From 3 to 27 June 2021, the 74th edition of the Holland Festival will take place in and around Amsterdam. This year's associate artists are American-Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto and French-Austrian theatre maker Gisèle Vienne - notable artists with broad interests, as evidenced by their collaborations with Hollywood directors, techno artists, visual artists and rock bands. The festival will feature their own work, work by makers with whom they feel related and performances thematically connected to those of the associate artists.
Theme: What makes man?
The associate artists' work focuses on topics such as (the experience of) time and the way humans are affected by the world and their environment - and how humans themselves affect that world. The festival theme of Holland Festival 2021 is therefore: What makes man? The festival artists approach the theme from various angles. What is man's influence on nature? How are social, human constructions and systems such as time and identity created?
For instance, in Contes Immoraux - Partie 1 - Maison Mère, performance artist Phia Ménard takes a powerful, poetic look at man's constructions by single-handedly building a Greek temple out of cardboard. And Sakamoto, together with media artist Daito Manabe, makes electromagnetic waves visible and audible for Sensing Streams, exposing an invisible but indispensable infrastructure.
Non-linear time
From Sakamoto, in collaboration with multidisciplinary artist Shiro Takatani, the new, unconventional opera TIME can be seen. In it, he looks for ways to let go of our linear conception of time and rhythm. TIME is inspired by the traditional Japanese theatre form Mugen Noh and its magical elements. Sakamoto asks questions about the phenomenon of time and the relationship between humans and nature. Sakamoto: "We live and we die. And then our bodies become part of the next life. That is saṃsāra, the life cycle of beings on this planet. In dreams, that time is not linear, everything coincides.'
Van Vienne's shows include her latest performance L'Étang, based on Swiss writer Robert Walser's story of the same name and performed by Adèle Haenel (known for the film Portrait de la jeune fille en Feu) and Ruth Vega Fernandez (Kiss Me). L'Étang is a layered and emotional family drama. The work stretches time by creating an experience that stands between the real and the fantasised. In this way, Vienne explores complicated family relationships. In the process, she does not shy away from the dark caverns of man.
The desire to be another
From Vienne, the festival also shows Kindertotenlieder. A boy arrives at his own funeral and his ghost enters into a dialogue with another adolescent. What happened? How did he die? Vienne wants her work to expose how identity is created as a result of social pressures and conventions. With Kindertotenlieder, she created a dream reality full of references to eerily beautiful fairy tales and traditions, such as the pagan cult of the Perchten in Austria. She analyses and criticises the straitjacket a person, especially as a teenager, ends up in. Marleen Scholten's monologue La codista is based on the true story of Giovanni Cafaro, a man who loses his job and then queues up for others for a fee. The play is about the fear many have of losing time and the desire to be someone else sometimes.
Nature and listening
Sakamoto makes extensive use of sounds from nature in his work and places great value on attentive listening. Artists Massimo Furlan and Claire de Ribaupierre show that nature offers ample opportunity to open up the senses. With Dans la Forêt, they take the audience into the forest to become completely immersed in nature. The distance between man and nature, which has already done much harm to the world, is thus temporarily removed.
The installation Fremdkörper by performance duo Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot attempts to bridge the distance between body and mind. Through a sleep ritual, in which the audience is sent on an exploration into the subconscious, they aim to restore man's connection with the earth and with himself.
The complex interplay between humans and nature emerges in several performances. In the multidisciplinary performance The Planet - A Lament by Indonesian director Garin Nugroho, we see how a single survivor in the aftermath of a tsunami is on a mission to save life on earth. Indonesian composer Nursalim Yadi Anugerah and Dutch librettist and director Miranda Lakerveld's opera Ine Aya' deals with deforestation in Kalimantan, caused in part by the construction of palm oil plantations. They draw on the Kayan epic Takna' Lawe' and Richard Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen - two classic works, one from Eastern and one from Western culture, which feature a goddess of the earth.
Context and accessibility
An extensive context programme online including podcast introductions in collaboration with De Groene Amsterdammer will deepen the main programme by taking a closer look at key festival topics and themes. This year's collaborations include De Balie and Melkweg. Eye Filmmuseum, inspired by the many film scores by Sakamoto, will present a programme dedicated to film music. The festival is present in new locations in and outside Amsterdam this year, such as with the trail of short acts in Short Circuit at De School, Fremdkörper at Het HEM in Zaandam and Dans la Forêt in the Smithuyserbos near Hilversum.
Holland Festival in corona time
As an artist-driven festival, the Holland Festival deliberately chose to organise a live festival in 2021 in the belief that it is important that audiences and performers can share a physical experience. The programming is designed to allow all productions to take place even with small audience numbers. This involves using protocols from the theatres and concert halls with which the festival collaborates. The entire programme and ticket sales are subject to the conditions associated with the corona measures, as they will apply during the festival.
In total, the Holland Festival presents 39 productions (including context programme) over 25 days, including 10 world premieres and 12 Dutch premieres.
The festival will run from 3 to 27 June 2021. Tickets are on sale from mid-May via hollandfestival.co.uk.
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