PISS POOL, together with Boogaert/van der Schoot, 2025
A PERFORMANCE INSTALLATION ABOUT GROWING OLDER IN A WORLD FULL OF FILLERS AND FILTERS
“You look great for your age.”
A harmless compliment? Or a poisonous whisper of a capitalist culture where youth, tightness and fertility are the only desirable states? Where the norm assumes you peak in your thirties, after which your productivity, health, and social relevance inevitably decline?
In PISS POOL, you enter a TikTok mansion for the elderly: a seemingly luxurious wellness resort filled with massage chairs, beauty corners and sugar-free power drinks. Here, women film themselves performing hyper-modern rejuvenation rituals under the guidance of an influencer. But in this house of mirrors where time bends and refracts, no one truly owns her body.
Named after the artwork Piss Pool by Samantha Nye, the performance explores ageism from a feminist perspective. In Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot’s signature hybrid of digital avatars and living bodies, this theatrical video installation delves into the toxic underbelly of capitalist wellness culture—where the female body must remain young, fit and flawless, and where “self-care” no longer means caring for each other, but rather bearing sole responsibility for one’s own (ill) health.
With PISS POOL, Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot continue the trajectory begun with their theatre hit BIMBO (2011), where the pornified, objectified female body took centre stage. Together with theatre maker and visual artist Lisa Schamlé, they now construct a disorienting wellness-world in which the concept of (life)time is twisted into a space where women—clothed or naked—reclaim time itself.
Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot drijft de drang naar eeuwige jeugdigheid door tot het uiterste en toont met wrange humor hoe bizar schoonheidsnormen zijn
★★★★★ NRC
De vlezige en viezige scènes in PISS POOL zullen je nog lang bijblijven
★★★ Trouw
Het is aangenaam huiveren bij de bodyhorror van ‘PISS POOL’, over het ouder wordende vrouwenlichaam
★★★★ Volkskrant
De vrouwen lijken in bepaalde scènes vijf nimfen die een ritueel uitvoeren, terwijl ze zich onbeschaamd overgeven aan lichamelijk genot. Op die momenten hebben ze zich losgewrikt van de blik van de buitenwereld, van de schadelijke oordelen die ook wij op hen projecteren
Theaterkrant
Credits
Concept Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot
Direction Bianca van der Schoot
Performers, creators Suzan Boogaerdt, Ria Marks, Lisa Schamlé and in various constellations: Miquê Hamden, Hetty Hurkmans Vermeulen, Marianne Smit, Tanja Florence Uneken, Martje Verhagen
Content advisor Lisa Schamlé
Set design Katrin Bombe
Set construction Guido Bevers
Costume design Lotte Goos
Video design Rodrik Biersteker
Lightning design Julian Maiwald
Sound design Wessel Schrik
Assistant director Agnes Lassen
Assistant costume Sam Wissink
Technical production Jurr van Diggele
Technical crew Daan Hazendonk, Marco Steenks, Wybe de Haan, Iwan van Wijk
Context program Marieke Dijkwel
Production manager Joppe Kos
Tourmanager Zarah Ruwhof
Business manager Anne van Buuren
Publicity Casper Koster
With support from Fonds Podiumkunsten, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, Fonds 21
With thanks to Frascati, De Balie
Pictures by Willem Popelier
