Yesterday, someone from Amsterdam told me that he had long thought Boulevard was a provincial version of an Amsterdam rosé party: lots of conviviality, food, drink and mediocre art. Fortunately, after just one visit, he was convinced that something has grown in Den Bosch over the past 40 years that cannot be compared to other Dutch festivals. There is a dedicated audience of discerning art lovers, who come to see leading art, especially from the southern Netherlands. And okay, there is also good rosé and the coffee boat serves oat milk latte.
Actually, it is even better, because Den Bosch has a name to uphold as a burgundian city, so culinarily it all goes just a bit further than in the Randstad. The fries are made from real chips, the mayonnaise is Belgian, and the stall also serves cauliflower snacks.
Forty
And now that festival has turned 40. Once upon a time, in 1984, it was born as 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' and took place on De Parade, then a car park at the foot of St John's Basilica in the provincial capital of Brabant. Now that is a beautiful car-free city square with young plane trees, which do not obstruct the view of that glorious church.
We are a few boards further on and on Thursday 1 August, the newest board kicked off in the new version of the Theater aan de Parade, which is bigger, better and more spacious than before. It also has a better sound system, about which more later. Dana Kibbelaar, in charge for three years, said goodbye on this occasion to co-director Tessa Smeulers, who has let it be known that after 15 years, first as a programmer, and for three years as a board member, she wants to do something else with her life.
Lane
So many tears and grateful words, and a big round of applause from and for the dozens of contributors who make the festival what it is: a festival of culture that peripheral city dwellers unfairly ignore.
The Parade, the square where the festival has returned after several years of absence, has turned into a nice chaotic village. The designers, who in previous editions often stuck to an open space framed by terraces and theatres, have dared to sacrifice that space in favour of more nooks and crannies. In this way, they have made a cultural holiday to Avignon a little more superfluous again.
In those theatre alleys, the offer is variable, as it should be. In the tents, for instance, it's always a bit of a squeeze with the sound. Even now that they are further apart. So if it is not coming from the neighbours, their own installation provides the necessary decibels. Many young makers work by default with contact microphones and solid beats from usb sticks they brought along, and sometimes that is quite a lot for the small tents they are in.
Headphones
This can make you miss intimacy, as was the case with Circus of Likeminds, where the actor on duty, despite a transmitter microphone, was also loudly echoing himself. Then it all gets pretty close, shall we say.
A lot more original than the approach of Mount Lucy, a new band halfway between a grunge band and stand-up. Standing outside the tent, all you hear is a drum kit; inside, it's a rock-hard grunge concert in honour of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. The secret: headphones whose volume you can control.
Live performed music is always better anyway, and Mount Lucy manages to convince. The headphones are a golden invention to preserve intimacy. More people should do that, though I don't know if it's at Karrasekare by Igor x Moreno had helped. This performance, the official opening of the festival, then challenged the audience with a sound profile that explored the extremes of the new Theater aan de Parade's surround installation.
Misery
The speakers held up, the eyes had less fun due to strobe flashes that lasted far too long, and the nerves suffered from rather manufactured-looking prolonged howls from the mostly naked performers. There was also the unclear hassle of a ground sheet that had to be rolled up, hung and sprayed. It was supposed to be about the catharsis that was supposed to emanate from the Mediterranean carnival, but somehow it failed to materialise and we were saddled with the misery that is the world outside anyway.
Here, by the way, live performed music would have helped, so that's the next challenge in the subsidy system: make sure theatre people can afford a live band, then there will be a few less unemployed musicians in the country.
Afterwards, the cool summer evening and an excellent rosé at the wine bar on the square beckoned. The world was still there.
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