With ten different performances and a film brunch in a full closing weekend, the 78th Holland Festival concluded on Sunday 29 June. The weekend gave a good reflection of the entire festival that ranged from the individual opera experience From Dust to a 7-hour theatre marathon The seasons and intimate solos to the latest concert film of former associate artist Ryuichi Sakamoto in Welcome to Asbestos Hall and the overwhelming multimedia performance ROHTKO with pounding score.
Emily Ansenk, director Holland Festival: 'This edition once again showed what the Holland Festival stands for: providing a stage for artists who question and shape their times. We presented work that often combines beauty and experimentation with urgent themes. Makers from all over the world presented penetrating perspectives on art, freedom, loss, resistance and vulnerability. Especially in a world under pressure, it is essential that there is space for art that confronts, comforts and connects.'
Associate artist Trajal Harrell: vulnerability and closeness
At the request of Trajal Harrell, only the last Visit, in a series of five in his temporary artist studio, be applauded. It marked the end of his years of research into the Japanese dance form butoh. And with it, his 18 days of artist studio Welcome to Asbestos Hall. In the spirit of Tatsumi Hijikata's original Asbestos Studio, this project was all about artistic experimentation and encounter with Visits, guest appearances, parties and surprising exchanges such as a 'blind date' with jazz pianist Craig Taborn, whom Harrell afterwards called 'the pinnacle of my career'.
Besides butoh, vulnerability, not to be confused with victimhood, is a recurring element in Harrell's work. This was reflected in the form of the whole project: it showed courage and openness to let audiences share in a creative process and show work that is not yet finished, not yet a performance. Both makers and audience stepped outside their comfort zone by diving into the deep end together.
'I still believe that the greatest strength of art is that it can evoke a form of closeness that cannot be expressed in numbers. She is not measurable.' said associate artist Trajal Harrell in his opening remarks at the beginning of the festival.
This thought formed a clear guideline in this year's festival. In Welcome to AsbestosHall visitors were given the unique opportunity to get close to Trajal Harrell and his dancers, and to meet several other creators such as Carolina Bianchi and former associate artist Gisèle Vienne through intimate workshops and pop-up talks.
There were also intimate performances at Frascati. There, makers such as Ola Maciejewska, DD Dorvillier, Geumhyung Jeong and Marc Vanrunxt presented groundbreaking solos at the intersection of dance and visual art. Under the title #radicalmovement they showed how dance breaks free of conventions and challenges all dance dogmas with contrarian energy.
At the Stedelijk Museum, visitors once again got close to Trajal Harrell during his performances Caen Amour and Sister or He Buried the Body. On a different note, Het Paraorchestra provided proximity. This orchestra, half of which consists of people with physical disabilities, made its debut in the Netherlands. The chairs were taken out in The Concertgebouw for a concert in which the audience was allowed to walk around, sit and lie down between the musicians and thus got a very personal connection with the music and its makers. And also the VR opera From Dust by Michel van der Aa in which avatars sang to you privately, brought a special and personal experience.
Visually stimulating
Besides small and intimate productions, there were also performances in which eyes and ears were fully stimulated. ROHTKO by Łukasz Twarkowski was a multimedia theatre trip that brought together art, philosophy, video projections and solid beats. Equally visually stimulating and large-scale, but in a completely different way was Star Returning by Lemi Ponifasio, in which the rituals and chants of the Chinese Yi minority were shown in an abstracted, poetic way. Bérénice by Romeo Castellucci starring Isabelle Huppert showed the pain of an outcast woman in a stylised setting and the spectacular costumes of fashion designer Iris van Herpen.
Meetings in new musical collaborations
It was not only audiences and creators who came together. This year, there were a number of special encounters of artists from all over the world who had not been together in a performance before. Joel Bons' Atlas Orchestra was on the Concertgebouw stage for the first time with 40 musicians from all over the world, Study for life brought together musicians from Asko|Schönberg and dancers from Finland's Tero Saarinen Company in a special tribute to Kaija Saariaho, One Ocean brought together artists from different island states for the first time to musically narrate the effect of rising sea levels on these islands. In Forbidden Echoes the Concertgebouw Orchestra played works by and together with Iranian musicians and the opera Ring of Our Time by World Opera Lab brought together artists from Iraq, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and northern Europe.
Female strength and resistance
The #(re)story theme line was also a thread this year, with a starring role for women. One of the highlights was Carolina Bianchi's first large-room production. With Trilogia Cadela Força Capitulo II: The Brotherhood she deeply impressed audiences and press by mercilessly looking at herself but certainly unravelling the mechanisms surrounding rape and misogyny. Also, former associate artist (2021) Gisèle Vienne sets her sights on patriarchal structures, sexual violence and how it affects perception. Extra Life showed flawlessly and poignantly how a brother and sister try to understand and relate to each other years after a traumatic experience.
Choreographer Ali Chahrour performed with Told by My Mother an ode to the resilience of mothers in Lebanon and the unimaginable pain they endure when they lose their sons in or to war. And in Otemba - Daring Women women came in resistance. In the scene, the 17th-century Cornelia van Nijenrode, portrayed by Jacob Coeman, demands her financial self-determination back after a disastrous marriage. At the same time, the painting's restorer resists colonial discourse.
An edition full of logistical challenges
This festival had unique logistical challenges for our audience. There were NS strikes, The Hague - which hosted a festival performance for the first time in 35 years - and Amsterdam were poorly accessible due to the NATO summit and the big Amsterdam 750 party on the ring road, and there were multiple disruptions on the railways. It was also tense for the production department to get performers and sets to all locations on time.
Professionals and education programme
The Holland Festival actively encourages exchange between performing arts professionals. As part of the Immerse and Festival Exchange programmes, some 50 international makers and curators from Jordan, Rwanda, Mexico and Japen, among others, visited the festival: there were joint discussions on topical themes and behind-the-scenes meetings.
This year, there was also again an extensive programme aimed at schoolchildren and students from various courses in which they could visit performances, play themselves or practice writing reviews under the guidance of seasoned reviewers.
Deepening and accessibility
The programme was explored in various ways, with a wide range of introductions, after-dinner talks and meetings and pop-up conversations between artists and audience, there were also discussions and a reading club. Several programme elements were accessible free of charge: the traditional Opera in the Park, meetings with makers and a number of pop-up talks and performances within Welcome to Asbestos Hall. For digital accessibility, the stream of the opening performance is Cyber Subin has been available worldwide for three days.
Looking back
On the festival site, under the heading 'Watch & listen back', the two Saturday Matinees, the renewed collaboration of NTR and Holland Festival, can also be found after the festival, in addition to the interview with the associate artist, a listening night at murmur, Craig Taborn's concert at the BIMHUIS and the programmes made by VPRO for TV and YouTube.
