Show, show, show. And a show.
July 5th, 2009
As the theatrical season draws to a close during the warm evenings of late June and early July, I’ve seen no less than 4 shows in 4 days. Two of them were outside, performances on location, and two were at the start of the Julidans festival in Amsterdam. Of these 4 only one was good, two were dreadful, and one was ok. Not my ideal closing of this season, as the overall quality of the pieces I’ve seen was rather good this year.
The first two shows were on Wednesday, in Amsterdam. The official opening of the Julidans festival in the Schouwburg was actually very nice: a 90 minute choreography with live music and a language of its own. The forces of attraction, domination and evolution were clearly manifested by the dancers, who started out naked underneath a huge blanket of golden foil. We had reasonably crappy seats on the second balcony, but that does make for a better overview of what’s going on. It also hides about 25% of the stage from your view, though. I won’t say anything about the Schouwburg in Amsterdam as some people do like it.
Preceeding the opening we saw a smaller show in the Melkweg, as a sort of supporting act. What looked promising (open books on stage, in a 10×10 meter square) turned out to be one of the most boring and slow-moving pieces I’ve ever seen. And I didn’t understand it, either. Luckily we had a few drinks after the shows were over, so we still had a good night in Amsterdam.
Then, on Friday, I went to see Valle Tango in Noordwijk, a location piece about Latin America and the Tango. The act was surrounded by a small market full of Argentinean stalls and food, which brought a lovely atmosphere to the location (which was an abandoned hotel in Noordwijk). Sadly the show wasn’t very good; short scenes, with music or dance or song or just play, strung together don’t make for a longer show. They just make for scenes after one another. And some of them were really boring and silly. The common element was probably Latin American music, but without a story all that we saw were scenes from Argentinean life. Still, lots of effort went into this piece, but the execution looked sloppy for lack of time or lack of talent.
The final show I saw was Don Quichot In Holland, on a patch of bare ground in the Maasvlakte, surrounded by huge windmills and petroleum processing plants. This show wasn’t too bad as the story told wasn’t told by words but pictures only. The story was a little abstract, but it’s main theme was the use of energy versus respect for the natural resources we have. On one side of the stage were a windmill and some heathen stone circles with candles and murmuring old ladies; on the other side were an assembly line and a brothel. The keepers of the industrial side died at the end of the show; it was a rather obvious political statement but it did not intrude upon the overall dramatic effect of the stage that was well over 100 meters deep. At one point three nuns walked from the back of it towards the stage, in a meandering path, painfully slow with one step every 3 seconds. During twilight that was actually a scary sight.
The entire area was covered in darkness during the show, and we were treated with a very agreeable sunset over the stage:
The location of the show was a 15 minute walk from the parking, which made for a nice view afterwards, as everybody was leaving the site:
I now have to start packing for Tuesday, and get ready to pick up my brother to visit my parents later today. We’re eating beans and potatoes from their garden!
My name is Marco Hokke. My blog is about the things that interest me and things I might forget if I would not blog them.
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