Tall Tales Company creates contemporary circus performances in which object manipulation and acrobatics are used to tell stories. From a fascination for human nature the company creates layered and accesible shows; magical, risky and with a touch of Dutch humor.

Tall Tales was founded in 2012 by Harm van der Laan and Maartje Bonarius. Their combined artistic practice started during their studies at Codarts Rotterdam where they specialised in aerials (Maartje), object manipulation (Harm) and hand to hand (together). After a short  post-gradusate study in Toulouse, the couple decided to move back to Rotterdam, to introduce all of the Netherlands to circus as an artform.

At first, the couple made small performances for festivals, often in collaboration with physical theatre director Luc van Esch, like the romantic ‘living room drama’  Weg (2012), the tragic-comical monologue Solo (2014) about the (im)possibilities of romantic love and Turbulentie (2013) a show for a young audience about a pilot and stewardess who want to fly without an airplane. In 2017 Bonarius and Van der Laan made the step to indoor venues with Langs, a full-length performance about loneliness. In One of these days (2018), the duo chose for a movement-based approach. Together with choreographer Thomas Falk they made an effervescent festivalchoreography for four performers.

In 2019 Bonarius and Van der Laan were selected for the prestigious ‘new maker program’ of the Dutch Foundation for Performing Arts. In this program they created Square Two a sites specific piece in which the audience follows a trail in which juggling patterns and visual art merge to become one, in cooperation with abstract geometric sculptor Don Satijn. They also directed a circus adaptation of the famous novel A Clockwork Orange. From 2021 onwards Tall Tales Company is structurally supported by the Dutch Foundation for Performing Arts as well as the City of Rotterdam.