On March 8, 2025 – International Women’s Day – we will start our research trajectory: In search of The Hague Heroines. In 2026, we want to create a new House Performance based on this.

We are looking for women aged 55+ who are hidden in The Hague neighborhoods and The Hague region – women who remain anonymous, but perform heroic deeds for their neighborhood, community or city. Perhaps once, perhaps daily. Writer Anne Hogewind will, just like in our previous performance, record the stories and later convert them into a script. Sophie Plekker will direct.

Do you know someone we absolutely cannot miss? Or do you recognize yourself in this description?

What can you expect
In this research phase, we will – together with our participants and in preparation for the House Performance in 2026 – search for The Hague heroines. Women who have a major positive impact on their environment with their daily ‘work’, but are often not recognized. But also: towards a new definition of heroism.

There are few statues of women in The Hague; most honor male heroes. Men are often honored for so-called ‘great’ contributions, for example to war and state affairs. For a long time, women were not allowed to decide their own fate or participate in such matters, but in the meantime they kept society running day in day out, with all their undervalued and unpaid work, which was of great importance to society. This fundamentally unequal structure still has an effect on the present. We want to hoist all those women, all that undervalued female labor, on a shield.

From the inclusive vision of Huis van Vervoering, we are not looking for the Aletta Jacobsens of this world (however great), but rather for ‘everyday’ heroines. We start these conversations with a heroine from a Greek tragedy and ask the women to what extent they think they resemble this woman? What do you recognize/do you not recognize/would you have done differently? What is the current state of the world? Are women still being silenced? What are your hidden heroic deeds? Have you ever sacrificed yourself for something?