Memory as an inner prison: a multimedia quantum journey through guilt, exile, and identity. Where does the boundary lie between witnessing and truly experiencing? Between departure and inner migration? Queer Quark follows an artist living between homeland and exile, freedom and guilt, survival and creation. Text, live piano, aerial acrobatics, and video combine to form a layered performance in which a personal story takes on universal significance.
Where does the boundary lie between witnessing and true experience?
Between external and internal migration? Between Amsterdam and Birobidzhan?
Queer Quark is not a story about migration. It is a story of choice.
The Queer Quark collective unites artists who have been forced to migrate and are based in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe. Evgeniya Rudyuk is a theater and film artist. Her portfolio includes award-winning films and theater productions: The Lamb (2024) received the Best Screenplay award at the Saint Anna International Festival, and Kokice (2025) was selected for the Moscow International Film Festival. Evgeniya works with strong experimentation, genre-crossing art, and the search for new narrative forms.
About the performers
Maria Nemtsova is an internationally acclaimed concert pianist, with performances at Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw, Kings Place, Steinway Hall, and other renowned venues. She is a co-founder of the charity project “Music for Peace” and curator of the Pavel Kushnir Foundation’s concerts.
Natalia Perel is a European actress with extensive experience in experimental and documentary theater.
Natasha Smyslova is an aerial acrobat, sportswoman, two-time world champion, and holder of two world records.
Polina Ertel is a multimedia artist and student at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. She works with installations, performance art, video, and visual art, and explores generational memories and traumas.
Polina Mirovskaya and Daria Titova are dance artists and movement directors who work with choreography, photography, film, and theater.
Lidia Sinelnik is a video artist, set designer, and theatre director, with a focus on documentary material, site-specific formats, and artistic research.
Composers – Meredith Monk, Kate Moore
With thanks to and supported by: WeExist!, Wilhelmina E. Jansen Fonds, Admiraal van Kinsbergenfonds, Olga Shkrygunova, Stichting MUSIC BRIDGES
