Intersections, encounters and coming home in Holland Festival 2024

The 77^e edition of the Holland Festival presents innovative international performing arts with more than 40 productions and over 380 artists at 21 different venues in Amsterdam.

The opening takes place on Thursday 6 June with a special programme at the Gashouder, where Stravinsky's iconic Sacre du printemps is accompanied by a film by Evangelia Kranioti, and Caroline Shaw's Music in Common Time by a new film by associate artist Christiane Jatahy. The festival closes on 29 June with the final hours of the 24-hour show The Second Woman. In it, a well-known actress plays the same break-up scene for 24 hours with an ever-changing opponent, unknown to her, in the same setting, in a hallucinatory theatrical and cinematic experience.

In the more than three intervening weeks, there is a multitude of performances, disciplines and artists. Georg Friedrich Haas brings the large-scale 11,000 Saiten, a work for ensemble and 50 pianos. Tiago Rodrigues comes with the performance Dans la mesure de l'impossible, based on interviews with humanitarian aid workers. Legendary Brazilian composer and singer Arthur Verocai will perform in the Netherlands again in a long time, Forced Entertainment celebrates its 40th anniversary as well as making its festival debut with Signal to Noise, a performance that calls for vigilance without losing sight of the absurdity of existence. Trajel Harrell returns to the festival with his large-scale choreography The Romeo, with a kaleidoscope of costumes and music and dance styles.

Particular attention has been paid to weekend programming, where you can immerse yourself in performances, lectures, workshops and special parties from morning to night.

In addition to usual festival venues such as the Muziekgebouw and ITA, this year's event includes events at Mezrab, Pathé Tuschinski, The Jewel and New Dakota.

Associate artist: Christiane Jatahy

This year, the festival is collaborating with associate artist Christiane Jatahy, an important theatre and film maker who often takes Brazilian society in all its complexity as her subject. She strives for connection, dialogue and social change through her work. Her artistic signature is a cinematic way of working on stage, using cameras to create both distance and proximity. Jatahy plays with the role of spectator, with fact and fiction, changing our perspective.

In addition to her contribution to the festival opening, Jatahy will show her latest work Hamlet, A Holland Festival co-production, In which the young Hamlet has become a mature woman. As plagued by past mistakes as Hamlet was and as eager to change the future as he is. And as in all her work, the underlying question is: where is the possibility of social change?

 Also to her performance Depois do silêncio is based on a literary source: the novel Torto Arado (Crooked plough) by Itamar Vieira Junior. Three actresses give voice to this novel about the abolition of slavery in Brazil. The other sources are the documentary Cabra marcado para morrer by Eduardo Coutinho, in addition to her own field research. Depois do silêncio is documentary and fiction, a play and film as an intimate account of an unresolved past that keeps repeating itself in the horrors of Bolsonaro's Brazil and beyond.

Jatahy sums up the essence of her work in the word 'Cruzando', 'Crossings' in English: the crossing of roads, the crossroads where the meeting of people, conceptions and ideas occurs. Especially for the Holland Festival, she is developing a project of the same name in which residents of Amsterdam and artists discuss the concept of Home. What is home, where do I feel at home, how is home intertwined with my identity?

Brazilian programme

In consultation with Christiane Jatahy, the festival invites Brazilian artists who give a glimpse of what is happening now in Brazil and the rest of the world, in the arts but also beyond.

At Macacos Clayton Nacimento brings to the stage the story of contemporary Brazil, from the history of slavery to today, where executions of black people by the police go unpunished. In his multi-award-winning monologue Macacos he leads the audience through this history of prejudice, exclusion and violence.

One of Brazil's most important and daring dance companies, Grupo Cena 11, comes with the energetic performance Eu não sou só eu em mim (I am not just me in me) also comes to the Netherlands for the first time. Dance, language and artificial intelligence come together in this work about identity and uniqueness.

Limite by Mário Peixote is a 1931 Brazilian silent film that has inspired generations of filmmakers. Metá Metá, the trio combining jazz, rock, samba and African influences, along with members of The Ex, perform a live score to this film classic.

Night programming

For three nights you can dance at the festival. On 7 June, Lofi hosts a night of Brazilian music, from sound art to baile funk, the music born in the favelas. A week later, on 14 June, after The Faggots and their friends between revolutons, a queer rewriting of world history, a unapologetic night out with DJs and special performances at the Muziekgebouw.

Frasc at night takes place on the third weekend. Frascati's theatre hall turns into a dance floor, where surprising pop-up performances lead the audience into the night.

Durational performances

In addition to The Second Woman there are three other durational performances in the festival. In Sisyphe artist Victor Pilon shovels away an awe-inspiring pile of sand for 12 days in an attempt to capture the absurdity of life. Dries Verhoevens Everything must go is a living installation about shoplifting as resistance to the late-capitalist system. And finally, there are special evening openings at Marina Abramović's re-performance The house with the ocean view at the Stedelijk Museum. In all four performances, the duration requires a commitment from the audience

Carmen

In collaboration with presenting partner Hartwig Art Foundation, the Holland Festival brings to Carré a special adaptation of Bizet's Carmen by Wu Tsang and Moves by Motion. Together with her team, Tsang is transforming these Carmen in a hybrid of opera, theatre, video and choreography, as well as with horror elements. The music (both Bizet's and new elements by composer Andrew Yee) is performed by an orchestra. Singers and actors meet in the arena of the Royal Theatre Carré, which - following the original setting of Carmen - serves for once as a bullfighting arena.

Opera and ballet

Traditionally, the Holland Festival also collaborates with De Nationale Opera and Het Nationale Ballet. With Stravinsky Fairy Tales two ballets by Alexei Ratmansky The Netherlands Opera performs Beethoven's liberation opera Fidelio out in a direction by Ukrainian Andriy Zholdak.

Discounts

Our aim is to make the festival accessible to people with different budgets. Therefore, we offer various discounts. For school pupils, students, CJP holders and Friends of Holland Festival there is a fixed discount rate for most performances. Up to 39, there are substantial discounts with the HF Young Favourites. There is a last-minute newsletter (hollandfestival.nl/newsletter) and rush tickets announced via socials.

 In addition, a number of performances are free to attend: Opera in the Park; Crossings; An unapologetic Night Out, Frasc at Night and the Artist-to-Artist: Christiane Jatahy, Janaina Leite, Carolina Bianchi.

In total, Holland Festival presents over 40 works by 46 creators, including 8 world premieres, as well as 23 Dutch premieres and 8 co-productions.