I began to notice something peculiar. All these things were outside of me. I could point to them. I could show them to other people. I could even lose them.
And yet I had begun to believe that they were me.
Little by little, I had built a person around myself. Layer upon layer. A person who knew what to say, what to do, how to appear.
And I must admit, she was not entirely unsuccessful.
But she was not me.
The strange thing was that the more complete she became, the more difficult it was to find myself anywhere inside her.
I had built something beautiful, perhaps. Something that could shine in the eyes of others.
But it had become a shell.
And behind that shell, I was terribly alone.
For everything I had built around myself stood not only between me and other people.
It stood between me and myself.
I always wanted to be the person I wanted to be
I never wanted to be the person I was
11 — SOLO And so I knew I had to stop living from the outside.
One by one, I laid aside the things I had mistaken for myself. My smile, my thoughts, all that I had called my own.
I no longer wished to be successful, nor rich, nor clever, nor beautiful, nor even someone.
12 And so I stand before you now, without a mask, without a wall, without a name. I own nothing. I have no face to show. And if, in your eyes, I am no one, then let me be no one.
Not because I reject being human, but because I long to find humanity again.
I paused to wipe the sweat from my forehead.
And only then did I notice that, while I had been speaking, a face had slowly begun to form again.
Somewhere in the course of defending my right to be no one, I had become someone.
Someone with ideas. With words. With convictions.
Quickly, I pulled the mask away.
I stood there.
My hands empty.
My face open.
There was nothing more I could say without becoming someone again.
And so I said nothing more.
CHOIR
PARTS
The five voices of No One.
To read, practise and sing along.
LISTEN
& SING
ALONG✳
Listen to the individual vocal lines and practise your own choir part.
GO TO SOUNDCLOUD ↗
THERE'S ROOM
FOR YOU
TOO.
Our choir is still singing. Perhaps you can sing. Perhaps you think you can't sing, which is not quite the same as not being able to sing. You can join us at any time.
Or perhaps you're good at building, painting, making things, writing, organising or coming up with ideas. Or perhaps you're not.
Perhaps you're not particularly good at anything. At least, nothing you've discovered a use for so far.
That's interesting too.
You don't need to figure out what you can contribute before you come along. Perhaps we'll discover that together.
+ I'M INWE ARE
NO ONE.
But we do have an email address.