In the series In Perspective, Erik Akkermans looks back and ahead at developments in cultural policy and practice. Today: what is really needed for cultural dissemination?
In the Glass City
In one of the large rooms of the auction complex In Naaldwijk, the Westlands Mannenkoor rehearsed under the direction of conductor Piet Struijk. The choir, consisting of more than a hundred market gardeners, drivers, middlemen and other men from the Westland region, was nationally famous. Especially thanks to the soundtrack sung by this choir to the popular television series "De Glazen Stad" (broadcast by broadcaster TROS), the Westlanders' records sold well in the 1980s.
On this particular evening, the choir was rehearsing for another performance. The choir had already passed the vocal exercises when I sat down in the hall, as the only listener.
Even before the break, Piet Struijk tapped out. "Men," he said in a voice that should be called 'sonorous' in such a case, "we have a visitor tonight. Here is Mr Akkermans. He is director of the South Holland Cultural Council and he has something to tell us."
I had great news to report. The jury for the Cultural Prize of South Holland had decided to award that year's prize to the Westlands Male Choir for their excellent promotion of choral music. "Men," shouted the conductor, "we are going to thank Mr Akkermans." I took my seat in the hall again, alone surrounded by the hundreds of empty chairs. The choir sang from the stage, polyphonically, in full voice and extraordinarily convincingly, Sibelius' 'Finlandia'. I have never been sung to so impressively before or since, there in the great auction hall, almost shivering under the vocal torrential shower.
Was this treachery?
Still, I sat there with double feelings. At the Cultural Council, we supported cultural life In the province in a broad sense. We advised the municipalities. We helped the domes of choirs, corps, amateur theatre and music ensembles. We maintained a documentation system of visual artists and developed music education. We matched the demands of the field, but we were also keen to lead the way. We ran harder for current development and avant-garde than for what was already popular anyway. We therefore found the outcome of the jury's deliberations mediocre. It was the time when the popular broadcaster TROS evoked the word 'entrenchment' among the cultural elite. Popularity was everything there. Innovating and discovering was out of the question there. This male choir, which slowly surpassed the renowned 'Maastrichter Staar' in fame, moved under the wings of TROS. Should we now encourage it with the provincial culture award? Some of us thought so. But the jury chose autonomously. And besides, we were doing our work for Everyone in the Province, weren't we?
The men and Greetje
I hoped to solve the dilemma. At the presentation of the Boy Edgar Prize to saxophonist Allan Laurillard, I suddenly knew. This award-winner's performance with improvising tuba player Larry Fishkind and singer/voice artist Greetje Bijma was amazing. Could I connect these two top experiences: this provocative jazz and the massive, well-conducted male vocals?
On the day of the awards ceremony in a this time fully filled auction hall in Naaldwijk, the Westlands Mannenkoor showed its best. But also standing there were Laurillard, Fishkind and Bijma. I had given the trio records of the choir and asked them to improvise on that music. Unwilling listeners could have taken it as mocking their beloved choir. Fans of jazz and improvised music, on the other hand, were in for a treat. I was especially pleased with the choir members who sincerely said they had not found it beautiful, but a very interesting experience.
It was a memorable afternoon, but I did always have doubts. Had I been right to play the cultural missionary?
Are we doing the right thing; are we doing it right?
No classical ballet without splits. No cultural diffusion without doubts. Are we really doing the right thing here, are we doing the right thing, and are we doing it right? In a time when genres were much more, and very firmly fenced off from each other, when everyone immediately knew what you meant by "Art with a K" or "art with a k" and the TROS or André van Duin were beacons for cultural polarisation, I still felt strongly that you should be able to like mashed kale as well as sea bass on a bed of asparagus. That we needed to tear down fences, mix styles, combine much more. But how do you do that without forcing it and bypassing your target audience?
I doubt whether over the years, cultural policy notes have given sufficient explicit attention to the methodology and strategy of cultural dissemination and participation. I don't mean fancy and pious policy views, but reflection on concrete handles, barriers and techniques. This is usually missing.
It also remains to be seen whether mixing genres, styles and cultures automatically leads to widening audiences. After seeing the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble's fantastic New Year's concerts, will visitors and viewers go in large numbers to other venues than they were used to to hear Syrian, Afghan or West African music from now on? Did visitors to the exhibition Art of Moroccan Modernism (2022) at the Cobra Museum then actively seek out similar exhibitions elsewhere (if at all)? Did Moroccan visitors visit museums more often afterwards?
