No longer the odd duck: Ryanne van Dorst on her disarming programmes

Drinking a beer at 8pm, okay, but a nightly interview, no, saw Ryanne van Dorst, presenter of Night Animals and her new programme The Alternative, not so keen. Since corona, she is actually not much of a night person herself, she says, in the Rotterdam café around the corner. Van Dorst orders a Ginger Gold. 'Just one then,' she says with a broad smile. 'Last weekend I turned 36, and I'm still - what is it today, Wednesday? - recovering from it. But this one is very tasty. And brewed by women. Cheers!

In its programme Night Animals Ryanne van Dorst went in search of night owls, night workers and other insomniacs. It is a fascinating and beautiful TV programme, and Van Dorst seems to have a patent on extraordinary encounters. Walking down the street in Dordrecht at the beginning of the night, she suddenly encounters an albino girl, who is just going for a walk with her sister because it is too light during the day.

The magic of the night remains attractive, she finds. 'I come across so many different characters. Many free spirits like to work at night because the quiet fuels their inspiration and creativity. I recognise that; I myself loved the solitude and silence of the night and could always concentrate much better at night. But the lockdown changed that. From one day to the next, I was sitting at home because all gigs with my band - our new record had just been released - were cancelled. Suddenly, it was as quiet and empty outside during the day as it was at night.'

Van Dorst takes a sip of her beer and looks outside. 'Sodeknetter!" she shouts in her unadulterated Rotterdam accent. 'What the fuck!' Admiringly, she looks at a beautiful woman who walks by and enters the café a moment later. Van Dorst smiles. 'Ehh... sorry, I was distracted for a moment. What were we talking about?

Refreshing

Long black hair, black clothes, a black leather jacket - Ryanne van Dorst is a distinct and striking presence. Even more than her looks, it is her disarming honesty, her straightforward shamelessness, that make Van Dorst such a refreshing and special television personality. Music lovers may know her as Elle Bandita or as the frontwoman of her current band Dool. On TV, she participated in Ranking the Stars, Expedition Robinson, The smartest man and The world's most dangerous roads, in which she drove through Rwanda with singer Famke Louise. She is a judge in the new programme Drag Race Holland, in which ten men compete with each other for the title of best drag queen.

But most distinctive are the programmes Ryanne van Dorst made herself. Such as Gender! (2017), on the role of gender in society, in which she revealed that she herself was born a hermaphrodite, i.e. with both male and female sex characteristics. In Holland! (2018), she went in search of Dutch identity. Meanwhile, the third season of Night Animals has been on television, and tonight begins her new programme The Alternative, in which she immerses herself in the existence of people who have chosen a very different kind of life. Thus, she is initiated as a witch and joins UFO spotting.

'Television offers me a platform to serve other worlds to people's homes,' Van Dorst believes. 'Bringing the mystery of the night onto the picture tube, as in Night Animals, turned out to be a good formula, even if I say so myself. From feedback I get, viewers find it interesting and exciting, and didn't know so much still happens at night.'

Your programmes are mostly about identity and deviating from the norm. Why?

'I want to make the extraordinary ordinary and make the ordinary special. Programmes like this quickly become a kind of freak show, but I try to really understand the people I interview. By not only looking at someone's craziness, but also making that craziness palpable. Everyone is a bit crazy, but some are more visible or extreme than others. I firmly believe that everyone has a story worth telling'.

'Beforehand, I never know what I will encounter. One minute I find myself in someone's misery and sorrow, the next I'm lying with some webcamgirl on a bed talking about sadism and masochism, and joking a bit about her sex toys lying around here and there. Sometimes I spend up to two hours chatting with one person.'

'One of the most poignant moments in the new season of Night Animals was meeting an artist in a small tunnel in Haarlem. Completely inebriated, he was walking his dog in the middle of the night. During the corona period, he had lost both his lover and his gallery owner, and he had not been able to say goodbye to them. The man was kapót. Because he had nowhere to express his grief, he poured his heart out to me with double tongue. He had so much grief and pain - his powerlessness and loneliness seemed doubly intense because of the corona isolation. That touched me deeply, but I didn't quite know how to react, because that one-and-a-half-metre distance got in the way so much. I am not at all someone who kisses or touches others directly or whateverbut I could tell from everything that the man just needed a hug at that moment. I found it so sad that he couldn't.'

What makes people dare to expose themselves to you?

'Ehh... I don't know exactly. I don't have that much to hide, maybe that plays a role? And I'm not afraid to get to the point quickly.'

That directness could also deter.

'That does happen sometimes. I dare to ask confrontational questions, but don't go in hard from the start of a conversation, because then someone might be tempted to defend themselves. I try to invite - or challenge - the other person to say something about themselves, and also give a piece of myself. There is no technique behind it or anything, I work from my own interest and curiosity.'

Without judgement

Ryanne van Dorst's strength lies in the fact that she is not surprised by anything, and does not judge. Perhaps this is because she knows better than anyone how it feels when you don't quite belong. Van Dorst grew up in a warm working-class family in Vlaardingen, as the eldest of three girls. She was a busy child, with too much energy. 'Now they would have immediately put the ADHD label on me. I couldn't sit still very well, didn't listen at school and got into fights with everyone.'

