Judith Engelen
Judith Engelen will be in residence at KAOS in March and April.
This residency is a collaboration with workspacebrussels.
She will lay the groundwork for her new performance, “I met you once, I loved you twice.”
Judith Engelen creates physical and associative performances that combine fast technology with slow literature. She graduated in 2023 from the Theatre Academy in Maastricht, after previously obtaining a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology at KU Leuven. Her work is deeply connected to psychiatry and psychoanalysis. In 2024, she created MELT (sometimes writing something leads to nothing) for Close Encounters/Closing Sessions (OUT OF SIGHT, MORPHO, Extra City), and Howl Baby Howl with Ika Schwander (Eigen Kweek). She has also worked as a performer and actress with, among others, Michiel Vandevelde, Charbel-Joseph H. Boutros, and Miet Warlop. During her studies at the Theatre Academy, she interned with DE HOE (DE HOE onderbreekt and Radio Insomnia).
“I met you once, I loved you twice” is a visual performance inspired by the myth of the androgynous humans in Plato’s Symposium. According to the story, humans originally had four arms, four legs, and two heads, but Zeus split them in half with an axe. Since then, people have been searching for their lost other half.
The performance explores the overlap between falling in love and psychosis, focusing on the longing for unity and the loss of one’s own position.
From the perspective of Lacanian psychoanalysis, it’s a compelling comparison: boundaries blur between self and other, reality and imagination, thought and being.
Through 3D animations, sculptures, and projections, Judith Engelen creates a visual language in which two former lovers reunite after a long time. This encounter reveals the complexities and fragility of a psychotic episode.
During her residency at KAOS and workspacebrussels, she begins her preliminary research for _“I met you once, I loved you twice” in a psychiatric context.udith Engelen komt in maart en april in residentie bij KAOS. Deze residentie is een samenwerking met workspacebrussels. Ze legt de basis voor haar nieuwe performance ‘I met you once, I loved you twice’.