Podium Klassiek, widely appreciated music programme on NPO 2, is receiving deserved praise, including in the Cultural Press. Does the programme enthuse viewers enough to actually get them out of the house? In the broadcast in which the programme celebrated its tenth anniversary, as Wijbrand Schaap recalls in the Culture Press, beautiful programmes preceding Podium Klassiek passed by. 'Young People on their way to the concert stage', Anton Kersjes' 'Kunstmaandorkest', 'Han Reiziger in Muziek'. Speaking and informative. There are also visual arts (Pierre Jansen!) and literature (Groenteman, Adriaan van Dis, Wim Brands, Wilfred de Jong). examples.
The apples and pears
But if you look at the fruit bowl, you will see that these are apples and pears and some other fruits too. Attracting audiences to other genres (classical lovers to jazz; pop lovers to world music; followers of old masters to Jennifer Tee) is different again from reaching new audiences for which art form then too. And interculturalism yet another drawer in the culture dissemination cupboard. The Venice Biennale has created a lot of space for non-Western art in recent years, and I'm sure that will also gradually take effect in our museums and galleries. But generating new audiences?
It helps that the dual world of Art with a big K and that of culture with a small c In the past few decades, more or less disappeared. We know that more people have become omnivorous. They can combine life song (from Johnnie Jordaan via André Hazes, to Sophie Straat) with Bruckner's Ninth. The once fresh-faced André van Duin is now nationally adored across the board. The now disgraced Ali B was not only a cuddly Moroccan, but also a cuddly rapper. Thus, there has been movement in cultural supply and consumption.
I remember going to an Angelo Branduardi concert at Carré in the late 1970s. We looked around and didn't see anyone we knew. The audience did not consist of 'our kind of people' at all. (More AVROTROS than VPRO so to speak.) We considered that evening a special, positive experience. Apparently, we had accidentally slipped out of our own bubble into other people's.
There are still bubbles, but there are fewer of them and they are more porous.
The Museum Nights, the youth concerts in the Concertgebouw, the ever-widening programming there, the agenda of Podium Mozaïek, the collaboration of Ted Brandsen, artistic director of the National Ballet with Marco Gerris and his ISH Dance Collective, the space for operetta fan Steef de Jong at the Netherlands Opera. Examples enough of crossovers, new accessibility, interdisciplinary collaboration, cross-cultural offerings. But it is not enough to mobilise a broad Dutch audience to the arts as a matter of course.
The Chamber President read out
The soil is also rather meagre. In politics, cultural policy is too dependent on the one member of government or administrator who goes full steam ahead. Most politicians do not radiate cultural interest. Painful that we now have a parliamentary speaker who actually reads a Dutch poem every day, but has previously made himself known as someone who kicks (subsidised) artists to the ground.
A cabinet that had wanted to increase VAT on culture and is cutting back on the NPO to such an extent that space for cultural programming is even more difficult to find. Impending cuts to the municipal fund. And in January 2025, what we really already knew was brought as big news: music schools and centres for the arts are disappearing; conservatoires can now discover too little quality among the Dutch youngsters auditioning.
Policy work is craftsmanship
And then there is the handiwork of policy-making. Quite difficult to make the fine phrases about cultural diffusion, diversity, accessibility et cetera land in the most concrete possible impulses or criteria. To be sure: no one has to be forcibly forced into the museum, theatre or concert hall against their will.
But there is too large a potential audience that is not moving. Maybe out of laziness and that's allowed; we leave those people at home. Sometimes out of practical considerations: distance and public transport. Something can be invented for that. Sometimes out of fear of going out in the evening. Or because people have to work in the evening.
For the latter two categories, we at the South Holland Cultural Council at the time tried to develop an alternative with the experiment 'Theatre Overdag'. But it mainly fails because it feels the offer and the stage as 'not for our kind of people'. This requires alternative venues, but also very personal and, above all, catchy marketing. At 'Theatre By Day', promotion teams were on the market to sell performances enthusiastically and engage in conversation.
Stop sanding
We need to be more concrete in the next arts plan period. No more sentences about 'art that may abrade.' The people who went to 'art that may scour go' are the people who enjoy bumping into sanders anyway. Not too many sentences about 'art that surprises'. 'Art that ve'rrast' often only hits home with people who like surprises. Few sentences containing the word 'verbindi'ng' but above all: show, don't tell.
Perhaps, I think now, we should have had the Westlands Male Choir perform at the BIM House at the time. That would only have been able to rub off.