It resulted in an eventful childhood, in which she was expelled from school, at 15^e ran away from home to demonstrate against the World Bank in Barcelona, and lived in a squat for a while. She felt different, didn't belong, but it wasn't until she was 20^e, more or less by chance, heard from the GP that she had been born a hermaphrodite - that is, with both female and male sex characteristics - the penny dropped. She finally understood why the 'male' or 'female' pigeonhole had never felt right. 'It took me a long time to give my past a place. Making Gender! has contributed a lot to that.'

What would you have gained from such a programme yourself when you were young?

'As a child, I felt by everything that I was not like the other girls in class, that there was something different about me, but I could never put my finger on what. At the time, if there had been a programme like Gender!, that would have meant a lot to me. I would have found the recognition I did not experience anywhere. I have always felt like an odd duck. Night Animals I would also have liked to have watched it. At night, the average person, the petty folk, are in bed and those who have slightly different characteristics or don't quite fit into society anyway, are awake just then. Programmes like this would have shown me that there are more people like me.'

Aren't you afraid of ending up too much in the weirdo corner?

'That's right after making Gender! did happen for a while, yes; with every item on gender they called me. So I have no appetite for that. Of requests I get, I reject 90 per cent. I only take part in programmes I can learn something from or that seem interesting to me. I find that more important than money. Very rarely do I do something just for the money, such as Ranking the Stars. But that was also because of Paul de Leeuw - if he calls, I'll show up.'

'What matters to me about a programme is that it makes me better or wiser, that I can learn something from it or add a new experience to my life. It should be the same for the viewer. I hope my programmes contribute to people thinking more about who they want to be and how they want to live, so they can make better choices. Because if you only know half the life, half the truth, you can't make a real choice.'

Urgency

Do you feel more accepted as you are now?

'For several years now, yes. That may have to do with my visibility and fame. I notice that the scary part of my appearance has gone. At first glance, people sometimes find my black hair and leather jacket a bit threatening, but I notice that they now think: oh, I can laugh or talk to her. In society, at least in the Randstad, there is more diversity than before. The fact that the outside world seems to accept me more has helped me look at myself differently. I have come to understand and accept myself better. Finally, I find myself okay now. The way I feel now, I can go on like this for a while. That's why I find getting older difficult.'

What's bad about that?

'After 36 years, I finally feel somewhat comfortable in my skin and I don't want this to change. But soon I'll be 45 or 50, and then my body will become shitty. I already feel that now; a hangover hasn't lasted a morning for a few years, but sometimes a few days. I feel restlessness. Pressure. I've always done a thousand things at once, but the feeling that I need to do even more is stronger than ever - I still want to make records and have all sorts of ideas for programmes. Because I am already fucking 36, you see. I never thought beyond 27 and now suddenly I'm 36. Hállo, I'm older than Jesus, older than Kurt Cobain, older than all my heroes. Soon I'll be older than Ozzy Osborn.'

 You feel a rush?

'Yes, or rather more urgency. At first, urgency came from: I am angry. Now it's: I want so much more, before it's no longer possible.'

But you're 36! Maybe you'll live to be 100.

'Please don't. Well, in extremely good health maybe. But at some point you do get a bit tired of life. I don't want my fire to slowly die out. If I no longer feel passionate about what I do, I don't need to do it anymore. For now, I still want to do and make a lot, but I don't know when that passion will end.'

Are you suffering from a midlife crisis?

'What?! What are you saying?' Van Dorst shakes her head. 'You're no good, kid.'

Many people experience a kind of tipping point around age 40.

'We're not talking about 40, I'm a thirty-something! I don't want to hear this!'

Exactly: extremely young still.

Van Dorst laughs. 'Maybe I have Peter Pan syndrome and always want to stay young. Well. You know... where I used to do nothing for a day and lay around a bit gaming or blowing, now I think: no, fuck itVan Dorst, make something, do something with your lazy ass. Doesn't matter whether it's work or standing in the kitchen all day trying out a new recipe...'.

When did this urgency creep in?

'Last year. I was hardly at home; either I was in the studio, or I was on the road with the camera, or rehearsing or on tour with a van and performing here and there. When suddenly all the shows fell through, I thought: everything else I want to do, I have to do now, because later it might get very busy with work again. So I started learning Spanish, to train my memory. I have no idea what to do with it, because I hate Spain and Latin America and I don't know any Spaniards or Mexicans. And I don't like tapas either.'

But then why on earth Spanish?

'I was watching a Spanish film and suddenly thought: I want to learn that language too! Suppose I do go to Colombia or something, and I want to order coke, I can do it in Spanish. Dos gramos de coca, por favor. I used to sometimes play along with MAX Memory Trainer, the shopping game on broadcaster MAX. On days when I had blown half my head away, I was worse than those elderly people on television. Now I thought: no, I no longer watch television in the morning, I'm going to learn a language. So that became Spanish. I do it for twenty minutes every day, during breakfast. Then I immediately switch on my brain. Carpe diem, so to speak, seize the day. Or no, carpe noctem. Look, I'll give you a headline for your article just like that. Carpe noctem, pick the night. Hm, how would you actually say that in Spanish?'

Good to know

The Alternative can be seen from 6 April on BNNVara on NPO3, at 21.20.