I was in Sander Schimmelpenninck's country and didn't just see fascists

Almelo has been on the map for a few years now thanks to theatre. I went to see Van Katoen en Water on Thursday, an open-air spectacle with well-timed downpour and a full-moon rise like you can only experience in the almost gentrified old-industrial heart of Twente's poorest city. Mashed potatoes were served beforehand, with a johmas salad. The wine flowed profusely.

In an old hall, the 750 visitors and 200 volunteers who would be outside later that evening put on a performance that festively celebrated Almelo's history, yet had just that little depth to the story to please even the more demanding audience. Telling history through the delusions of a demented person: good choice, although the acting in the mass scenes in particular was a bit too static. The music sounded good, there was singing like in the best musicals.

Unpolished communication style

The open-air shows in Almelo, of which this edition is already episode three, come from Enschede's Wilmink Theatre. That city theatre has chosen to go through life as an NV and fend for itself. The theatre acts as a producer of many public productions with a strong regional link. The driving force behind it all is the loving couple Simone Kratz (artistic director) and Gerard Cornelisse, a "macher" who can look back on an illustrious past as a "free" theatre producer.

Whereas the latter can still raise an eyebrow with his unpolished communication style, he succeeds exceptionally well in combining his talent as an organiser with enough charisma to mobilise amateur players and other enthusiasts from the Almelo area. Helped, of course, by the fact that he can deploy players like Laus Steenbeeke and André Manuel, and has access to a good network of composers, bandleaders and singers.

Air conditioning

So the fact that Almelo is becoming more self-aware thanks to this kind of cultural uplift, and that the population now knows how to find each other in jointly enjoying a professional amateur spectacle in a future new housing estate near the railway station, is real. Art can do that, and local authorities know that better and better.

My visit to Overijssel included Deventer, where an active arts scene has long ensured a strong cultural image. Unfortunately - as far as I am concerned - gentrification is striking in ways that are hard to reverse. Theatre Bouwkunde, a small rope-tied venue above a now award-winning restaurant, is empty. Its function has switched to a new cultural multi centre where the air conditioning does work and wheelchairs can enter.

IJsselbiennale

The Burgerweeshuis, a famous pop venue in a historic building right in the city centre, is moving to a newly developed site in the harbour area, where it will hopefully survive the expected gentrification of that piece of no man's land for a few more years. After all, it remains to be seen when the new neighbours will start complaining about noise pollution from their urban villas across the street.

Deventer city centre is losing its cultural attractions, which is a shame, especially when you count how much momentum there is among the creators and organisers of cultural events. Take the IJssel Biennial. That event, pulled by curator Mieke Conijn, is another textbook example of how to involve even the least cultural parties, such as the water board, in art: let them bet on their own expertise and make it valuable for others. Seems simple, works like a train and is rare.

Tubbergen

A long drive (the trains were on strike) then takes you to Enschede past the increasingly childish parade of upside-down flags with which some of the Overijssel population identifies. Among other things, it is this coquetry with the flag of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein that Sander Schimmelpenninck, noble refugee from Twente, in the Volkskrant made exclaim That all Twente people were fascists. Something I now want to take with some grains of salt. Tubbergen is not the whole of Twente.

Take Enschede, a city with its own university that produces many nerds. The city with no real historical heart is hosting the Gogbot festival, organised from a former squat opposite the railway station. There it shimmers with steampunk and data-driven ai art, all overlooked from a bar where, after the opening night, the fanta runs out and the basement is as dimly lit, and as much mysterious thumping sounds as an episode of Stranger Things.

Flag wavers

Enschede, meanwhile, has embraced Gogbot. Here, creativity shimmers in a ruin, as it does in every (world) city in places where you cannot trust every socket and the walls beg to be fought with heavy tools. The building that houses Gogbot's organisation also has to come down, unfortunately. Its prominent place in the gentrifying city is too valuable to let artists do their thing there.

With thanks for the reassessment provided and the city's regained self-respect, a new site is now being sought, where property developers are less bothered by it. It is assumed that this too will again be temporary, but in the city centre. They do need it, otherwise the last TU student will also disappear to Hengelo for his beer.

Cities could use some anarchy, now that the flag wavers are taking over the countryside. Art can help wonderfully with that. More people in the press and government need to recognise that.