Swinging parachutes and twitching muscles at Playful Arts Festival: 'If the visitor does nothing, the work does not exist'

Occasionally it chafes at Playful Arts, an intimate festival that brings play and art together. It's all about interaction, doing it yourself, experiencing it. Some visitors have to cross a threshold. But then something does happen.

'Those dancers must be in really good shape,' I hear someone behind me mutter reverently. Across the street, a little boy on the back of his father's bicycle points upwards with an open mouth. There, a figure has seemingly effortlessly wrapped itself around a lamppost. Those who look a little longer see muscles twitching. If there weren't so many people photographing, father and son would probably have just cycled past. A moment later, a bloke stops his car in the middle of the road. Still he does not see the two feet peeping out of a facade a metre above us. Out of the window he shouts: what's going on?

Human sculptures

Playful Arts Festival is coming up, a two-day festival (15-16 June) in beautiful Den Bosch. The dance performance Bodies in Urban Space by choreographer Willi Dorner, first performed in Paris in 2007, leads an ever-lengthening string of people right through the packed shopping streets. Via steep steps along the water's edge, we also reach more hidden corners of the city. Along the way, we come across all kinds of human sculptures: alienating, static objects in unexpected places. Once the mob has passed, local dancers, performers and trail runners carefully emerge from their uncomfortable positions. They run past everyone to quickly assume a new position.

The volunteers have their hands full with the crowds, who pay no attention to daily life, which in the meantime just races on. Tirelessly, I hear one of them providing trivia about the neighbourhood. 'Behind here is a special little church and...' Later I run into him. Henk Keukens and Corrie Smulders are both members of the Stichting Gastvrij Den Bosch, a volunteer group of 160 people who have remained active after the Hieronymus Bosch year in 2016. 'We had a course on 'Boschology', and I find it so incredibly beautiful to tell about it,' Henk apologises. For a moment they loosen up about the Garden of Delights and Bosch's studio that was almost destroyed in 2016 when a renovation in a neighbouring building went haywire.

Blue Angels

The city is lucky to have such advocates. They are called the Blue Angels, because of the blue jackets they wear. Corrie found it fascinating that she was able to get through Bodies yet started looking at her city differently. 'Actually, we were supposed to end at the festival centre. That required too much of the dancers, this performance is enormously heavy,' she says. Still, it remains a clever way to have locations in the middle of the city and the Warehouse, connecting the main venue just outside the crowds. It also allows casual passers-by to find their way to the festival heart.

'It's hard to get people interested in art and games,' Henk thinks. 'It's very new anyway.' Although, at the Hieronymus Bosch year there was also virtual reality, Corrie notes. 'Yes, that's true, whole queues were there.' Corrie: 'It was like standing in the middle of a painting. This new technology suits Hieronymus Bosch very well; he had foresight. So actually Playful Arts fits him and Den Bosch very well.'

Ritual dance

The main venue, the Werkwarenhuis, is where makers present their work, attend the symposium and workshops, and fool around with each other. The city is where a wider audience is reached. So with on Saturday Bodies in Urban Space and on Friday Random Magic. Jozèf van de Oetelaar, one of the visitors at the Werkwarenhuis, says he saw a strange scene on his way home. Later he realised it belonged to this. It was about Random Magic By Jakob la Cour. The Danish artist explores ways to collectively develop new rituals. He and a group of participants set out, temporarily appropriated a piece of public space and participated in an improvised performance. A profound, transformative experience.

Tasty demolition

Van de Oetelaar likes a joke. While his daughter Brit was wearing VR glasses on the Escape VRoom experiences, he grabs the toy fan from the installation next door and blows fresh air at her, laughing. Playing only for children? Think again. So, according to him, this is the perfect Father's Day outing. Little daughter has just had a wonderful time at FabriKAAT, a project by three HKU students. In this scaffold at the entrance to the festival, visitors become a cog in a well-oiled machine. Discarded 'conveniences' (equipment) are transformed into new objects. Not by dismantling them but by smashing them to pieces. 'Nice wrecking,' laughs Brit, who is otherwise in no mood for conversation.

Many makers are present to talk about their work. Don Blaauw explains that schoolchildren in Escape VRoom be able to devise and put together an escaperoom himself. His daughter is his lovely assistant. Chris Toonen, a slightly older bearded Bosschenaar, is busily penciling in a notebook. 'There is so much news to delve into,' he sighs after Blaauw's explanation. He himself has worked as an artist in all sorts of disciplines, but virtual reality is really next level.

Analog

'Stereoscopic photos I do take, somehow analogue suits me well.'" He loves that there is buzz in the Werkwarenhuis. "I have something with this place. The impressive industrial building turns out to be a former compound feed factory. Yesterday, he was also here. 'I had an incredibly nice conversation with South African artist Anthea Moys,' he says enthusiastically. For her work The Portrait Exchange she took the visitors in tow. 'When she stopped somewhere, we had to draw each other's faces, without looking at our paper. I myself did portraits for years, but never like this. Someone made a really beautiful drawing of me, it hangs at home.'

This morning he also had a special experience, at the installation Chair_Jump_Chute By Marloeke van der Vlugt. 'I was given a knitted jumper with four sleeves to wear.' It contained sensors that allowed him to control three parachutes on the metre-high ceiling. Also, music and sound clips by Merce Cunningham and John Cage, on whose ideas Van der Vlugt inspired her work. 'I'm quite shy,' says Toonen. 'Once I realised I was moving all sorts of things, I loved it! I waved my arms and raised them. Something I never normally do, because I'm a lung patient.'

Celery

Parents Erin and Anne and children Jelle and Elise sit at the table of colourful game designer Jenn Sandercock. She designs Edible Games. The family sits with two strangers literally playing with food, which is something other than messing around. Daughter Elise especially loved that they got to make and eat their own food. 'Luckily, we were allowed to put away anything we didn't like,' she says. Celery, says her mother Anne with a dirty face. Erin is enthusiastic about the unexpected encounters: 'It was a very international group, but we made contact immediately.' 'Very relaxed,' agrees Anne. 'It feels like you can just be who you are here.' At other festivals, the audience is sometimes too hip in their eyes. A bit arrogant even. 'Here it just feels right.'

All senses

Nice interaction I also see at Wobble Garden by Robin Baumgarten. He explains to the players what to do and as soon as they start, the ice is broken. They laugh, something happens between them. Curator Iris Peters explains that Playful Arts is looking for a layered interactivity. 'It has to be more than: you press a button and something happens. We are used to using mainly our perception and hearing when it comes to art. 'It is a completely different experience when you engage all your senses and actively participate yourself. Because the audience gives their own interpretation, the work is also different every time.'

She and partner in crime Zuraida Buter want to bring together different fields and disciplines. 'I come from the visual arts and Zuraida from game design. Performance artists know very well how to involve the audience in their work and game designers are constantly testing, refining and improving their work. We think creators can learn from each other.'

Resistance

Professionals have found the festival by now. Lorenzo Pilia is here for the second time. He himself is a curator/organiser of games festivals in Berlin. The games here are a lot more experimental than he is used to. 'This is a really unique festival,' he says. 'It succeeds very well in bringing art, performance and games together. Even though it is very accessible, it is a difficult target group. For many gamers, it's too arty.'

He himself felt some resistance at Chair_Jump_Chute. 'Gaming you usually do alone. Here you are in the middle of a public space, which feels a lot less private. I prefer to be a spectator at these kinds of works. Once I got over that, I really enjoyed it. It is very challenging to explore the content of this work myself.' Creator Marloeke van der Vlugt says many people find it very liberating. 'There is a playful person in everyone.'