About DramaLab

DramaLAB was founded by Martine Baanvinger in 2012.

Martine attended the Theatre Academy in Amsterdam in the Netherlands in the 90’s. She co-founded BARR-theatre collective in Rotterdam with Anna Boelens and Ragnhild Rikkelman.

BARR produced experimental performances and would always approach the creation of a performance with the goal to create something unique, honest and raw which resulted in exciting unusual performances for their loyal audiences. 

After Martine settled into beautiful Golden Bay, New Zealand, she established the theatre company DramaLAB.

She has been producing,  writing,  directing and/or acting in the following performances:

2012 – Hello Monster (family performance)

2013 – Becoming Eleanor

2015 – All in the Timing (Nelson Fringe Festival),

2015 – Podcast

2016 – UnSensored (Nelson Fringe Festival),

2016 – May contain traces of nuts

2017 – Solitude (Solo show – Award winning at Nelson Fringe Festival)

2018 – Solitude (Solo show – Top of the South Tour & NZ Fringe Wellington)

2019 – Solitude (Solo show – Arts on Tour NZ)

2019 – Aperture (Solo show – Nelson Arts Festival)

2019 – Aperture (Top of the South tour)

Since 2014 Martine has run courses and workshops teaching Devising Theatre, Actor Training, Physical Theatre, Mask making/Acting workshops and Location Theatre.

Over the last 7 years Martine has participated in Zen Zen Zo’s yearly Physical Theatre Intensive Trainings in New Zealand, Australia, England and The Netherlands. These highly intensive physical theatre master classes are facilitated by the highly skilled Australian Zen Zen Zo Theatre Co founder Lynne Bradley. This course teaches Suzuki Actor Training, Butoh, Viewpoints and Composition.

This is where Martine found her passion for incorporating physical theatre into DramaLAB performances and Martine also teaches Viewpoints and Suzuki Actor Training in her courses and workshops.