Video sampler

This project is in its development stages, in collaboration with Marcel Kaars.  I am Time; he is Space. Together we create fantasy worlds for the child inside every one. Coming soon to Den Haag Zinder Festival. To view description in Nederlands please go to



Installation/Performance/Adventure for children 6+

and Multidisciplinary Workshops

This first work-in-progress version was Coproduced by Marcel Kaars, Maria de los Angeles Esteves, the National Toneel Jong (NTJong) and the Stella Theater

About the piece

Labyrinth Kronkel
‘Kronkel’ describes the meandering thoughts in the head of Cleopatra Valentino. A girl who escapes from her busy schedule by disappearing inside the labyrinths of her head. The labyrinth is an imaginary world filled with mechanical, like clocks ticking, friends and foes.

Cleopatra is trapped in the maze, slave of the Masters of Time. The Time Piranhas, for example, scream at her “Do this! Do that!Do this! Do that!”, eating up all her free time, and the Time Monsters, are like giant metronomes that make a hell of a noise! Nobody can escape their metallic beat. She wants to play her piano with her friends of the Toy Orchestra, but the Masters of Time don’t let her play what she wants. She has to obey their rhythmic demands. But she misses her songs, her surfing board, the sun… Can you help her get out of the labyrinth with her friends?

Here the sound, short version, with the story in Dutch. The voice is from one of my piano students, Isa van Os

And the theme song:

With the drawings that go in the hanging boxes, with the lyrics of the song:













Some pictures from Kronkel work-in-progress at Zinder 2013, Theater aan het Spui

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Zinder2 018 Zinder3 003 Zinder3 006 Zinder3 008 Zinder3 009 Zinder3 014 Zinder3 015 Zinder3 017 Zinder3 018











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What we propose?

We propose and installation, a performance and workshops for children ages 6+ , or just one of them, you choose:

  1. Installation / Adventure for kids 6 +

    Kronkel or The Labyrinths of Time

    The Labyrinths of Time is an installation for empty and unusual spaces, such as warehouses, empty factories, office buildings, basements, or even opens spaces, and the main materials used for the construction and the “creatures” inside are recycled and discarded materials. We can transform any “death” space into an lively and interactive experience, for children and adults. We can adapt it to the space, we only need a minimum of 120 m2, for a few corridors and rooms where the main installations will be. The sound will guide the visitors through the corridors by “moving” from one speaker to the next. The visitors have to follow it to hear the story. To build the labyrinths will either use an existing construction (for example, a basement with corridors and rooms, and empty office building) or an open space where we will build corridors and spirals with card board boxes, scaffolding material, wooden panels, umbrellas, and other kind of “found objects”.

    The story, narrated either in Spanish, English or Dutch, tells in first person the dilemma of Cleopatra, a 12 year old girl trapped in the labyrinth (actually, the labyrinth came out of her own head due to lack of space…), running from one activity to the next, without time to play with her music, her surfboard and her friends. Her enemies are the Time Piranhas who follow her everywhere screaming “Do this! Do that!”, eating her time in the process, and the Time Monsters, who actually are just like giant metronomes dictating time. She needs to free herself from these monsters in order to do what she wants with her time. But, can she?

    She has also friends in the labyrinth, her toys and creatures that fall also trapped in the meanderings of time. They play all together in the Toy Orchestra, directed by the Conductor, who keeps an strict time. Music is time too, so they need to obey him. But when for a moment she escapes from all of them, the Piranhas, the Monsters and Metronomes, and plays in the piano her songs about surfing and creaks and fun, she forgets about time, and then, just for a bit, time doesn’t exist and she is free to do what she wants.

    The installations, created by Marcel Kaars, are imaginative machines, some mechanical and some with motors, that measure time, make time, transform time. They are along the trajectory, some of them in the Cathedral of Time, some of them in the Room of Things To Do, some of them in the corridors reminding us that Time is passing. At the end, we realize it was all a dream, and after all, we are here to play!

    The labyrinth poses the question, what is time? And makes the audiences aware of time, the use of time, how we measure time… Are we afraid of having free time?Why we never have time? Is that really true? What do we do with time? Kronkel or The Labyrinths of Time is the place where Time lives, and we go inside to find it.

  2. Performance: If you choose to have also the performance, the story will be told life Maria de los Angeles Esteves (in English or Spanish) as she walks through the corridors with the pull-up Turtles and the Penguin. The performance (storytelling, toy piano playing and singing and toy theater) lasts about 20 minutes.
  3. Multidisciplinary Workshops: To make the most out of this project, we also propose workshops in connection with the installation/performance. There can be as long as a day, a week, or longer. The idea is that children can create their own world inspired by the characters and setting of the Labyrinth. It’s like creating an episode for a TV show. They choose the characters, write or invent a story, an adventure for the characters, make the music, all based on individual and collective improvisations. It can also be simpler, just showing the kids how the machines work and how the music was made out of all the toys and objects present in the installation, and how they can make music with them too, using the space as an important element too to tell the story they want.


About Us

MarMar ToyMachine Theater was born of the combination of Marcel Kaars machines and hand made creations using discarded metals, motors, and all kinds of trash, and Maria de los Angeles Esteves stories, music, and performance imaginations. Together we make installations, performances, theater adventures for kids of all ages.

Marcel Kaars has a background in Fashion school (MTS in The Hague) and Image and Sound (Royal Conservatory of The Hague), and Maria de los Angeles Esteves has a background in Music Education (Conservatory of Buenos Aires), Composition (Royal Conservatory of The Hague), and Writing for Performance (University of California Riverside). Maria is time, Marcel is space.

We work with used materials, recycled old machines, mechanisms, “vintage” and out of fashion toys. We avoid the digital, the subtle worlds of computing. We resurrect the obsolete, the discarded, and transform it into art. We manufacture worlds where children can see what goes on behind, what is usually hidden, and understand how it works, and in this way, we awake the fascination for understanding.


Marcel Kaars

Phone: +31-(0)641205083


María de los Ángeles “Cuca” Esteves

Phone +31-(0)644052985



Here a little video preview, drafts, rehearsals