Much has already been said about Almere, that it is ugly, for instance, or too car-oriented. There are also few cities in Europe where the four-lane roads extend as gloriously to the shopfront as in Almere. I'd like to add a note of praise. Coming from the station, walking across an artificial dune of parking garages and fast-food chains, skimming past a Family Entertainment Hall and a Food Court for which the queues almost reach the car park, you find, in the middle of an oversized pond, a theatre that some might characterise as a monstrosity born of architectural psychosis. But in that theatre, with balconies where you can sit by yourself along the precipice, wonderful things happen. At least, on the Sunday 26 January that I was there.
To make theatre in such a big hall, in such a place, you need a lot of talent. Partly for this reason, theatre group Bonte Hond from Almere has made a monster alliance with Maas Theatre and Dance from Rotterdam. Two clubs that are used to attracting young audiences with well-made and groundbreaking theatre in cities where this is not so obvious. The result is Juffenballet and anyone who thought it was a pastiche on a well-known and successful TV format will be disappointed.
Educational ideals
Juffenballet is a Witches' Sabbath written by Moniek Merkx in which the classroom after school turns into a dark fairytale forest. In that forest, a new generation of educationists (misses) is working to expertly eradicate old free education ideals. Fun play and reading are being replaced by efficiency drives and student tracking systems. The old guard, literally portrayed here by the always relatable headmistress Manon Nieuweboer, is harshly disposed of. Until an intern throws a spanner in the works.
Now you will think: what is an eight-year-old doing with theatre about student monitoring systems, and you are right that an eight-year-old would rather not see theatre about that. So the reason it was such a successful afternoon in beautiful Almere is because it is a performance with an awful lot of images and sound. Eclectic, it is called with an expensive word, which we also find in the press release, which is another word for 'pleasantly disturbed mess'.
Fantasy
It has musical elements, fantastically sung choir parts, scary music, spectacular effects and the occasional severed limb. At least, that's what I seemed to remember, but that could also have been my imagination running wild. Because that's what this kind of theatre does: appeals to the imagination. A rather indispensable ingredient for life.
The eight actors can sing and dance, and everything mixes nicely: men in women's roles, Caribbean Carnival and sets of pinstripes. For 75 minutes, they keep the kids in the audience on their toes, and that is quite something. It just saves a remedial teacher or two. I wonder whether this can also be registered in a student monitoring system.
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