{"id":129262,"date":"2026-07-27T16:23:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T14:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/?p=129262"},"modified":"2026-07-27T16:23:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T14:23:38","slug":"dit-is-wat-amsterdam-en-milaan-samenbindt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/2026\/07\/dit-is-wat-amsterdam-en-milaan-samenbindt\/","title":{"rendered":"This is what unites Amsterdam and Milan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>There is a threshold that interests me more than the stage itself. It is the one just before it: the door of a theatre in a neighbourhood where, officially speaking, no theatre should be allowed to exist. A three-kilometre-long avenue separating the centre from the outskirts, surrounded by offices, and a neighbourhood labelled as the worst in the Netherlands.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Have a listen to the English-language podcast I made about it: <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"substack-post-embed\"><p lang=\"nl\">Breaking walls in Milan and Amsterdam by Cultureel Persbureau<\/p><p>Art and Community: PimOff and ZID Theatre<\/p><a data-post-link href=\"https:\/\/nieuwsbrief.cultuurpers.nl\/p\/breaking-walls-in-milan-and-amsterdam\">Read on Substack<\/a><\/div><script async src=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/embedjs\/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And yet, right there, two people decided to open a space and keep it open. This episode starts with a very specific question: what actually happens when an audience is no longer just an audience?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The anthropologist Victor Turner had a name for that moment: <em>communitas<\/em>. By this he meant that temporary, almost clandestine sense of community that arises when a group of people find themselves together on a threshold, in a moment detached from the usual rules of social life, and in which, for a brief moment, they are no longer divided into roles, classes and functions. For Turner, the theatre is one of the places where this suspension can still take place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The scholar Jill Dolan brought this idea even closer to contemporary theatre by discussing the <em>utopian performative<\/em>: those brief moments during a performance when the audience gets the feeling that a different way of being together might be possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I wanted to juxtapose two theatres, each of which, in its own way, seems to create precisely this sort of moment. PimOff, in Milan, on the very southern edge of the city, in a neighbourhood \u2013 Gratosoglio \u2013 which the writer Jonathan Bazzi has almost described as a geographical purgatory between the city centre and Rozzano. And ZID Theatre, in Amsterdam-West, in what for years was labelled the worst neighbourhood in the Netherlands; not because of violence, but because of poverty \u2013 the sort of poverty that denies access to everything, including culture. When I arrived at ZID Theatre, following my two-year stint at PimOff Theatre, I asked myself: to what extent is what I experienced at PimOff specific to Milan, and to what extent is it a struggle that repeats itself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two different cities, two different languages, two different histories. But when I spoke to my former colleague Antonella Miggiano, project manager at PimOff, and to Karolina, director of ZID, I kept finding myself hearing the same words \u2013 almost identical \u2013 coming from different people. But <em>communitas <\/em>does not happen by itself, simply by opening a door. It has to be built up, often through lengthy processes of co-creation. Karolina talks about workshops organised together with refugees, on board a ship housing 1,500 people, to develop the content of a performance together (not for them, but with them). Antonella talks about theatre courses where the fees are calculated based on families\u2019 incomes, because a working-class neighbourhood isn\u2019t engaged through a one-off discounted ticket, but through a relationship that endures over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In both cases, not only is an image created, but the conditions are also laid for the emergence of that temporary community, which <em>communitas<\/em>, even beyond the usual boundaries of a theatre audience. What both theatres seem to have understood is that inclusion does not mean lowering artistic standards. On the contrary, it means breaking through what Karolina calls the \u2018fourth wall\u2019: not just in a technical sense, but as a metaphor for all the invisible walls that exclude certain bodies, certain<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">to keep certain stories and lives out of the theatre. There is a moment in Karolina\u2019s interview where she describes a gathering between local residents and people from the centre of Amsterdam, who came together to ask what the word \u201efreedom\u201c means today, whilst, as she puts it herself, \u2018the world around them continues to burn\u2019. And perhaps it is precisely there, in that shared, fleeting moment, that one catches a glimpse of the utopian performative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These conversations have taught me that not every city and every theatre is the same, but that they do face similar challenges and are trying to find different solutions through art <em>a community<\/em> to create, in places where art shouldn\u2019t really even exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><div class=\"su-note\"  style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">Breaking walls in Milan and Amsterdam by Cultureel Persbureau<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Art and Community: PimOff and ZID Theatre<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/nieuwsbrief.cultuurpers.nl\/p\/breaking-walls-in-milan-and-amsterdam\">Read on Substack<\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Er is een drempel die mij meer interesseert dan het podium zelf. Het is die vlak ervoor: de deur van een theater in een wijk waar, officieel gezien, geen theater zou mogen bestaan. Een drie kilometer lange laan die het centrum van de periferie scheidt, omringd door kantoren, en een wijk die is bestempeld als [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1291,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Alessia de Santis sprak met Jarolina Spaic van ZID Theater en Antonella Miggiano van Pimoff in Milan over hoe je via theater mensen bij de samenleving kunt trekken. 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From 28 May to 7 June 2026, Amsterdam will transform into a vibrant stage full of performances, workshops, and interactive activities.The theme of Necessity as Compass is the common thread running through the festival programme. It is...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;DANS&quot;","block_context":{"text":"DANS","link":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/genre\/podiumkunst\/dans\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":101164,"url":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/2026\/04\/zid-theater-presenteert-de-tiende-editie-van-het-explorez-festival-in-amsterdam\/","url_meta":{"origin":129262,"position":1},"title":"ZID Theatre presents the tenth edition of the Explorez Festival in Amsterdam!","author":"ZID Theater","date":"10 April 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"From 28 May to 7 June 2026, Amsterdam will transform into a vibrant stage full of performances, workshops, and interactive activities. 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ZID Theatre in Amsterdam also traditionally joins in, presenting a rich, groundbreaking programme that fits seamlessly with ZID's mission: to make theatre in all its forms accessible to everyone. 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