From 11 to 21 June, the Holland Festival will present an online programme as close as possible to the core and essence of the original programme, which was cancelled due to the corona crisis. Together with artists from around the world who were due to perform in the 2020 festival, an alternative online programme has been put together. The festival theme, suggested by associate artist Bill T. Jones, has been expanded to include In pursuit of the we - in times of social distancing. The more than 30 contributions can be seen at www.hollandfestival.nl. The full programme will be online on 9 June.
Shared experience
Just when we have to miss it, the importance of the shared experience, by being able to watch and listen to performances and concerts together, becomes all the more clear. This is exactly why Holland Festival does not want June 2020 to pass by silently. The festival organisation asked the creators of the physical festival to contribute to Holland Festival online programme 2.0-2.0. Over ten consecutive days, the festival offers a testing ground of theatre, music, film and debate in various digital formats. A lunch programme and an evening programme with streamings, films, podcasts, video clips, talks and more, will be announced by presenters Diane Matroos and Jesse Mensah. The online programme is free to access, with the aim of welcoming the widest possible audience.
Festival theme
The festival theme In pursuit of the we is currently proving more relevant than ever and has appropriately been extended to In pursuit of the we - in times of social distancing. Dancer, choreographer and director Bill T. Jones, this year's associate artist, retains his prominent role, and online audiences will also have the chance to get to know him better. His performance Deep Blue Sea, whose world premiere in New York was cancelled due to the pandemic, will be echoed in three parts including a crowdsourced video project entitled I know. In addition, the festival is launching an interactive artist portrait in collaboration with Jones, he will participate (remotely) in an online panel discussion on race, gender and (un-)equality, and, in a programme component in collaboration with De Nederlandse Opera, he will give a master class to young music theatre makers.
Online
Current events in the United States and protests in Minneapolis prove the urgency of Marc Bamuthi Joseph's The Just & the Blind in wry fashion. Joseph and composer Daniel Bernard Roumain will discuss institutional racism in a live online version of their performance, perform live music and spoken word and show short films and images from the performance. Sami Yusuf, together with Capella Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Andalusian Orchestra, will release a music video of a brand new - remotely recorded - song exclusively through the Holland Festival. Rayess Bek and Randa Mirza present a video based on Glory&Tears, the latest show by their band Love&Revenge. Flemish-Dutch theatre collective BOG. previews their language composition TAL. with the talk show TAL.kshow. From Garin Nugroho is the film Memories of my body to be seen, the 2020 Indonesian Oscar entry for best foreign film.
Furthermore, a registration of Ben Frost's The Murder of Halit Yozgat will be streamed in its entirety, as will Susanne Kennedy's Drei Schwestern. The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century performs with award-winning recorder player Lucie Horsch. This concert recording, made in an empty hall, includes works by Louis Andriessen, Bach and Mozart.
Offline visits and podcasts
In the turret of the Lloyd hotel in Amsterdam, the sound system Longplayer, which the festival also presented in 2018, can be visited again. Visitors can listen daily, one by one, to a unique excerpt from a composition that began in 1999 and lasts a thousand years, created by British composer Jem Finer. Tickets for this are available via the Holland Festival website. Artworks by Holland Festival-related artists will be on display in thirty bus shelters across the city. The Holland Festival will also take part in This evening's performance has not been cancelled, an initiative by Bergen Nationale Opera where the public can talk by phone, one-to-one, to people involved in cancelled opera performances across Europe: from singers to dramatists, and from festival staff to composers. Stephan Sanders presents five podcasts for weekly magazine De Groene Amsterdammer in which he goes into depth with connoisseurs and critics of the diverse performances.
Thanks
The Holland Festival expressly thanks its funders. The generous generosity and support of a number of indispensable partners, namely the Ministry of OCW, the municipality of Amsterdam, Fonds 21, Ammodo, many private foundations and donors and media partner De Groene Amsterdammer enable us to realise this online programme.
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