The directorate of the Academy of Theatre and Dance (ATD) of the Amsterdam University of the Arts has appointed Fabián Santarciel de la Quintana as artistic director of the Mime School, as of 1 June 2025. Fabián had held the position of interim artistic director at the Mime School since 2022.
About Fabián Santarciel de la Quintana
Fabián Santarciel de la Quintana (Uruguay, 1971) is a teacher, mime performer and theatre maker, a graduate of the School of Dramatic Arts in Montevideo and of the Mime School of the Academy of Theatre and Dance (ATD). Since 2006, Fabián has been part of the educational team of the Mime School at the ATD and became interim artistic director in 2022. He is co-founder of Mime fabriek, a meeting place for the (inter)national mime & performance art community.
In 2022, Fabián was part of the ATD Lectureship's ‘Embodied Knowledge in Theatre and Dance’ research group and researched the relationship between the discipline of the Mime Corporel technique (developed by Etienne Decroux) and the spontaneity and rawness of improvisation and what effect this has on theatrical action/movement.
During his artistic directorship, he intends to continue his efforts to strengthen the Mime School and the ATD artistically and socially and to strengthen Dutch mime, both nationally and internationally.
Mechtild van den Hombergh, director (a.i.) Academy of Theatre and Dance:
‘With Fabián, the Academy of Theatre and Dance maintains an artistic director with solid experience in all aspects of Mime but, above all, with experience in teaching. In this regard, it is important that the stability that is slowly returning to Mime becomes more solidly rooted.
Fabián wants to work on craft, research, entrepreneurship and positioning of the artist as necessary pillars of the programme. Therefore, the Selection and Appointment Advisory Committee sees Fabián's appointment as of great importance to the Mime.'
About the Mime School:
Everything starts with movement! The Mime School is not about ‘pretending’, but about ‘being’: to play on the performance floor with what is there. Our students learn to use their bodies to tell stories and to make theatre: their own bodies in relation to other bodies and in relation to space. Then other elements can be added: text, set, costumes, music, video, technology.
The Mime School is an interdisciplinary programme that educates autonomous performers and theatre makers. A performer who can think along as a theatre-maker and a theatre-maker with a distinctive creative style. Through its innovative character, the Mime School has made important contributions to innovations within the theatre landscape in the more than forty years of its existence.