Henk van der Steen
Henk van der Steen is co-founder of Troje Training en Theater, based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Troje stimulates change: we support the design, implementation and embedding of change, using 'performative interventions'.
Henk studied Economics & Human Resource Management; a multidisciplinary study, since he found so many things so interesting and enjoyable to pursue. After graduating university he took the logical first career step and got a job as HR-consultant, followed by a ‘logical step’ towards HR-Manager, where he learned the difference between advising others how to lead and having to do it yourself!
It was as a student that he first trod the boards - and discovered a passion for improvisation theatre which has never dimmed. Since 1993 he has been playing all sorts of different improvised shows in the Netherlands and abroad, with one of the international highlights being the introduction of theatresports in Lithuania. He is a member and teacher of the Amsterdam Improv Company and of an international improv-ensemble, consisting of ten people from eight different countries.
He continued to combine improvisation theatre with his work, experiencing the usefulness of this theatre discipline at first hand. Setting up Troje Training and Theatre, back in 1998, gave Henk a way of combining everything he had done and learned within HRM and theatre.
Troje does all sort of things in the broad spectrum of training and theatre, always combining elements from both worlds in various ways. Awareness, attitude and behaviour are keywords in all our work. Of course we do training, with the use of the rules and tools of the improv-player. And we also deliver al sorts of programmes, conferences, workshops, etc in different formats and on very various topics.
His mean focus and interest within improvisation theatre is the ‘contact-factor’: the contact between the improv-players, between the audience and the players and the contact from the improviser with him-/herself. For Henk, the most rewarding moments of an Improv performance are when the ‘Improv-presents’ appear; when the players are totally in the moment and exactly happens what should happen, in a way that afterwards people say: “That was pure magic!”.
Website: www.troje.nl
