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Renske Pereira
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Ritual designer | Celebrant
About me
For as long as I can remember, I have had a great imagination and an eagerness to develop. Even at a very young age, I instinctively felt the power of stories, how they can help to connect, to give words to feelings and experiences. As I grew up, my love for stories (through play, dancing, books and movies), for nature, for art and my sense of humour helped me to keep an open heart. And that hasn’t changed. I also bring these loves with me into my work as a ritual designer and celebrant.
It makes me happy to be of meaning to someone else. This doesn’t always have to be done in a grand way. It can also be in the shape of friendliness on the street, or spontaneously lending someone a hand. Humour and creativity are indispensable to me. They give release and joy, and are my beacons during dark times. Respect for nature and sustainability both are very important values to me, they will always be taken into account in my rituals. I love the adventure of not knowing (yet), of liminality. That is that uncertain, sometimes abrasively uncomfortable phase between ‘the old’ and ‘the new’, in which so much can be learned.
My working life has always been connected to people and the performing arts. I had the opportunity to learn from children in community centres and in the care for the disabled, from refugees and the elderly. Through my training as an actor and work as a producer at the Tropentheater in Amsterdam, the connection with imagination and wonder remained. By following the celebrant education at the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht, my loves and experiences have come together.
I live with my daughter Rosa in the East side of Amsterdam, where we like to bake and eat lots of pancakes, dance in the living room to music that is sometimes a bit too loud (sorry neighbours!), where we quarrel and make amends, watch movies together or dream away in silence glued to a book. I love surprises, playing games and cooking together, the smell and sparkle of a fire, of ‘jumping’ even when it’s not yet clear where I’m going to land (which can be enormously scary at times), I love hot jasmine tea and crusty fresh bread with salty butter, and so much more.
Relevant experience
o Celebrant education, University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
o Seasonal Celebrations, Humanistisch Verbond, the Netherlands.
o Ritual commemorative walks, 4 mei comité Oosterparkbuurt Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
o Producer, Tropentheater, KIT Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
o Acting, Theatre School De Trap, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
o Bachelor Social Work, Hanzehogeschool, Groningen, the Netherlands.
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