Collected Press

“Ivana Müller’s While We Were Holding It Together is a perfect performance, that within an extremely clear and simple design is able to display a remarkable complexity. A tableau vivant, as intelligent as it is touching, that manages to fascinate the audience by the subtlety of the construction as well as the quality of the performers. The jury considers While We Were Holding It Together an important production and a unique and stimulating performance.”
Jury report of Festival Impulse

“The piece is ingeniously constructed and despite the serious approach the performance bears an exceptional and comical lightness.”
Jury VSCD Mime Prize 2007

“It is an enchanting performance. (…) The texts are witty and ingenious.”
Marijn van der Jagt, Vrij Nederland

“Müller and her performers succeed well in keeping the suspense: the humour is dry, and the timing of words and changes in scenes is precise and musical.”
Mirjam van der Linden, de Volkskrant

“[A]n important attraction of the performance lies not only in the conceptually brilliant demonstration of the power of theatrical folly but also in the métier with which this is achieved. An improbable proposition - five immobile actors almost haphazardly give vent to imagined images - is transformed into a performance that transfixes from start to finish and even more, directs the audience and thus involves it in the spectacle.”
Pieter T’Jonck, Radio Klara, Program Ramblas

“But Müller goes far further still. She ultimate stirs the very core of art in this antithesis of the Victorian tableau vivant and the implied imaginary awakening from the collective intoxication of the Dionysian orgies. The content may be densely theoretical, but Müller manages nonetheless to provide a light, humorous touch. It is all done very cleverly, but as an audience member one must also be an enthusiastic fellow researcher in order to let it work. This makes the spectator’s role almost as arduous as that of the motionless performers. But even so it is extraordinary that, travelling so lightly, it is possible to navigate the universe of human significance.”
Hans van Dam, Rotterdams Dagblad

“I am deeply impressed at how a sense of motion is retained even admidst the stillness: choreographically moving eyes, trembling hands, sound cues, light cues, rhythme of speech, even blackouts and tech wizardly enabling bodies and voices to get switched. Oh, and did I forgo to mention? - it’s also funny as hell.”
Ng Yi- Sheng, The Flying Inkpot, Singapore

“In ‘While We Were Holding It Together’, a tribute to the power of the imagination, she subjects notions such as body, mind and the relationship between the two to a closer inspection. This results in a poetic, humoristic and philosophical production that draws the audience into Müller’s personal crystal clear logic. (…) In spite of the strong theoretical slant, Müller manages to prevent ‘While We Were Holding It Together’ from collapsing under too many serious thoughts. Her appealingly blunt questions create fresh and entertaining theatre. Müller takes the audience by the hand on a fantastical philosophical trip, where dizzying ideas pass through emotional poignancy to culminate in a hearty laugh.”
Fleur Bokhoven, TheaterCentraal