Ilrish Kensenhuis, fourth year student at the Theatre Teacher study programme, has won an ECHO Award, the national incentive prize for non-western foreign talent in higher education. Ilrish Kensenhuis, of Creole-Surinamese descent, is scheduled to graduate from de Theaterschool in July 2013.
Ilrish Kensenhuis exploits her study career to achieve her ideal: the development of a multi-cultural youth theatre of a high artistic standard and youth talent development in an urban multi-cultural context.
In her third study year Ilrish directed the production Don't Call Me Urban – performed by children from the inter-cultural theatre project Jong RAST – which focused on outcasts growing up in a metropolis, inspired by recent developments in cities like London and Paris. The sequel to Don't Call Me Urban is scheduled to be staged this year as Ilrish’s graduation production: Ik was acht en ik voetbalde, that she made in collaboration with three amateur actors with Moroccan, Dutch/Turkish-Kurdish and Bosnian roots.
By winning the ECHO Award Ilrish Kensenhuis will be given the opportunity to follow a summer course at UCLA, the University of California Los Angeles in the United States.
Ilrish is not the first Theaterschool student to be nominated for the ECHO Award. In 2012 George Tobal, graduate of the Amsterdam School for Drama & Contemporary Music Theatre, also secured a place in the final.
Interview with Ilrish Kensenhuis from 2012 about her production Don't Call Me Urban