Jan Versweyveld


Jan Versweyveld is a Belgian theatre set designer, scenographer and lighting designer.

Biography

Jan Versweyveld studied at the LUCA School of Arts in Brussels and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Together with his husband Ivo van Hove, who he met in 1980, he created two theatre groups in the early 1980s: "Akt/Vertikaal" and "Toneelproducties De Tijd". Versweyveld then started working as scenographer for the Zuidelijk Toneel in Eindhoven in 1990, with Ivo van Hove as the director of the company.
In 2001 he became the head of scenography and the main designer for Toneelgroep Amsterdam. Versweyveld has been a scenographer for dance company Rosas and for opera houses including La Monnaie, Palais Garnier, the Vlaamse Opera and the Dutch National Opera, and a guest lecturer at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie.
Apart from his work for the Zuidelijk Toneel and the Toneelgroep Amsterdam, he has also worked for many international theatres, including the New York Theatre Workshop, Teatro Real in Spain, the Companhia Nacional do Bailado in Portugal, the Deutsches Schauspielhaus, the Munich Kammerspiele and the Schaubühne, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe and Comédie-Française in France, the Grand Theatre, Warsaw in Poland, and the Royal National Theatre, Wyndham's Theatre and the Young Vic in the UK.
Versweyveld was also the set and lighting designer for Lazarus, the musical by David Bowie and Ivo van Hove, and for Network, the play by Lee Hall. Since 2005, he also works as a photographer.
In 2019 he was the scenographer for , the yearly Met Gala Exhibition at the Anna Wintour Costume Center.

Awards