Associate artist ANOHNI
Part of the programme was co-created with associate artist ANOHNI. Her oeuvre encompasses music, performance, visual arts and activism. With her own pieces and curatorial contribution as an associate artist, she draws attention to subjects like vulnerability, the destruction of nature and the urgent need for formulating a new vision for society. She embraces a diversity of identities and orientations and stands up for all who are excluded, marginalised and exploited in Western capitalist societies. The central question in her work is: ‘What is really happening?’
ANOHNI will be present with three projects. The Disintegration Loops (for Euterpestraat) is a free-of-charge, site-specific performance with meditative music by American composer William Basinski performed by the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest. This project was born from a personal experience of ANOHNI, who lived here briefly as a child. ANOHNI will also present her own visual art in the context of photos taken by her principal muse, Dr. Julia Yasuda. The exhibition SHE WHO SAW BEAUTIFUL THINGS is a collaboration with the Amsterdam Museum and will be hosted at Huis Willet-Holthuysen.
Future Feminism are a group of artists that include ANOHNI, Kembra Pfahler, Johanna Constantine and Bianca and Sierra Casady (CocoRosie). They call for imagining a better, more feminine culture and will present the installation 13 TENETS OF FUTURE FEMINISM, first shown in New York in 2014, at het Muziekgebouw. The installation will be accompanied with a series of performances (world premieres) by them, poetic interventions, rituals and talks that urge the audience to take a position and imagine a more equal, feminine world together.
Imagining another world
This 76th edition will open with Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, directed by Simon McBurney, a much-admired guest at the festival. The performance is based on the novel by Olga Tokarczuk (2018 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature) and presents a vision of the world in which animals take revenge on humans. It critically explores the effects of power, violence and a lack of respect for nature. Activism here, next to the poetic language and charismatic characters, serves as the driving force behind this radical re-imagining of the world.
There will also be several large-scale, site-specific productions immersing the audience in alternative worlds. In his spectacular film installation Euphoria at the Centrale Markthal, Julian Rosefeldt will show the capitalist system in its full spectrum, from consumerism to despair, critically re-envisioning this ideology. In his six-hour performance Respublika, the young Polish director Łukasz Twarkowski fantasises about a utopian society, combining music, theatre, rave and performance.
LEMNISKATA is a poetic, large-scale dance performance by Mexican choreographer Lukas Avendaño in which he zooms in on the vulnerability of the ‘muxe’. His work originates from a fiercely anti-patriarchal view of society. In EXÓTICA, a new work from the Chilean-Mexican choreographer Amanda Piña, she brings a forgotten aspect of the Western history of modern dance to the fore and puts the spotlight back on several choreographers and dancers of colour who enjoyed great success in the 1920s.
Experiencing art in a multidisciplinary way
In Angela (a strange loop), Susanne Kennedy explores − with the use of virtual reality − what the life of an individual looks like from A to Z. In Ribingurumu no Metamorufuoshiu from Japanese theatre maker Toshiki Okada and composer Dai Fujikura, the music itself gradually takes centre stage. British artist Ed Atkins is at the forefront of digital video art and is featured twice: as an avatar in his latest video work The worm, and live in the performance Epitaph.
For Meredith Monk, a living legend of avant-garde music, creation is a spiritual practice. Her work Indra's Net is a collective experience that incorporates video, movement and music with vocal experimentation. Multidisciplinary can also mean: experiencing art in different ways, for example through participation and sensory stimulation, and with the audience as active participants instead of consumers. In To Feel A Thing: A Ritual for Emergence from the American adrienne maree brown, the audience is part of the performance. The Australian artist Lynette Wallworth, who ANOHNI considers a mentor, combines new technologies for creating immersive experiences. She will present three works: the installation Evolution of Fearlessness, the live performance HOW TO LIVE (After You Die) and the 360-degree film Coral: Rekindling Venus.
Between generations
One of the threads in the program is the interconnectedness between generations. Grandpa Puss; or how God disappeared from young Belgian theatre maker Lisaboa Houbrechts tells a family story about the violence embedded in the lives of individual people for decades. The legendary frontman of Einstürzende Neubauten, Blixa Bargeld will feature in a new project from composer Jamie Man about darkness that is performed and produced in collaboration with Asko|Schönberg.
Wuthering Heights from British director Emma Rice is a modern-day adaptation of Emily Brontë’s famous family epic that will be presented in, and in collaboration with, DeLaMar. De Warme Winkel has adapted another classic, Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, and shows the topicality of this story in which forbidden desires clash with normative visions of love and power relations.
Dragons is a festive show by South Korean choreographer Eun-Me Ahn. The 60-years old choreographer will present a vision of the future performed by herself, her company and dancers born in the year of the dragon (2000). For the follow-up to the Sustainable Theatre Project that started last year, choreographer Jérôme Bel, a legendary figure in contemporary dance, provided a personal story to be staged and interpreted by two young makers: Maria Magdalena Kozłowska and Pankaj Tiwari.
Festival centre and accessibility
This year’s festival centre is at De Balie, which will serve as a meeting point, service desk, ticket office and stage for debates and talks with artists. For the ‘DIY-minded’, there will be the masterclass Writing from the Spirit by adrienne maree brown and workshops from the collective skinship, where you can practice ways of connecting with yourself and others. The festival will be present online as well with several streams, a podcast series in collaboration with De Groene Amsterdammer and a film programme curated with Cinetree. Online radio station Echobox Radio will present a programme that brings international and local artists together. Melkweg Expo will feature work from photographer David Jack Lyons that highlights the experiences of queer and trans communities in the Amazon. The programme around Future Feminism, the Melkweg Expo, the Echobox programme, The Disintegration Loops (for Euterpestraat) and the Dutch National Opera’s live stream performance of Rusalka and others can be attended free-of-charge.
Partners and venues
This year’s collaborating partners include Hartwig Art Foundation, Amsterdam Museum, Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, De Balie, BIMHUIS, DeLaMar, Dutch National Opera, Dutch National Ballet, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Frascati Productions and Royal Conservatoire. Media partners are VPRO and NTR. The festival is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Municipality of Amsterdam, production partner Ammodo, main patron Fonds 21 and presentation partner Hartwig Art Foundation. There is additional support from the VandenEnde Foundation, Performing Arts Fund NL and many other funds, businesses and private donors.
The Holland Festival will present a total of 40 productions with 201 performances, which include 7 world premieres. The 76th edition of the festival will take place from 1 June through 1 July 2023. Tickets may be purchased through hollandfestival.nl.
video ANOHNI
interview ANOHNI
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